Grimoire - Released

luj1 said:

You will rot by then. It will be ~6 months before anyone finishes the game given how shockingly huge it is. No one is even past the first region yet.

Click to expand...

You will be shocked to death by the epic awesomeness before my little finger even begins to decay.

purpleblob said:

So, how are you enjoying it so far? Please share the impression with us?

Click to expand...

I haven't really played it very long (fortunately, or I'd be more annoyed about my save game breaking!) but my initial view is actually quite positive. I'm enjoying it and looking forward to getting further in! Some random thoughts:

Positive

Graphics - clearly subjective, but I love the graphics. The crisp, clear, bright and colourful pixel art really appeals to me. The backgrounds are usually animated as well, with clouds drifting across the sky and bats flapping at you in caves etc. Its basic but very effective and much nicer than a static background. The enemy animations are entertaining - creatures tend to amble nonchalantly onto the screen in a way that I can only describe as adorable. It might not be the intended effect for a group of ruffians or deadly insects, but I love it.

Bugs etc - I haven't found any so far. He's fixed the scaling issue I mentioned a few pages back. Game runs well. I guess the early area have been well tested though, the later maps are more likely to have bugs.

Exploration - the maps are fun, well designed, interesting to explore.

Mixed

Character creation - there are loads of choices for races and classes, and they aren't the usual ones either (for example, giants and feyfolk are in the mix). You can have eight characters in your party so there's plenty of scope to experiment with different party set ups. Attribute rolls are dice driven and you are limited to three rolls before the character locks. This doesn't bother me but I know some folk hate it. Once you have your roll number, you can then choose to apply it in bulk to attributes hit points, skill points etc - but that's it. You apply everything to one of the categories with no say on how the points are divided, and you can't split them between (for example) attributes and skill points. You have to pick one or the other. It means character creation is quick, but perhaps a little more control would have been welcome. Alternatively there is a premade party you can just use immediately, which is nice.

Combat - I found it too slow at first, but some tips from Watchers have helped speed things up. I don't think I've seen enough of it to have a fixed view to be honest - jury is out.

Story, writing - you wake up with no memory of how you got there and go exploring. Cliche? Classic? You decide! The writing is pretty basic, but that suits me fine with this type of game - the exploration and unravelling of the secrets is what matters.

Negative

Music, sounds - I thought the music might be charming at first, but it gets annoying pretty quickly. Sound effects are also set to stun. I'm currently playing it with the sound off whilst listening to Metallica, which works well!

UI, mechanics - nothing is explained. The attributes are all abbreviated with no explanations about what they do. Helpful Watchers have been helping to piece together what they do on the Grimoire Support Group thread (thanks again particularly to Luj1 ) but it is still massively opaque. In a stat heavy game it is a bit annoying not to understand what the stats actually do.

Anyway, them's my initial thoughts from my limited time in the game so far. As I said, I'm enjoying it overall.

EDIT: I was wrong about not being able to redistribute points at character creation. I just hadn't figured out how to do it. The option is in the character sheet once the game starts....

If the game really takes 600 hours to complete (I'm skeptical), then if you assume your average profeshuhnul game reviewer works 40 hours a week, he'd have to be on assignment for pure Grimoire for at least 15 weeks…

I don't think most of the "profeshuhnul game reviewer" actually finish the game to publish the review.. If Grimoire is truly 600 hours, they would probably give 100 hours at the most. Heck, I don't even know if anyone them will actually play 50 hours even.

Dunno, I was under the impression that the guys who work for the big-name places like Gamespot, IGN, etc, are supposed to finish games (games that can be "finished" anyway) before putting out their review. Of course, the way this usually happens is the publisher sends them a review copy weeks before release.

Not that I expect any places like the two I named above to actually review Grimoire anyway. Was more of a joke.

Ugh, it actually looks/sounds like something I'd love. Not going to drop $40 on it right now. Right now, I say. Maybe in the future, though...

Good news then, it's $36 for the next 3 days.

