Good Game, Bad Game - Analysis and Results: Tues Oct 7

The games I chose for discussion are Grandia and Bubsy 3D. Both games are for the PlayStation 1.

Grandia is a JRPG about a young boy named Justin who goes on adventure to solve the mysteries of an ancient civilization. With just a strange rock his father left for him called the Spirit Stone, Justin goes from fooling around his hometown with his friend Sue to preparing to go up against a god-like creature intent on destroying the whole world. While Grandia is one of the many games to bring inspiration from the rise of Final Fantasy, it breaks off a little from other JRPG games by using a mixture of 2D sprites and 3D environments, making exploration an enjoyable experience as the characters interact with new (and potentially dangerous) elements as they explore the new world. They encounter vicious monsters of all shapes and sizes, and fight against them in turn based combat that varies on both character and enemy stats. As the player roams the unique and vast maps, they come across many different areas where they can find new equipment, money, items, and more in order to increase their strength and learn new magic spells in order to push forward. However, the English voice acting is rather corny so players might either get a laugh out of it or get annoyed by the characters.

Bubsy 3D is a 3D platform adventure game about a bobcat named Bubsy who needs to collect rocket parts and defeat an evil alien race. In a very limited environment that looks like pieces of painted cardboard, Bubsy can only walk in a straight line and his movements are clunky at best. His personality is quite obnoxious, and his one-liners constantly break the fourth wall (even one of the phrases sounds like the developers were patting themselves on the back). Just about everything about this game is weak, and players who can bear through the entire cesspool of disaster deserve an award for being able to stomach Bubsy's difficult controls and awful voice acting. Unfortunately, deadlines and employees inexperienced with 3D tools were unable to save Bubsy's already crumbling reputation.

The class was able to quickly deduce which was the good game (Grandia) and the bad game (Bubsy 3D).  I personally really adored Grandia, and I hope to be able to talk more about it in future discussions.