"intriguing", yet deemed the game's story to be "more clichéd and campy than epic and amazing ... The characters all fall into conveniently familiar categories and fail to attract any serious interest in their concerns or circumstances" GameSpot found the game's short length and lack of sidequests to be its low points, yet ultimately declared that "While not as stuffed with features and extra content as some of the other RPGs currently available, Grandia III still delivers an interesting (if traditional) story, fun characters, and a versatile, strategy-based battle system." 1UP.com declared that the game's story, pacing, and character development felt disjointed from one disc to another, stating that "I almost feel like I'm reviewing two games -- the first disc, which is awesome, and the second, which is ho-hum." In an article for The New York Times, game critic Charles Herold called the game's battle system "arguably the greatest combat system of any turn-based role-playing game in existence" but found the rest of the game to be largely average, remarking that it "falls short of true greatness, not because it does anything glaringly wrong but because it doesn't do quite enough things right." In an import review of the North American version, Eurogamer found the game to be a largely mediocre role-playing title, but wrote that its battle system was above-average, concluding that "the game is saved from total mediocrity by its superb battle system, but a fantastic battle system does not a brilliant game make." The website would additionally pan the game's J-pop opening theme, calling it "a disgustingly poor piece of aural pap", yet called the rest of the game's score "pleasant, though forgettable." Play conversely felt that the game was above-average, stating that "[Grandia III] does almost everything well, from the involving story and beautiful graphics to the compelling characters, and does one thing - the battle system - better than any other RPG we've seen. Grandia III was released on the North American PlayStation 3 store on July 21, 2016. References External links 2005 video games Grandia PlayStation 2 games PlayStation 2-only games Role-playing video games Square Enix games Video games scored by Noriyuki Iwadare Video games developed in Japan Game Arts games Single-player video games