Sights & Sounds
- At first, the game is a visual feast. Light glistening off of slick cave floors. A strange but eerily cool-looking protagonist. Twisted, grotesque enemies and towering Lovecraftian monsters lurk around every corner, but you have monstrous crushing weapons and iridescent armor to protect yourself
- These initial impressions slowly fade. By-and-large, the looks of the enemies and gear stay consistently good, but boss design reuse and the omnipresence of cave environments get a little stale by hour 15. "Oh, I've gone through blue cave and pink cave, but now I need to go through green cave to get to slightly greener cave." Or, "Oh cool, a second 4-armed rock monster with different attack sequencing. I bet the final boss won't have a phase like that"
- Gripes aside, the visual design did leave a very good impression. It's eerie, brooding, and mysterious. I kept coming back for more
- The music is what you'd expect given the Lovecraftian and Souls-like influences. Ominous, sweeping orchestral and choral arrangements punctuated by sparse, austere pieces
Story & Vibes
- There's some meat on the bones lore-wise, but not as intricately woven as other similar games. Overtly, the story is about your character bringing about the end of the world, but there's slightly more to it than that if you pay attention to the NPCs and item descriptions
- Expect to see plenty of genre tropes about death/rebirth and destruction/creation
Playability & Replayability
- But all of that hardly matters because there's cool weapons to find and difficult bosses to kill them with
- Weapon variety is honestly very impressive as are the corresponding move sets. You've got stuff like tooth fists with projectile attacks, centipede whips with AOE, and axes that literally chew through enemies
- Armor designs are similarly excellent. Sure, eating an entire city after putting on a theater performance is cool, but it's even better if you're dressed in glowing mother of pearl armor while doing it
- The moment-to-moment gameplay feels fantastic. In combat, attacking feels fluid and natural. Small weapons like dual daggers feel speedy and spammable, but heavy attacks with giant hammers feel weighty and crushing. Dodging also feels very fair, though I feel like a few more invincibility frames would have saved me a dozen or so deaths
- Platforming is also excellent. As you'd expect from a metroidvania, you unlock ways to traverse the environment as you go, but Grime has a cool way of making you string them together into some of the most difficult platforming sections I've had the pleasure of completing
Overall Impressions & Performance
- While I was disappointed by some of the reused environments and copy/paste bosses, the game has a lot going for it. It looks incredible and presents players with a tough but ultimately satisfying challenge. That was more than enough to impress me
- Mix the platforming of Ori with the combat of Blasphemous, and you'll get an idea of what it feels like to play
- I played the game entirely on Steam Deck and swapped the left stick and d-pad in the layout settings. 2D platformers just feel more natural without an analog stick. Performance-wise, I did unfortunately experience some occasional framiness, but it was mostly fine. Ran well otherwise
Final Verdict
- 9/10. If you're a fan of the genre and love a challenge, you owe it to yourself to give this one a try. Looking forward to seeing more from this developer, because this was a really impressive first release
- At first, the game is a visual feast. Light glistening off of slick cave floors. A strange but eerily cool-looking protagonist. Twisted, grotesque enemies and towering Lovecraftian monsters lurk around every corner, but you have monstrous crushing weapons and iridescent armor to protect yourself
- These initial impressions slowly fade. By-and-large, the looks of the enemies and gear stay consistently good, but boss design reuse and the omnipresence of cave environments get a little stale by hour 15. "Oh, I've gone through blue cave and pink cave, but now I need to go through green cave to get to slightly greener cave." Or, "Oh cool, a second 4-armed rock monster with different attack sequencing. I bet the final boss won't have a phase like that"
- Gripes aside, the visual design did leave a very good impression. It's eerie, brooding, and mysterious. I kept coming back for more
- The music is what you'd expect given the Lovecraftian and Souls-like influences. Ominous, sweeping orchestral and choral arrangements punctuated by sparse, austere pieces
Story & Vibes
- There's some meat on the bones lore-wise, but not as intricately woven as other similar games. Overtly, the story is about your character bringing about the end of the world, but there's slightly more to it than that if you pay attention to the NPCs and item descriptions
- Expect to see plenty of genre tropes about death/rebirth and destruction/creation
Playability & Replayability
- But all of that hardly matters because there's cool weapons to find and difficult bosses to kill them with
- Weapon variety is honestly very impressive as are the corresponding move sets. You've got stuff like tooth fists with projectile attacks, centipede whips with AOE, and axes that literally chew through enemies
- Armor designs are similarly excellent. Sure, eating an entire city after putting on a theater performance is cool, but it's even better if you're dressed in glowing mother of pearl armor while doing it
- The moment-to-moment gameplay feels fantastic. In combat, attacking feels fluid and natural. Small weapons like dual daggers feel speedy and spammable, but heavy attacks with giant hammers feel weighty and crushing. Dodging also feels very fair, though I feel like a few more invincibility frames would have saved me a dozen or so deaths
- Platforming is also excellent. As you'd expect from a metroidvania, you unlock ways to traverse the environment as you go, but Grime has a cool way of making you string them together into some of the most difficult platforming sections I've had the pleasure of completing
Overall Impressions & Performance
- While I was disappointed by some of the reused environments and copy/paste bosses, the game has a lot going for it. It looks incredible and presents players with a tough but ultimately satisfying challenge. That was more than enough to impress me
- Mix the platforming of Ori with the combat of Blasphemous, and you'll get an idea of what it feels like to play
- I played the game entirely on Steam Deck and swapped the left stick and d-pad in the layout settings. 2D platformers just feel more natural without an analog stick. Performance-wise, I did unfortunately experience some occasional framiness, but it was mostly fine. Ran well otherwise
Final Verdict
- 9/10. If you're a fan of the genre and love a challenge, you owe it to yourself to give this one a try. Looking forward to seeing more from this developer, because this was a really impressive first release