Legend of Grimrock

Just a basic review. It can be hard to feel "immersed" in a game that navigates like Might and Magic on the Commodore64, but it really does get you fully immersed. Every Every choice, Every turn.. Every fall, each new corridor really has the feel of playing the latest and greatest FPS type game, though you are in the Grimrock world. I love the feel of the game enough that I bought 2 additional copies for my cousins on Steam.

I prefer turn based dungeoneering. Real time control is tedious but still fun.

play this game if games you must be playing

I have very mixed feelings about this game. On the one hand I'm glad that there is a polished Linux port, the game looks pretty but still fitting for it's retro premise and controls are easy to learn. The dungeon layout is good, enemy variety ok, character options quite good, story falls flat at the end (this cuve thing was really awkward) but is good enough for this type of game. The main problem is, that in order to find even a fraction of the MANY secrets, you have to search every piece of wall for hidden switches and then guess, what it did somewhere else. If you accidentally clicked two times on them, you're screwed. I played it on easy mode, but this doesn't make finding the secrets any less tedious. Combat is slow paced but you can fight with slight variations of your basic strategy at least. Spiders and venom are as annoying as ever. As someone, who never played an oldschool dungeon crawler (if you don't count Arx Fatalis), I had fun but not enough to play it through the Toorun mode now, which I wasn't even able to unlock myself since I missed a tiny hidden switch...again. I'd recommend it to old school dungeon crawler fans and probably some others but in the end, I was a bit disappointed, since it does copy about every weakness of the old games and doesn't improve much in this genre.

I understand why many people gave this game higher ratings, but it has 3 flaws that prevent me from doing so. First, things in the game move just a bit too fast. For example, the rotating teleport puzzle on level 3 is extremely difficult to get through because the teleports move too quickly. Also, combat moves just a bit too quickly for my reflexes. Secondly, Many of the puzzles are too difficult to figure out without googling them. This often makes the game frustrating rather than fun. Finally, despite the presence of a "heal everything" crystal on every level, there are not enough healing resources to be found in the game. As a result, One or more of my characters frequently dies during combat because I have no healing potions to keep him alive. Having said all this, however, the game truly is reminiscent of classic DOS RPGs like Eye of the Beholder, and does give me a sense of nostalgia that I enjoy. So, overall, I give it 3 stars.