Legend of Grimrock

It's exactly what i was expecting - following in the steps of "Lands of Lore", "Eye of the Beholder" and "Ultima Underworld", this game took me back to 90's when the game were made with a heart! Now where is my ale, it's time to descent deeper into the dark tunnels of Grimrock!

I want to state something first: Legend of Grimrock is a fun game to play, and if you like dungeon crawlers, you´ll probably like it. Once said that, I´m a bit surprised about the insane amount of hype this title has created in Gog. While it is nice to be able to play such kind of games again, I think that nostalgia is playing a big factor in all those 5 star reviews I´m seeing right now. The graphics are nice, but the art direction is bland and generic; the combat is easy to grasp, but also extremely shallow and... well, exploration is nice, even when you move on a grid through a lot of corridors that look all alike, and puzzles are nicely designed, though a bit easy. I think Legend of Grimrock is a nice game, easy and fun to play, but there is absolutely nothing great or very refreshing about it.

Those trailers make it look like you'll be playing this wonderfully minimalist game, where you get to focus on the pretty environment, well-crafted monsters, and really just focus on the crawl and its puzzles. This is not the case. During combat you will primarily be looking at the bottom-right corner waiting for weapons to come off their re-use timer so you can click them. Magic is very slow and clunky. The combat system is very, very bad. You can't really look at the enemies while you fight, you just look at the bottom-right of the screen. Also, combat mechanics are very counter-intuitive or even deceptive (for instance, ranged combat never misses, no matter your Agility score, so a low dex Minotaur is the best archer). The vast majority of the puzzles are really just timing 'puzzles,' so you HAVE to turn down your graphics in many case to be able to make it in time. This defeats the one redeeming feature of the game: the graphics. This was a great idea that needed a great deal more refinement before it looks as awesome as the trailer. I look forward to the next game they make to see if they fix any or all of these major problems. But as it is, I am really not a fan. I want to look at my games while I play them, and I want my RPG puzzles to be RPG-y, not action-based timing where I have to turn down my settings (I have a 2 GB vram video card if that's any indication -- GeForce GT 420).

I had high expectations for this game. I truly believed it would be as if some clever crew of geeks had dragged something like Dungeons and Dragons or Wizardy or Ultima or Might and Magic into the modern era and re-imagined the experience into life-like dungeon. But this game is not an rpg; it's an action and puzzle game that resembles a three-dimentional platformer far more than it resembles an RPG. Each level contains numerous adventure game or platformer-type puzzles complete with levers and floor-plates and distant targets all that have to be pulled or stepped upon or thrown at at exactly the right time and then you run for it, bolting toward exits that have to be reached before the door slams shut or the floor opens. Each you will do again and again before success, just like a platformer. Often, you get stuck, adventure-game style. And, believe me, brothers and sisters, nothing kills game immersion like a good old fashioned what-the-fudge-do-I-do-now adventure game stall. Tick-tock-tick-tock. As a result of these stalls and the endless platformer runs, in your mind, your group gradually morphs into a single entity. They don't feel like individuals. Rather, they feel and play more like a well-armed Abe from Abe's oddysee or a multi-headed Jade from Beyond Good and Evil. LoG ain't no rpg in my book, not by a long shot and, by that, i mean a long shot at a wall plate.

Unfortunately the forums don't allow to post my whole review as the post is apparently character limited (What about saying it in advance? -.- ). So just to sum up my detailed 3-pages review: If you want RPG don't buy the game. It's a puzzle/dexterity game, not an RPG. Hopefyully this is short enough... -.-