Another amazing entry from NIS, but now the strategy is real.....time.
Grim Grimoire follows heroine Lillet Blan, who has just arrived at one of the world's finest institutions of magical learning, is caught in a melodramatic web of plots and deceits as someone inside the school attempts to resurrect the Dark Archmage Calveros. Obvious allusions aside, the story manages to be delivered in an original way, owing to the fact that Lillet relives her first five days at the school over and over. This bizarre method of slowly revealing the story works well, given that each time she returns, she has gleaned more information about the situation and is able to more competently retrace her steps each time. While seemingly repetitive, this method is supported by a remarkably strong and memorable cast. It seems as if each of the students and professors have much to hide, and with each encounter, the characters reveal a surprising amount of depth.
The cast, mostly comprised of teachers, is mostly responsible for driving the action. Early on, Lillet attends "lectures" which are more like tutorial levels, which introduce the player to both the various characters and the basics of gameplay. Magic, is this world, is governed by magical runes, which are used to summon entities, called familiars, who the magician then controls. Abandoning the standard RTS conventions of buildings, Lillet instead draws runes on the map which serve as spawning points for the various familiars. Each rune can then be used to produce specific creatures which range from small elves, used for healing and gathering mana, the source of your magical power, to massive, screen-filling dragons and chimeras. Most missions in the game consist of building your own runes and familiars and sending them forth to destroy your opponent's runes.
The missions themselves do a good job of keeping a consistent learning curve. Early in the game, strategy feasibly consists of building up forces until the player is able to spawn two or three dragons, then unleashing them upon the helpless foe. Around the middle of the game, however, the game assumes you have mastered this strategy and adapts its own play style. The enemy laughs at these feeble attempts as its own forces decimate your valuable resources. The successful strategies for later in the game are simultaneously a saving grace and one of the game's largest flaws. Just as the action devolves into a race to produce one or two of the most powerful familiars, the difficulty escalates and forces you to consider which units you take into each battle, using its unique classification system. Each familiar belongs to a particular school of magic ranging from the Glamour School which consists of fairies and unicorns to the Alchemy School with its artificial life such as golems and homunculi. Each school has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, and as the enemy learns to exploit these weaknesses, so must the player. Instead of focusing on one school, enemy defenses begin to consist of various units. To counter this, the player must also send in forces to counter each school. Unfortunately for the game, the interface for controlling your familiars is limited to only issuing orders to one unit type at a time. This means that in order to send a group with three separate familiar types, the player must issue the same command three separate times, and as any real-time strategy fan will tell you, the extra seconds it takes to issue three commands instead of one can very easily turn the tide of any battle. The game does subdue this effect by pausing the on screen action while the command menu is active, yet having to manage forces in such an indirect fashion adds an undue level of stress to the game. In addition, when large units or groups of units occupy the same area, the sprites tend to overlap one another. In the midst of a violent battle it becomes all too easy to lose a valuable squad of skull mages somewhere behind the body of your dragon. These small technical issues aside, the gameplay lies under the fingers very well, especially being a notoriously difficult genre to translate to console play.
Though Grim Grimoire will never be described as a graphical powerhouse, the game carries with it one of the most beautiful visual styles seen on the PS2. Using Nippon Ichi's obviously Japanese art style, each and every character is drawn with the utmost attention to detail, in and out of battle, and by using static images during cutscenes, the characters are able to be displayed with a staggeringly high resolution. In game, pressing L3 allows the player to zoom in on the action, and while there seems to be no practical purpose to doing so, you'll likely find yourself doing so quite often, if only to take in every minute detail. The crisp visuals are always simply a joy to view, although the game could have used a bit more variety in its environments. There are about 5 different rooms in which the player will watch cutscenes, and every single battle takes place on essentially an identical field. In keeping with these minimalistic themes, the music is mostly there for show, as no part of the soundtrack is particularly gripping. It is however, appropriately cutesy or perhaps slightly intense, keeping with the overall visual theme of the game. Voiceovers, particularly those of your familiars, are entirely underwhelming. During cutscenes the main characters deliver lines with clarity and attempt to emote, but are at no point gripping. The familiars, who the player will spend most time listening to have perhaps 3-5 lines total, and with as many commands as they will receive, grow very repetitive by mid-game.
These minor technical flaws aside, the game is delivered very well, and is a refreshing change, especially for console exclusive gamers. Given the difficult nature of the genre on a console, and being Nippon Ichi Software's first attempt at strategy in real time, Grim Grimoire provides an exceptionally unique experience. Adjusting to some minor issues is only the smallest part of what is a delightful, engaging, and sometimes surprisingly intense game. Fans of either Nippon Ichi or the strategy genre would be missing out on a very special adventure.