Legend of Grimrock 2 - Review Roundup #2

Here is the next round of reviews for Legend of Grimrock 2 this week.

Ill Gaming - 8.5/10

Legend of Grimrock 2 achieves what it was supposed to be: A great old school dungeon crawler. Compiling great ambiance, smart level design, well polished interface, improved skills system and rewarding exploration while you slowly unravel the islands mysteries.

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Gamefront - 80/100

Gameplay itself largely consists of the same puzzle and combat focus, but with the added bonus of exploration. Legend of Grimrock 2 is no open-world game, but the overworld is accessible enough that you encounter obstacles and monsters before your party is actually ready to surpass them. While you might unlock a few of these puzzles by chance, more often than not you’ll need to backtrack and find the right clue or key to proceed. It lends the game a kind of Metroidvania-In-Myst kind of feel, and encourages you to explore areas you might otherwise have avoided.

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Gameskinny - No Score

Overall, LoG2 brings nothing new to the table. Whether or not that’s a bad thing depends on you. What it does bring is an old school RPG with all the elements a fan would want, which is sure to please retro-RPG enthusiasts. Others, like myself, might be disappointed that such a passionate and talented approach to development didn’t really deliver to a wider audience. LoG2 is nothing if not by the fans, for the fans.

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Gamer Headlines - 8/10

At its best, Legend of Grimrock 2 feels a lot like Myst (except with the added bonus of getting to shoot magic missiles at armoured skeletons), you’ll even have to whip out the old pen and paper from time to time. The game is tough, and you will have to be very careful with your equipment, items, and character abilities in order to survive the world, and when you’re successful at it, it feels great. Where it suffers is that in exploring a three-dimensional world you are stuck in a two-dimensional paradigm which does not allow you to interact with the ceiling or floors of the game’s beautifully crafted world, and that the learning curve for even the most seasoned dungeon explorer is quite high, as I was having difficulty in combat even while playing the game on the easy difficulty setting. That being said, if you’re into old school dungeon crawlers or like the challenge of complex puzzles and riddles, this is the game for you.

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More information.

What it does bring is an old school RPG with all the elements a fan would want, which is sure to please retro-RPG enthusiasts. Others, like myself, might be disappointed that such a passionate and talented approach to development didn’t really deliver to a wider audience. LoG2 is nothing if not by the fans, for the fans.

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I disagree with this.I am not retro enthusiast.I wasn't born when original Dungeon master was released and I was too young to play games he inspired(Well I played Ultima undrewolrd 2 but that was 10 maybe 12 years after it was released) yet I still like LoG 2 a lot.There is no nostalgia there.

the learning curve for even the most seasoned dungeon explorer is quite high, as I was having difficulty in combat even while playing the game on the easy difficulty setting.

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That's nonsense. I'm playing on Medium difficulty, and the learning curve seems very average to me. I have to question how much experience that reviewer actually has with dungeon crawlers.

Well this is all I can find as major sites are not interested in reviewing the game it seems. As for me I'm interested in playing it, but I never played the first game.

I make no excuses as I was busy with other games in the last two years.

Update: I did find a new review on IGN I'll post it with a few more later on.

JDR13 said:

That's nonsense. I'm playing on Medium difficulty, and the learning curve seems very average to me. I have to question how much experience that reviewer actually has with dungeon crawlers.

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Well yes, it seems we have seen this complaint over and over again. Might and Magic X and Lords of Xulima, and Eschalon 3 , and even Baldur's Gate EE suffer from similar reviews. Apparently some reviewers coming to these games have never experienced classical RPGS and are used to Skyrim/Dragon Age difficulty curves.

This game looks visually better, but I never got into Grimrock - spent perhaps 3 hours on it. I just don't enjoy blobber games, and even less so when they are not turn-based since that involves scrambling to press things in time etc. Not my cup of tea.

I'm only going to trust the opinion of very critical users from forums such as this one, because I'm sure most of these reviewers have never played the likes of Dungeon Master and Lands of Lore, and I cringe at thinking how many times I'll read the words "old-school" and "awesome" in these reviews.

I'm really enjoying the feeling of more open exploration. As I always do, I second-guessed myself and restarted after several hours to make small changes to my party build. I was afraid that doing all the same stuff twice in a row would be tedious, but I found that after the introductory section, I was able to wander off in a completely different direction from where I went in the first playthrough, so instead of repeatedly being killed by ratmen, this time I'm repeatedly falling in the water, losing track of the ladder, and drowning.

