"GamePro" magazine felt that the game had aged during its two-year transition to the PlayStation, but that the game's presentation was still "amazingly detailed and well designed." The publication would cite the game's music as its major downfall, calling it "repetitive and annoying and will have the player reaching for the volume control", as well as the relatively low detail on enemy monsters when compared to the rest of the game, yet ultimately felt that "Grandia's puzzles, gorgeous locations, and solid story more than make up for its minor flaws." IGN, conversely, found the game's music to be "good", yet found its "overly simplistic tones and themes" to be a turn-off for some, yet adding that "you'd be selling the game short if you didn't push through and see the game to conclusion." "In 2000, IGN would rank "Grandia" 17th on its list of the top 25 PlayStation games of all time, calling it "Game Arts' magnum opus and probably their most historically significant project." Eurogamer, in a 2007 retrospective, called the game "fantastic", praising the title's "vastly enjoyable battle system which few other games have rivaled, even in recent years".