Grandia II HD Remaster
Released in 2015, Grandia II is back and better than ever! The new remaster features a new difficulty level, keyboard and gamepad support, and enhanced graphics. The original, released in 2002, was well received although later ports that came to the US did not fair so well.
Honestly, I’ve never played anything from the Grandia series, but the marketing art had enough of a Clamp-vibe to draw me in.
Launch Problems
Grandia II HD Remaster does not run out of the box on the Steam Deck. You will first be met by a runtime error if you attempt to launch the game.
Thanks to some hints on Protondb, I enabled the Beta Anniversary Edition and we were off to the races! The configuration launcher also seemed to work.
I also set Steam to force the use of Proton Experimental in the Compatibility section.
Grandia II Gameplay on the Steam Deck
Gameplay was surprisingly good! The controls were intuitive, although I did swap the trigger camera controls because my brain tends to be a bit backwards.
Millenia Zap Attack Bug
About 45 minutes into the game, I did the first little quest of escorting the priest’s daughter to some mysterious ceremony.
It did not go well.
Upon returning, I engaged in an unwinnable battle with Millenia who I can’t stop calling Melania. While unwinnable by design, the game froze when she launched her Zap attack.
Thankfully, the fix was pretty simple. I exited the game and after some misguided attempts at editing the config files, I realized that I could just open up the config launcher and deselect “60 FPS Battles.”
I also turned on Vsync, but I don’t think that’s of any importance.
Thankfully on this go around, I was beaten to a pulp by Millenia and ready to embark on my journey to see the pope!