Grimgrimoire Pc

GrimGrimoire in September. Roleplay RTS from Nippon Ichi. Subscribe to The Eurogamer.net Daily. PC PlayStation 4 Xbox One Switch Digital Foundry News Reviews Videos Features Guides. An operating system, for example, is a collection of system programs that aid in the operation of a computer regardless of the application software.

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Unicorns, Specters and Dragons, Oh My!

HIGH Completely overrunning the enemy with an army made up entirely of chimera and dragons.

LOW Dedicating 30 minutes to a stage, only to die and have to start all over from the beginning… AGAIN.

WTF Opalneria's gravity-defying boobs.

With the recent implementation of a new PlayStation 2 classics line on the PSN, it's now easier than ever to pick up titles that may have been missed from that era. GrimGrimoire is one such game for me. Developed by Vanillaware, makers of the PS2 cult hit Odin Sphere, GrimGrimoire features luscious character and background art combined with tactical gameplay. Unfortunately, timing its release at the end of the PS2's life meant that it was doomed to be an enthusiasts'-only title from the start.

On the surface, GrimGrimoire's story is like one you might have heard before. Teenager Lillet Blan attends prestigious magic school? Ever since Harry Potter, the magical academy premise has suffered from almost immediate redundancy, but in this case the similarities end there. After a mere five days, Lillet awakens to find everyone dead except her. Before she meets a similar fate, a mysterious power propels her back in time to the day she first arrived. Now Lillet is forced to relive those five days over and over again until she can solve the mystery surrounding the horrible tragedy.

Time loops are nothing new, just as witches and magic academies are commonplace in our media today, but Vanillaware's signature flair makes the premise seem fresh. The major characters are all named after various alcoholic drinks, oddly enough, and over the course of Lillet's journey we're introduced to the eclectic cast of professors at Silver Star Tower including an alchemist who's been transformed into a lion, the necromancer who is hopelessly in love with him, and an enigmatic devil who teaches sorcery. My favorite character was hands-down the devil Advocat, who oozes charm and has a witty retort to everything, including his allegiance, which is a constant question mark.

Story sequences are interspersed between levels by way of large animated character portraits on static backgrounds, accompanied by full voiceovers. As with most NIS America localizations, the original Japanese as well as the English dub are available to select. The English voice actors were decent, but as a fan of hearing media in its original language, I found myself quickly switching back to the original Japanese.

Though the cut-scenes don't offer the same theatricality that we've come to expect from games in recent years, I personally found the storybook style, which is reminiscent of visual novels, much more appealing than the majority of game narration these days due to its unique style and high-quality illustrations. The gently moving backgrounds and character illustrations exhibit a breathtaking level of detail that can be appreciated by both fans of Vanillaware and newcomers to their work.

Vanillaware set the narrative bar high with an epic story and intriguing characters with their previous works, and unfortunately GrimGrimoire seems to have suffered because of it. The story should only take an average player a little over 15 hours to complete, and though the characters are charming and the story has a few small twists, it ultimately cannot compare to the grandeur of other notable Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs). This does not mean that GrimGrimoire isn't charming in its own right, but for those looking for an epic fantasy brimming with edge-of-your-seat intrigue will not find it here.

The true meat of GrimGrimoire, however, lies in the gameplay. The title of the game takes its name from the Grimoires, or magical books, which are used to summon all manner of creatures, from sinister demons to friendly elves. Contrary to traditional real-time strategy (RTS) fare, GrimGrimoire battles are played in vertical maps depicting the halls of the school's tower.

Opening up a Grimoire allows players to summon runes, which in turn can be used to summon helpers, attack units, and towers. Sky children of light instruments. Leveling up runes as you create them also gives a variety of bonuses, such as increased HP or new abilities for your units. Since the player begins each stage with few to no runes or units (depending on the particular level) and all summoned allies start at level 1, each stage is essentially begun as a clean slate. With no grinding or equipping beforehand, it's up to the player to carefully plan for the upcoming battle before they're swarmed by the enemy… At least in the beginning, anyway.

The four magics in GrimGrimoire have a circular relationship, meaning each has a strength and weakness, but overpowered dragons and chimera mean that later in the game, a win is pretty much guaranteed if you're able to spam dragon summons over and over. Though the game gives you an arbitrary max familiar cap for each level in an attempt to deter players from doing this, it was more than a little disappointing to find that little strategy is needed for the later levels when simply summoning the strongest familiar, regardless of its magic type, works so well.

As someone who plays a lot of RPGs but has only dabbled in the tactical subgenre, GrimGrimoire was a breath of fresh air. The straightforward nature of play has whet my appetite for more, and the fairy tale charm present in every aspect were just the thing for a player like me who's tiring of RPGs with flashy graphics and 'epic' stories that still lack punch. Rating: 7.0 out of 10.

