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 the Grandia series. Originally released in Japan in 1997, the game was ported to the PlayStation in 1999. An English version of the game was released in North America the following September by Sony Computer Entertainment America and later in Europe in March 2000 by Ubisoft. The game was produced by the same staff that had worked on the Lunar series, the company's last role-playing game, including producer Yoichi Miyagi and music composer Noriyuki Iwadare. Since its release, Grandia has been best known for its combat mechanics, which have been carried over into later games in the series and spawned two spin-off titles - Grandia: Digital Museum and Grandia: Parallel Trippers - both of which were released exclusively in Japan. To coincide with the announcement that development would continue on Grandia Online, the predecessor to Grandia, the game was re-released as a downloadable title on Sony's PlayStation Network platform in Japan in April 2009 and in North America on February 25, 2010. In Europe, it was re-released on November 10, 2010.