following August, as well as offered updates on the game's mechanics and characters. The English version of Grandia III was announced in December 2005 in the form of a teaser website from Square Enix, which revealed that the game was scheduled for release in North America the following February. In January 2006, the game was given its final release date of February 14. In July 2016, Grandia III was added to the PlayStation Store as a PlayStation 2 Classic game playable on PlayStation 3. Audio The music of Grandia III was composed by Noriyuki Iwadare, who contributed the soundtracks to all previous Grandia titles. Shortly after the Japanese version was released in August 2005, the Grandia III Original Soundtrack was released by Two-Five Records, featuring background themes from the game across two discs. Grandia III also features the theme song "In the Sky" performed by Japanese pop/rock singer Miz, which is featured in the game's opening demo, and was released as a single one day before the game in both regular and limited editions by Victor Entertainment. Players who pre-ordered the game in Japan could also receive a special promotional album featuring three songs from the game recorded live by the game's music staff, including the vocal theme "To the Moon" performed by Kaori Kawasumi. In September 2005, "Melk Ruins", a music track from the game that was unable to be included in the official soundtrack, was made available on the game's official Japanese website as a free download. The voice clips during battle and story scenes were provided by veteran anime and video game actors. Reception Grandia III was met with a fairly positive response in Japan, debuting as the second highest-selling game of its week of release with 122,000 copies sold, and would go on to sell approximately 233,866 copies by the end of 2005. The game received a 35 out of 40 score from Weekly Famitsu Magazine, earning it an editor's choice Platinum distinction. The game's reception in North America was generally positive. It received an aggregate score of 78.60% on GameRankings and 77/100 on Metacritic. Many publications praised the game's battle system, with Electronic Gaming Monthly stating that "Grandia's semi-real-time battles are superb, offering just the right balance of strategy and visual flair, and the new aerial combos are a blast," but found the game's plot to be "fairly linear". GamePro similarly called the game's combat