Grandia

Grandia is a role-playing game developed by Game Arts and published by Entertainment Software Publishing for the Sega Saturn console as the first game in their Grandia series. The game was first released in Japan in 1997 and was then ported to the PlayStation in 1999. An English version of the game was released in North America by Sony Computer Entertainment America in September of the same year and later in Europe by Ubisoft in March 2000. The game was made by almost the same people who had worked on the company's previous role-playing game project, the Lunar series, including producer Yoichi Miyagi and composer Noriyuki Iwadare. Since its release, Grandia has been known for its battle mechanics, which were also adopted in later games in the series, and has spawned two spin-off titles—Grandia: Digital Museum and Grandia: Parallel Trippers—both of which were released exclusively in Japan. To celebrate the announcement of the resumption of development of Grandia Online, which serves as a prequel to Grandia, the game was re-released as a downloadable title on Sony's PlayStation Network platform in April 2009 in Japan and on February 25, 2010, in North America. It was re-released in Europe on November 10, 2010.