All in all, this is one of my favorite jRPGs ever made (probably in my top 3 with Chrono Trigger and Xenogears) because of the unique and interesting combat system and the pure FEELING of an adventure story that this title embodies.

tl;dr: 9.5/10 as long as this is the TYPE of game that you're looking for.

The long explanation:

1. This is a 2.5D game with all the good and bad that comes with that.

2. A lot of the outdoor overworld maps, particularly early on in the game, can be very generic "here's some grass and some rocks walk through this area"...

...but the area design matures as the game progresses, and there's definitely some fault to the developers here for not going back and touching up the early areas after they got more experience and practice designing the later ones. Both the level of detail in the environment and the variety scale pretty solidly as you progress so not liking the relatively simplistic early dungeon maps doesn't mean you won't like the attention to detail that was put into later game areas or the prop-filled town sections that had a clear amount more effort.

As to aesthetics, the architecture in the ancient ruins is all very consistent throughout the game and you can definitely get the feeling at a glance that "oh, this is Angelounian design" when you see it. In the same way, each new region and culture has it's own style as well, from the cold metal military buildings of the Garlyle or the islander lifestyle in Gumbo or the sectioned off city of Zil Padon with 3 different races living in different parts.

3. The story, for me, is one of the most iconic adventure stories that I've ever played. It is something that I compare all other games to in some way. When I say "adventure stories" that's exactly what I mean, this is the story about a child that sets out on a grand adventure looking for thrill and excitement and somewhere along the way becomes an adult. It has a very similar feeling to what you would expect from a Studio Ghibli film.

The protagonist, Justin, starts off at the beginning of the game playing make-believe in town with other kids; searching for "treasures" like a soup-pot helmet and a wooden sword in order to win a childish contest. He is young, he is immature, and he views everything through the excited eyes of a child. That's where it all begins, and from there it follows the course of "I want to go on an adventure" and "if this is where the map ends then we just need to keep going past the edge" and along the way both his, and the player's, understanding of the setting can get completely turned around.

Justin is a kid, and this is something that he gets reminded of constantly through the early part of the game. I think he's supposed to be 14, but his attitude feels a bit less mature than that, and it certainly shows when he completely misses understanding what adults are talking about sometimes. And you can see that slowly change as the character matures, never losing the spirit of adventure but by learning from mistakes he becomes a bit more of an adult and that is recognized by others.

I do absolutely love the story of this game because it combines a coming-of-age story with a consistent fairy tale mythology that really just screams that feeling of "grand adventure" from the moment when you get your hands on that Steamer Pass and board the ship to cross the ocean.

4. Now, the combat. It is an RPG after all, that's a very important part.

This is a tactics game in a lot of ways. Grandia has a very unique battle system which is based largely around planning for what the enemy will do on their turn because hitting an enemy will momentarily stop them from moving up on the turn timer, which means you're slightly delaying their turn every time you hit them. Some attacks that can push enemy turns back, and some can cancel their turn if they are in the middle of an action like casting a spell. Planning around preventing enemies from performing their big attacks, whether that is by dogpiling onto a single enemy to keep them from getting any turns or by strategically interrupting enemies right before they act, is important.

Likewise, even though it can take a few turns of your own to stack them up, applying debuffs to enemies to slow their turn or reduce their movement can be incredibly game changing (you don't NEED to think too much about this but it adds that extra layer of tactics that you could engage in which makes the game feel more robust with options). For example, the low-cost Snooze spell, assuming it isn't resisted, only puts enemies to sleep for a few seconds so it may not seem powerful but you also need to remember that it has the potential to delay the turns of every enemy on the field by a small amount and can even cancel enemy actions.

You can suffer from these as well. There are some enemies that will put you to sleep, cancel your turn, reduce your stats (your movement or action speed for example) which can put you in a bad spot especially considering that your party ALSO gets delayed whenever they are hit. So when things start going badly, they can get pretty rough pretty fast as an ambush encounter can result in your characters not getting to act until the enemies have gone 2 or 3 times.

Because of all this, boss fights generally involve multiple parts (such as a boss having a main body and 2 arms) with each having their own turn. You need to choose between focusing on the main body or breaking one of the additional parts so that fewer enemies are getting turns.

5. Leveling up comes in several varieties. You have your character level, but you also level up your weapon and magic skills individually based on use. Each time you hit an enemy with a weapon or cast a spell you get skill exp for that based on the level difference and the number of targets (so using an attack that hits 6 enemies gives 6x experience). This is somewhat gated by progression because it gets to the point where you're getting 1 xp for each action (out of 100 for a level up), but as you advance the enemies start giving more again.

Leveling your skills makes the game play differently, because achieving certain levels unlocks new spells or new special moves for a character, levels in magic skill give you bonus max MP, each skill provides bonus raw character stats for every level gained, and as your skill level rises your proficiency with attacks will go up (from 0 to 5) which improves the cast time and the power of those abilities. Eventually your basic special attacks get down to being effectively instant cast, which also means you can more reliably CANCEL an enemy turn before it finishes preparing a devastating attack.

6. Now here's where one of my gripes comes in. If you actually take the time to level up your skills, because you get raw stat bonuses in addition to the skill ranks, your characters can become incredibly powerful. You end up with a lot of SP and MP to spend, and eventually can just start off every fight with a high level spell that wipes the field for a normal encounter. I went through the optional side dungeons when they became available and the rest of the game was pretty much no resistance after that point (the last 7 bosses in the game didn't get a turn, but I could also cast Time Stop at that point so...).

I hear that there is a patch for the emulated version that increases the difficulty. I hope there's something available for this which can make those adjustments for people that want a bit more of a punishing experience. But overall if you want a more difficult game then don't go out of your way to level your skills and just let it happen naturally.

7. No gameplay problems, but there are some relatively minor graphical or voiced audio issues. Jerky camera vertical pan during cutscenes, larger character models (Gadwin, Milda, etc.) sometimes have some detachment from the separate boxes where their head body are. In a few cutscenes Justin's sprite wouldn't appear until he moved.