It's not a true open world of course, but it has some of that same thrill of discovery.

I'm enjoying it but haven't even gotten 1/3 way through. It's fun. They've done a great job and I'm so very glad it's out and we can play it. So far if I had one thing I'd like to see in a sequel it's even more focus on immersion and clutter variety. It has LOTS of that now but even more would make it feel more like a living + breathing world to me. Also I'd like to see a more ominous theme as was Dungeon Master.

I'm hating the underwater portions. Not being able to come up for air + being unable to fight underwater enemies + game unpaused while viewing the map does not equate to fun for me. That area south of the pyramid is a tedious maze with restricted access everywhere - anyone who plays this game without automapping is a bonafide masochist with too much time on their hands.

Drithius said:

Not being able to come up for air

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Seriously how are you able to swim but not able to stick your head above the water? I've only done the first brief water area, but yes, it's annoying.

A lot of people disliked the "dancing around squares" combat gameplay of the original, has it been improved here?

Humanity has risen! said:

A lot of people disliked the "dancing around squares" combat gameplay of the original, has it been improved here?

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It's just like the original, thankfully.

The combat maneuvering is unchanged, but there's more variety in the enemy behavior, so kiting a guy around a four-square room is a little less mechanical now.

But the tweaks are small and mostly just serve to mix up the rhythm a bit. The basic mechanic hasn't changed, so if you just didn't like combat in the first one at all, then you probably won't like it here either.

I like it. It's not rocket science, but it keeps the game moving.

Drithius said:

anyone who plays this game without automapping is a bonafide masochist with too much time on their hands.

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I didn't disable auto-mapping, but I can honestly say that I haven't used it a single time yet in about 4 hours of gameplay.

Drithius said:

I'm hating the underwater portions. Not being able to come up for air + being unable to fight underwater enemies + game unpaused while viewing the map does not equate to fun for me. That area south of the pyramid is a tedious maze with restricted access everywhere - anyone who plays this game without automapping is a bonafide masochist with too much time on their hands.

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Bah this particular viewpoint as expressed on auto-mapping is pretty wimpy as far as I'm concerned. I mean, where's the commitment?
Whilst I only played the original game without it the second time through - I did stop during the blue lizard temple as it became too time consuming, plus other other games required my attention. It is a genuine game-play choice though and with a strong memory and old-school mapping skills, it's not painful at all.

However, I don't see what the problem is thus far with the underwater sections in the sequel. Simply find a ladder and navigate around them accordingly, exploring as much as you're comfortable with each time. They're even marked on the map should the player need to know where they are. Make some potions of energy for everyone and you're ready for some deep water exploration. Admittedly I've only just started this section in the forgotten river so I don't really know if the exploration becomes unwieldy or unduly lengthy in any way, but I like it so far.

My party is level 5 after around 6 hours and I'm simply loving the game. Great atmosphere, a thrilling sense of exploration, nice secrets, notes left by the villainous island owner, logical puzzles which nod to Dungeon Master. Kudos to the crew at Almost Human for literally making me take a rest from Divinity: OS for their brand of immersive dungeon-delving.

JDR13 said:

I didn't disable auto-mapping, but I can honestly say that I haven't used it a single time yet in about 4 hours of gameplay.

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I don't have anything against manually tracing maps on graph paper, but when the dungeon design isn't very complex and well thought out like Wizardry for example I don't think it is worth it. Not that it means Grimrock is inherently bad, but they're just aiming for a different experience.

I know that my mother and my wife both absolutely hated seeing me map things out on graph paper, to them it was a futile activity.

Humanity has risen! said:

I don't have anything against manually tracing maps on graph paper, but when the dungeon design isn't very complex and well thought out like Wizardry for example I don't think it is worth it. Not that it means Grimrock is inherently bad, but they're just aiming for a different experience.

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Are you trying to say the dungeons in Grimrock aren't well thought out? I couldn't disagree more.

Well maybe what I really meant to say was that in Wizardry you constantly come back to the same levels and there are a lot of nasty traps and traps which can disorient you. Whereas in Grimrock there are far fewer and you mostly go from one level to the next.