Total Time before: 13 Hours
Total Time after completion: 27 Hours
Review
Legend of Grimrock is new classic when it comes to Eye of the Beholder style games. It does so many things right with little complaint. I knew what I was getting into since I had already logged some time into the game, but I had never gotten very far. Changing my party's makeup and tweaking things never allowed me to pass the first couple of levels. I eventually got distracted by some other game and am now disappointed I did, because if you enjoy these style games, it's one of the best I've played in a long while.The game begins with you choosing a difficulty, the option of character creation, and an "old school" mode (removes the map. Better get our your graph paper, because you will get lost). Character creation is fulfilling, giving you 4 races with multiple portraits and 3 classic classes, fighter, mage, and rogue. You allot your stats, skills, and traits, depending upon the race and class chosen. There are many options to build the characters you see fit, though some choices obviously outweigh others, since my Minotaur rogue who specialized in throwing weapons completely dominated the game, leaving my other companions more as meat shields and the holders of torches.
The only rough patch in the whole game is the story. Without going into too many spoilers, your party has been sentenced to the Mountain of Grimrock, a prison of sorts. Nobody has ever survived its abysses. Little is known beyond that. You are essentially escaping a huge prison. Some things, like notes that a former prisoner has left behind, add to the story a little, but his notes mainly help to solve puzzles and lead to secret passages.
The only story once you get into the depths of the dungeon, is strange dreams when resting. These dreams, urge you to delve deeper. That something is awaiting you to allow for your escape. They are purposely vague, but really don't drive toward anything. It's even possible to completely miss them if you never rest. I didn't even get any until about the 5th level of the dungeon, because I never had a need to rest.
Is that so?
Now that I've dealt with my minor complaint, onto the praises. The graphics are wonderful. While there are only 3 tile sets in the game, it looks beautiful. Monsters are well rendered, lighting and shadows are done well enough to be incorporated into puzzles. Running the game maxed out at 1920x1080 really makes it a pretty game. While it may not be the realism of some games, it doesn't need that. Sound is really excellent too. If you have surround sound speakers or headphones I definitely suggest using them. You can hear walls opening in the distance when you solve a puzzle, allowing you to direct yourself to them. The marching boots of skeleton warriors or skittering of giant spiders can be heard on the other sides of walls. I got really immersed many times with it.
Giant slugs are the least concerning foe ever created.
Combat is what you make of it. If you enjoy tile based combat like the games of old, it's for you. The combat isn't really traditional turn based, more of an active turn system. Movement is free, allowing you to sidestep slower enemies and dodge missiles and spells with ease if you're paying attention. All attacks are on cool down timers, be it melee, magic, or ranged. This allows you to attack but still stay on the move while your attacks cool down. When multiple enemies fill a small area, movement becomes a premium and strategy really becomes necessary. Keeping your squishy companions against walls, so as to not be struck becomes the only way to get through at times.
Dinosaurs on the other hand...
Spells are cast by clicking on a combination of buttons in a 3x3 grid. Spells are learned through scrolls littered throughout the dungeon, but memorization is a must. You're never given a true spell list, and since combat is free flowing, you wouldn't have time to be searching for the right combination anyways. None are overly complicated, usually using 2 or 3 buttons, making it a bit simpler. Since my mage was specced into Air magic, I only really remembered the skills that were useful to me, 3 or 4. If you decide to take the jack of all trades route, without an excellent memory, things might get difficult. If you don't have the skill to cast the spell, it fails, wasting your mana. Also, depending on your will power, spells you may even know and are well versed in can fail, making a easy fight into a panic.
The grid of magic is a great idea, the spell I'm about to cast is "Light"
The difficulty really depends on your setting. I went with hard, because I almost always do with games, and it was challenging, until the end game where my rogue was just destroying monsters with 2 throws. But the fact is, you will die. A lot depending on your party make up. You are allowed to save anywhere at anytime, with quick saves happening at crystals of life (giant crystals that restore hp and mana and the only way to revive any fallen companions).
Crystals only appear once each level, if that, so don't count on em.
I suggest saving anytime you make any decent progress. It's quite disheartening to die to a spider, ogre, or even a trap and have to traverse the whole level of that dungeon again, and trust me, they are big.
Slimes aren't fodder in this RPG when you first meet them.
Puzzles are excellent. Some really are challenging, but clues are always given and with enough thought, can be completed. I think at most I ever spent on a single puzzle was about 15 minutes, but never was it frustrating. Not all of them are mental challenges though, many are a test of dexterity as much as your mind. Hitting a switch and having to run through a gauntlet of trap doors comes to mind. Some require you to really look at your surroundings and find hidden switches. I was slightly disappointed with these, since they are all the same in each tile set, never changing position or shape. So when on a puzzle with hidden doors, all you are doing is strafing about looking at the same area on every wall.
This should be fun..
Overall, the game is impressive. It took me a little under 10 hours to compete. I found most of the secrets, notes and treasures the dungeon held, save 2, which I'm quite disappointed with. I believe a single run through would have taken longer, but as I said, I'd already played about half way through before and remembered many of the secrets and puzzles already. Good news is that the game comes with a dungeon editor, so the fun never runs out. Making it even simpler is it has Steam Workshop compiled with it. At the moment of this writing, the list of dungeons both player and developer made come in at 331 separate dungeons. One is even in the middle of recreating Eye of the Beholder, completely from scratch. Even with this beaten, I'm definately going through many of those.
My complete stats and characters moments before the end.
Final Verdict
Gameplay: 9/10Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 9/10
Story: 5/10
Replay: 10/10
Overall: 9/10
If you like grid based RPGs or RPGs in general, if you have this sitting in your backlog, install and play it now. If you don't have it, go buy it now.
Tomorrow, I'll be rolling a new game, but for now, I'm going to load up some of these custom dungeons.
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