Developer: Almost Human Games
Publisher: Almost Human Games
Rrp: £17.99
Released: 15th October 2014
Available on Steam, Gog.com, and their own site
The ship you were travelling in is shipwrecked and you and your companions washed ashore. Of course this was a prison ship and the only reason you survived at all was because the cage you were locked in kept you safe but that’s neither here nor there.
Legend of Grimrock 2 is a old school style dungeon delver RPG in the vein of the Might and Magic series, except there’s less buying stuff in town and more delving. The game is played in first person view and you control a party of four adventurers. There is one very key difference between Legend of Grimrock 2 and most other RPG’s, that being movement. Unlike the Elder Scrolls, Wizardry or Might and Magic series the Legend of Grimrock series uses a tile based movement system. This means that you and the creatures can only move forward, backward, left and right (unless they fly, then up and down is added) and you can only turn at 90 degree angles. You do have the ability to freely look around in a 180 angle if you hold down the right mouse button, but I found that it doesn’t really serve much purpose.
This style of movement works well with the combat system and can be used to great advantage if you’re quick enough. Manoeuvres such as flanking an enemy of even backstabbing can be done very effectively once you become used to the controls.
When you start you can choose to create your own party or start with a predetermined set, if you start with predetermined set you’ll find that the characters you received are a mixed bag of races and classes. Each race and class has a unique trait or skill that will greatly help in your adventure.
You can also change a few settings before you start to make the game more challenging for yourself, such as turning off auto-mapping so you’re forced to create actual physical maps or remember it all (good luck with that).
Speaking of the map, which is accessed using the Tab button, one very nice thing that has been done is that you can write notes on it. Meaning you can mark places and secrets (and this game is full of secrets) that you may want to return to. To be honest I wish more games did things like this.
The party you control is displayed in the bottom right corner with four portraits. Clicking on the picture will bring up a window with that characters inventory, health bar and hunger bars. Below these there’s also a figure which is how you equip armour and weapons (though with weapons you can just drag them straight to the hands on screen without entering this menu system). From this window you can also see that characters stats, skills and traits.
From this screen you can also choose to allow your party to rest which will allow them to recover energy and health. If you wish to see the stats of any items you pick up (trust me you will) you can by hovering the cursor over it, this works the same for your skills and traits too.
During your travels around the game world you’ll have to keep your party fed in order to stay alive. This is easier than it sounds because some of the creatures you’ll face will drop an edible item, otherwise you can find it scattered around the place.
Of course the death of a party member isn’t a permanent thing, there are items that can be used to resurrect them, though those are rare. There are also giant glowing blue ‘crystals of life’ that will resurrect, heal, recharge the energy, and cure any ailments your party may have as well as save your game.
The spell casting system takes some getting used to and is simultaneously great and problematic. To cast a spell you have to right click on the spell casters hands which will have a blue glow. Then you input the runes for the spell you wish to cast (holding the mouse and dragging for more powerful spells). Once you’ve done that you press the cast button and away goes your spell… If you typed in the right runes and have enough mana that is. If you don’t input the right runes the spell fizzles and nothing happens. Now a moment ago I mentioned that the system can be problematic, to me there are two main issues with it. Firstly there is no quick way to cast a spell once your character has learned it. Sure, it appears in the ‘Traits’ tab but that’s quite a,long system to use in the middle of a fight. The second issue is that when you’re trying to evade an enemy, getting your hits in whilst casting a spell, it’s very easy to miss a rune, forcing you to start from scratch.
The advantage of the system is that you can line up a really powerful spell in advance and just keep it ready to go, this can give you a real edge in combat.
As a word of warning to those thinking of buying this game, this isn’t a hack and slash style of game. Yes, there is combat, quite an extensive amount of it actually, but if you try to hack and slash your way through this game you won’t get far. To finish this game, hell, to go past the starting area you’ll have to use your brain rather extensively (assuming you don’t use a walkthrough). Many times during my playthrough I was reaching for a pen and paper to try and decipher a code or figure out a puzzle.
Something you’ll need to bear in mind while playing Legend of Grimrock 2 is that it’s incredibly easy to walk into a area that is too difficult for you yet. There are no warnings that your about to walk into an area of a much higher difficulty. In fact the first indication you’ll have is that you find your struggling more than usual. This is something it’s predecessor didn’t have much of an issue with because you descended a tower, and the lower you went the more difficult it became. This time you’re on an island which means there is no such structure. Of course if you do manage to struggle through those areas (like me) the lower levelled areas provide very little challenge comparatively.
On my system load times between levels were near instantaneous but reloading a save could take a minute or so.
At the time of writing there was a flaw that irked me, it’s a minor one but it attributed to many a death. If you rest within sight of a floor spike trap for a short amount of time after you’ve awoken those floor spikes go absolutely haywire, stabbing at the air in quick succession. Normal if you step on one and it goes off under you you may have a character die if their health was low, but step on these crazy ones and your entire party is dead.
So you’ve completed the story campaign and used all the new modifiers, what next? How about making your own dungeon? Or downloading one someone else made? Like its predecessor, longevity is something this game has in spades. There are (and will be) plenty of mods and custom maps to be used.
My final verdict? If you’re a fan of old school style rpg’s and want a challenge that’s more cerebral than combat based this game (and its predecessor) are going to be perfect for you. But if you want a newer style rpg experience such as the likes of the modern Elder Scrolls series then I’m afraid you’ll find this very limited. That being said, I loved every minute, even the ones where I was scratching my head for nearly an hour trying to figure out a riddle. It’s Rrp is more than reasonable for the amount of time you’ll sink into this even without the custom maps etc.
