Legend of Grimrock

Great dungeon-crawler. If you like grid-based games then this is definitely for you. It is debatable wether a Turn-based system would have worked better for the combat. But there are games like Lords of Xulima or the new Bard's Tale that will cover this. So the combat experience can lead to some frustration when it is all about clicking fast and strifing or circling. Nevertheless a great game, very nice riddles and puzzles. Great work by the developers and the sequel is a good game aswell although from the setup I do prefer the first game.

Having been a huge fan of Dungeon Master on the Amiga (and it's sequel Chaos Strikes Back) and then the Eye of the Beholder series (the sound of the EotB spiders still makes me feel a bit ill) I was excited by the news of LoG and ordered it pretty quickly. I would like to mention some positives, some negatives and some neutral "I wish..." just like my gaming friends and I used to always say about games as kids. Just so you know...now...I love the game. Positives: Old school gameplay with classicRPG elements - level up, skill points, hero key stats, classes. hunger (for some reason this really adds something). Unless you find and hang around the couple of endless spawn points you will need to pick your preferred skills and focus your prisoner team - you won't be able to max them out with standard play. Why is it so much fun and exciting to earn 4 more skill points and deciding where to allocate them? The graphics, whilst pretty samey, do a good job and,when combined with the atmospheric sound effects really create a pretty immersive experience. The level design is pretty damn good, including those deliberate little side-step dead ends you naturally step into (for some reason) when trying to run away from an awkward enemy. Save anytime you like and as many save files as you like.....yes! Thanks LoG developers. I am big enough to know that saving after each minor victory is sort-of-cheating-kind-of but gaming is a treat these days and I am very pleased I do not have to replay the same bit over and over and over thanks to the dreaded checkpoint save system found in many games. Hooray for symbol based, get your spell ready, spell casting. Auto map with ability to add your own notes and, for real old school players, the ability to switch it off. I for one left it on - at the end of the day if you are drawing the map out you are just wasting time. If you don't want to play with a map don't hit the button. I know some people don't like the square/pit dance combat but I found most battles were pretty intense and would induce certain levels of panic. Oh....the team automatically picking up throwing/missle weapons is really nice too. Negatives: Not many here really. Some of the puzzles were a real ball ache. In particular the timing puzzles. Easy enough to work out what to do but they took ages to get the timing just right. I actually found that by turning the resolution down I could move quicker (I was playing at a rather high res and movement was sluggish) which helped alleviate the problem. Having read the review by the disabled gamer I feel for him with regards to this as I too wished I could skip these bits as they weren't actually a puzzle just frustrating. Not sure how possible they are with mouse-only controls. LoG developers - give us a secret pressure pad or something that slows the things down. The last level, or what I imagine is the last level as I haven't managed to complete it, is REALLY tough. To the point where I seem to be dieing and reloading more than actually playing. I have really enjoyed playing the game but my motivation to keep trying and trying and trying and trying and trying has really dropped off at this late stage. If it is near the end then my character development has pretty much peaked and the challenge is getting really annoying, Maybe I am just rubbish though :) When closing doors the monster animations appear through the door and look a bit rubbish and seemed to really be a grating weak spot in an otherwise emersive experience, Some wishes: Ok, some of these thoughts stem from DM of old but I wanted to mention them. I was disappointed to find out that you can't close doors on top of monsters to do extra damage - that was always rather pleasing. If the monster attack animation is playing and the door closes, hit them hard on the head rather than the graphical glitch mentioned above. In DM I loved the ability to increase the power of spells (resulting in bigger, more damaging, fireballs). It really felt like the character was learning his craft. I know the skill points sort of achieve this but I remember the sheer joy when a character eventually managed to pull off the next level of a spell. I also felt smug about the trick of clicking a symbol, sleeping, then clicking the next, then sleeping...etc. as in DM the mana would decrease as the spell symbols were chosen. It would be nice to have a use for the old stuff (clothes/weapons) that your characters shed throughout the game. I felt like I wanted to sell them to get gold or XP or something rather than just drop them. I know there is no use for gold in the prison I just wanted something good to come out of them. This has nothing to do with DM but a lot of other dungeon crawlers. Overall a VERY enjoyable and emersive game. Am so pleased to have played it and I recommend it 100%. I just hope I can get it together and finish the thing. I hope that a sequel will come out very soon.

Früh ubt sich wer ein dungeon crawler werden muss.das spiel optisch gut aufgestellt gefällt.das intro ist zwar weg aber bei EOB war es auch nie anders.das generierungs system ist vlt. ein wenig schwierig zu überblicken in hinsicht auf die auswirkung auf den spielverlauf.die klassische konstallation hilft da weiter (Warrior Warrior Mage Heal).am anfang wird es gleich ganz schwierig damit keine langeweile aufkommt stichwort pilzköpfe.gibt es erstmal kein zurück ist es zeit fur den pfeiltasten marathon im kreis wahlweise rechts herum oder links.für knobler ist das spiel bestens geignet hinweise gibt es wenige das labyrinth system übersichtlich aber die beute ist nicht immer leicht erreichbar eher hinderlich liegt sie doch meist hinter goldenen toren deren key schwer zu finden ist weil monster überall lauern.auch fans von boden fallen sind hier richtig und immer muss man richtig timen um an schwer zu gängliche orte zu gelangen deren bedeutung noch keiner kennt.es ist dem spiel schon recht gut anzumerken das es nur eine independent produktion ist denn grosse schmieden scheuen das genre wohl zur zeit.zum ende geht’s nochmal richtig zur sache denn der endboss ist kein kinderspiel.tipp:einfach mal wenns zu viel wird in das untergelegenen level springen mobs killen ausruhen mobs killen und wieder zum endboss.na ja man schaffst auch ohne cheat.viel spass..puhh

The game is really fun and addictive. I'm still at level 4 or 5 ( i think), but here are a couple of points. 1. Old school mode is not so old school. Levels aren't convoluted at all, it is really easy to traverse them by memory (this could change in the lower levels) 2. Puzzles are really easy. The game could certainly use a lot more of them. They're enjoyable enough though (this too could change further on) 3. Combat is fun. I've read some comment about how tedious it is, but I find it really enjoyable. Spells are cast by clicking rune combinations, yes, but you can always prepare a spell on stand by and click while kiting. 4. There are at least 5-6 mods for this game (custom dungeons) that are worth trying so there is a lot of gameplay out there.

Macht Spaß, schade, dass ich es erst jetzt gefunden habe.