This quirky fairytale-like adventure and its characters packed into RTS goodness grow on you.
But don't think because I say 2D that the game doesn't look appealing. In fact, the artwork and backgrounds are beautifully drawn, and the characters have a subtle breathing motion as they speak.
The game mixes bits of storyline with the actual fighting portions. It all starts with a tutorial, so you can get acquainted with your first runes and different grimoires, crystals, units and how to use them.
Lilet will eventually gather different grimoires, each with a particular power: Glamour, Alchemy, Sorcery and Necromancy. Some are more effective against others, so this adds another element of strategy to the game.
The first thing you do is start gathering mana, since that is your only resource for everything. For each type of grimoire your units will vary, but there is always one gatherer. You select your gatherer units and order them to the nearest crystal. They will turn it into a Sanctuary and start gathering mana from it and taking it to the Rune. You can build additional Runes and harvest other crystals as well.
The Rune summons your familiars, which can be gatherers or battle units. Each unit costs a certain amount of mana, and you also have a population limit for each type of Rune, so you must balance your mana gathering with a fighting force. Once you have some units, you can send them out exploring the map to find enemy troops and Runes, and destroy them. You win when all of the enemies' Runes have been defeated.
Runes can also level up by selecting the appropriate command manually. A Rune of a higher level can summon stronger familiars and give the existing ones new abilities. The screen can get a little crowded and make it harder for you to select the units you want, but there is an easy process for doing so. You can select units individually by pressing square when the cursor is on it, and move it away to anywhere on the map with X. To select all of the same kind of a certain unit in a particular spot, you press square and up. There is also a click and drag feature to select several units that are a bit spread apart.
It takes a while to get used to, but eventually, it will all come to you naturally and you will be moving your units and owning the enemy like a pro. The downside of Grim Grimoire is the size and look of the battle maps. They are considerably large and make it tough to control all the unit groups at once, which is why I prefer to place those handy auto-attack Talismans in strategic spots all over the map. The maps all look the same too, a series of floors with archways, pillars and staircases that become repetitive way too soon. The music is fantastic and pleasant to listen to, while the voice acting varies according to the character's personalities.
The best points of Grim Grimoire are the story, the artwork and its originality. Sure, it's not a next-gen title, neither does it push the PS2's capabilities to their limits, but this quirky fairytale-like adventure and its characters grows on you. Grim Grimoire is a fun, original game, and it has all that RTS goodness packed in to keep you going for hours.
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