Legend of Grimrock

This is one of a very small number of games that I have played where the atmosphere is perfect. It is only surpassed by King's Field: The Ancient City, in this regard. This game also has the nicest mix of innovative puzzles I've seen in a long time. The items are well spread out and make management fun. All around this is a great game. It is only lacking in plot and character interaction. However, rather than shove in some half baked system for these things they did the right thing and totally cut out interactions while maintaining a plot that is bare bones but just sufficient.

Legend of Grimrock is a throwback to games like Dungeon Master, Stonekeep, and Dungeon Hack. It is to Eye of the Beholder as Torchlight is to Diablo II, and let me tell you - it is a lot of fun. Naturally, I made my own characters and turned off the automap (they call it "old-school mode"), and became involved with the story right away. Like in Ultima Underworld, you are thrust naked into an abyss full of monsters for a crime you may or may not have committed, and must use your brain and brawn to escape alive. There are many wonderful secrets to discover, spells and alchemy to figure out, and lots of monsters to fight. I really loved the graphics, and discovered that right clicking and dragging allows you to "free look" around rooms. Releasing the button gently centers your view again. Another thing which impressed me was the way it handled leveling up, with your choice of class-based skills to pick and choose, giving the game pretty good replay value. I would also love to see a level creation kit, so that we can make our own. I did find the game to be a lot easier than EOB, however, and thus did not give it the full 5 out of 5 stars, but trust me when I say that you could do a lot worse for fifteen bucks.

Grimrock is well done. Check any review posted to see that. It is certainly the kind of title that belongs on GOG.com. It captures the core of the fp dungeon crawler. The addition of modern lighting techniques and superbly handled sound effects make the experience engrossing. However, Grimrock is not an amazing top in class game. It is solid, and above average, but it has severe limits surpassed by most any long standing series in the genre. In the end, the mechanics are simple. The monsters (and fights), simple (although the 'boss' at the end was a fun fight) and the puzzles, for the most part, simple. Grimrock has almost zero replayability (even Torin's mode is so redundant that I dropped out early.) I cringe at the idea of the map editor, as, the engine demonstrates such limits in gameplace that I don't see a point. The creators built a great dungeon. But, frankly, one more floor would have been one too many. I enjoy dungeon crawlers a lot, they are my favorite genre, but, outside of a few high points and the boss, Grimrock, in spite of inspired maps, lacks depth in its repetitivity.

I am very fond of this game, maybe thats because I have a soft spot for dungeon crawlers. You move on a grid with a party of 4 heros and descent in the dungeon. The background story is somewhat boring and not very present (prisoners dropped in dungeon, have to find a way out and defeat a demon on the way). The gameplay itself is fun. The grid-movement together with character creation and skill trees is satisfying. For the combat: I had no problems and I didn't consider it boring. The trick is to skill correctly. The puzzles are ok, not too difficult, but also not boring. The most fun is to find hidden corridors (usually opened by a loose rock in the wall, which is quite visible if you know what to look for). I had so much fun with this game, that I have to give it 5 stars.

The Dungeon Master clone - wherein you explore a grid-based dungeon from a first person perspective, with real-time combat but RPG progression - is a relatively small genre, but Legend of Grimrock is without doubt the best game within it (with the exception only of its own sequel). It's easy to determine if you're the audience for this game - if you enjoyed Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder, this is for you. If you've not experienced them, they're probably cheaper entry points to the genre. Go try one, and come back.