Still too much right now. Money is tight and I'm probably not ready to delve into a 600 hour playthrough just yet.

luj1 said:

What are you talking about. It's cheaper than Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, Torment Numenera, Divinity OS, Wasteland 2… It's cheaper than Skyrim, Dark Souls, Witcher 3 (obviously). Do you find their price "really disheartening" too? Nope.

By the way Hillary lost guys. Get over it.

Click to expand...

I don't see why you have to bring up other games as examples. Grimoire should be judged by its merits alone. I'm sure all these games, Grimoire included, can have their price tags justified.

In my opinion, though, from what I've watched this far, Grimoire's price is just way too steep. I've been playing since the "golden era" and I've never witnessed such horrendous sound design, for example. I mean, what are those buzzing sounds during some encounters with bugs? Every 2 or 3 seconds I have to listen to it spamming that ear bleeding noise. How about the green hand gang (or something like that)? Their chant is irritating to the point I couldn't watch the whole fight and I had to skip it.

This is just one example. Sound design is extremely important and sometimes it's expensive. Here, it sounds just lazy. I don't think this is worth $40 in 2017. I won't even talk about the numerous bugs; during the golden era, games weren't released in a public beta test state, you know.

You should be able to discern the good and the bad, even in a product you really like; if you can't, it's blind fanaticism and then the best course of action it to ignore the fanatic, as his/her mind would not be open to dialogue and new ideas.

And what's this about Hillary? How does it relate to the game?

I suppose the point is that you have to be a Trump-voter to truly appreciate Grimoire

Which does make a sort of sense, actually.

I can only imagine the amount of bugs people will find once they leave the 'superdemo' area, where only Cleve and a few others have tested.

Don't worry about bugs. It's the job of the designer to provide amusing obstacles to maximise the fun!

You need to appreciate the incline of lost savegames and countless hours wasted!

Back up your .svg files. They're not really updates; they're the whole game again.

luj1 said:

What are you talking about. It's cheaper than Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, Torment Numenera, Divinity OS, Wasteland 2… It's cheaper than Skyrim, Dark Souls, Witcher 3 (obviously). Do you find their price "really disheartening" too? Nope.
….

Click to expand...

I suppose people think that what's basically a nineties game with low production values and dated graphics should sell for a much lower price - like other "old" games. In that perspective comparing it to the games you mention is irrelevant.

Personally I wouldn't mind the price if I wanted the game. If it is as good as some people claim, with as much content as mr Blakemore claims, it would be worth it to me. I don't think the price is that high, admittedly that may partly be due to being accustomed to Norwegian prices.

pibbur who still doesn't want the game, but for other reasons.

Oh, how I missed this thread in the two days I was offline to travel across the pond to D.C. Keep it up, guys!

Pongo said:

UI, mechanics - nothing is explained. The attributes are all abbreviated with no explanations about what they do. Helpful Watchers have been helping to piece together what they do on the Grimoire Support Group thread (thanks again particularly to Luj1 ) but it is still massively opaque. In a stat heavy game it is a bit annoying not to understand what the stats actually do.

Click to expand...

The problem here is that even in the guides written by people who have played awhile, people are still just guessing about what many of the stats and skills do, it's clearly not something you can always figure out through play. This is especially a problem given Cleve has acknowledged that not everything about your character is implemented in the game yet. So without a manual there is no way to know if that stat or skill your putting points into even does anything in the current build.

Yeah a manual would be very helpful. He's working on it, apparently.

Wouldn't be the first CRPG I've winged in terms of not knowing what stats do. Strangely enough it never really hurt my progress in those games long-term. Weird.

Fluent said:

Wouldn't be the first CRPG I've winged in terms of not knowing what stats do. Strangely enough it never really hurt my progress in those games long-term. Weird.

Click to expand...

Kinda like running a marathon before walking 2 miles doesn't make the 2 miles any longer, right?

Yeah, that makes sense

I don't run marathons, I play video games.

My only concern with this game is if it has, in fact, been worked on over the years. If there is an actual 600 hour/more than the demo game here, I'm interested. But that is yet to be seen. If anyone gets past the end of the demo and the game is still functional and fun, I'd be more into it. It's honestly still 50/50 to me.