—by Anne Lee

Disclosures: This game was obtained via download code from publisher and reviewed on the PS3. Approximately 17 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game story mode was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game contains fantasy violence, mild language, mild suggestive themes. Though your summoned creatures fight for you, there is no overt bloody violence. The ghost, demon, and chimera designs would probably scare young children, but then again the game's systems are probably too complicated for children who might be scared by them. There is some sexuality present, though it is generally implied through the dialogue.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue is subtitled, and any contextual sounds made during battle such as the chime that rings when new units have finished summoning are accompanied by visual cues on screen. Deaf and hard of hearing gamers should have no trouble enjoying this title.

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The sad fact of the matter is that there will have been many hundreds of Eurogamer readers who chose to bypass this review for no graver reason than its quirky name and art style. The heavy, nonsensical title combined with the overtly Japanese super-deformed fantasy characters that give face to the article on the front page bespeak one thing to knowledgeable gamers: Japanese RPG.

But they're wrong: GrimGrimoire is a Real Time Strategy game, more Command and Conquer than Final Fantasy and, thanks to its unique sideways-on perspective it's an especially intriguing take on the genre to boot. Published by in the US by Nippon Ichi, KOEI in Europe, and developed by the hands behind Odin Sphere, Vanilla Ware, GrimGrimoire, as you might expect, approaches things with scant regard for tradition and convention. Viewed as a side-scrolling 2D game - albeit one with delicately drawn characters and exuberant animations - the game is an RTS flattened, one where your task to expand and grow your influence up and down the cross sectioned floors of a towering castle.

This interesting gameplay premise is backed up by an equally interesting story- albeit it one that might be eerily familiar to fans of J. K. Rowling's enthusiastic prose. Your character, a young wizard, enrols at the start of the game at a school of witchcraft and wizardry, home to the philosopher's stone, where she studies under the beardy guidance of one professor Gammel Dore. In synopsis it sounds worthy of litigation but in practise the similarities are superficial. This is partly because the game's structure borrows from another Western entertainment reference point: Groundhog Day. Throughout the game you relive the same five days over and over again, each journey revealing more of the odd magical melodrama that makes up GrimGrimoire's story.

The structure and setting are important because they provide impetus to play through the slow-burning early levels. As you meet the various teachers and personalities of your school, and they challenge you to battles, you'll want to push on through these seemingly interminable tutorial levels (though they're never called that) just to find out where it's all heading. The lush 2D character portraits (similar in cliché-dodging style and artistry to those seen in Odin Sphere) bristle with character and the witty, well-translated dialogue betters many a role-playing game in both set-up and pay-off.

The core of the game though is undeniably the real-time strategy. The basics are orthodox: collect resources (in this instance mana from crystals littered around the castle's floors) create units and try to overwhelm and dominate the opponent on the other side of the board who is seeking to do the same. The ebb and flow of battles is instantly recognisable and comfortable and, as you grasp to claim territory and establish defences all of the fundamentals that have fuelled the ongoing success of this ancient genre feel solid and familiar.

At the start of a level your first job is to place a rune, the epicentre from which you can create units. There are twelve different runes to collect in the game, spread across four different classes (necromancy, sorcery, glamour and alchemy). Each rune allows you to create different types of units. Initially you'll ant the basic gatherer units, imps and elves who'll gather mana from the nearby crystals. With the mana collected you can then create more expensive offensive units (fire arrow-wielding fairies, sharp-horned unicorns and angry ghouls) and direct them off into enemy territory to do battle.

The decision to have environments viewed sideways on, like the cross section of a castle complete with stairways and pillars, is an interesting one. Some units can fly up and down floors while others must walk and so working out the timings required to co-ordinate an attack is crucial. Unit path finding is good in the game and, any time an attack unit is wiped out it's unequivocally your fault - an important factor in any videogame but one especially pertinent in a game in which you manage others.

The game's complexities quickly ramp up thanks to the fact that units spawned from different rune types are variously effective and ineffective against other rune types. For example, a chimera, a huge and effective battle unit that's expensive to build and hard to beat is completely ineffective against astral-based units through which his claws pass without effect. However, by sending a homunculus support unit along with the Chimera it's possible to turn the ghostly enemies into a physical form for a short amount of time, providing a window for the Chimera to decimate them all. With support units providing healing and defensive units such as fire-spewing columns to guard your mana gatherers, success is a careful balancing act of spending your man in the right areas and applying the most effective unit types to each situation.

The 12 runes in the game also level up with repeated use, providing new units and effects as they grow. Later in the game there's a dizzying array of tactical possibilities open to players. While the game does pause every time a unit is selected (a useful feature that allows you to take your time making decisions) occasionally it's difficult to select the unit you want quickly because it's hidden behind a mass of other bodies.

Despite the deeper complexities of the system, with environments that are barely distinguishable from one another and core mechanics that expand in depth and not breadth there is little variety to the basic flow of play. Difficulty is introduced by sheer numbers and, for players who aren't grabbed by the core mechanics, the game will soon become tiresome. But the combination of sumptuous 2D art style, interesting structure, enjoyable storyline and ever more unmanageable fights to tackle, for those who are, GrimGrimoire will be one of the most interesting games to come out of Japan in some time.

8 /10