While probably not pleasing to everyone, GrimGrimoire is a great experience for RPG and RTS fans alike.
The game follows the story of a new student whose come to stay at a school of magic. She spends five long swirling days there if you don't include "The Night Before" and she'll experience one incredible plot twist after another as she studies with various teachers and tries to save them all from a powerful evil force that no one is even aware about, but that she will have to face more than once. I won't say more so as not to ruin any good parts.
The gameplay in Grim Grimoire is, with lack of a better term, refreshing. It plays like a 2d Real Time Strategy game. This is probably only refreshing for me 'cause I'm not a real fan of RTS games, with the exception of Disgaea. You create runes from grimoires that give you the ability to summon mystical creatures to fight alongside you. Normally the goal is to defend your runes as you build up an offense and try to destroy the opponent's runes, thus declaring you the victor. It sounds simple, but if it wasn't for the extensive amount of time the game spends at the beginning explaining it to you, then you'd be completely lost and frustrated. Luckily someone realized this when making it, so as long as you're not completely impatient, then you'll learn quickly how to play. Mastering it is another thing completely, cause it'll take more than just building an army and sending boatloads of monsters attacking to win. You'll need to strategically arm thyself and take advantage of support monsters. For example, a chimera alone is powerful and good against demons, but it can't attack ghosts. So a chimera accompanied by a Humoncolus is even more frightfull since humoncoli can create barriers allowing the ability to attack ghosts with substance creatures.
The game is fairly short with a storyline that spans over the events occurring over the "five days" spent at the school. Each day has its own level and allows you to chose from three different difficulties: Sweet, Easy and Normal. Why there isn't a Hard, I don't know. But as you go completing these levels, you're given bonus "trials" to play in. These trials are much more difficult than the levels needed to finish the game, so if you're a bit of a novice you shouldn't worry, but if you're bored with how easy the main storyline is (like me), these challenging levels should be just enough to revive your faith in the overall game.
That brings me to the next part of this review. As far as audio/visual goes, GrimGrimoire is there. Although it's a 2d game, the animations are fluid and the sprite detail is top notch. The characters and creatures are gorgeous, colorful and all quite interesting. The voiceovers are spot on, with some witty and charming dialogue. I'm gonna have to praise the soundtrack here as well, because its comparable to Final Fantasy scores, in my opinion.
So to wrap this all up, I'd have to say that GrimGrimoire does indeed have its flaws, a short storyline and that mosaic tile copy-paste background in the battle screen that is kind of annoying. Another issue I had was that the enemy AI is sometimes incredibly stupid. These shortcomings weren't enough to ruin the experience for me. It actually is a good game, if not completely innovative. The 20+ hours I spent on it weren't in vain and I'd say its worthy of a sequel.
-ImpostorZim