finished the game: thoughts/review

[Tryone]

Well, just finished it also, so I'll drop by my 0.10.

Found the game through unexpected oldfag crave I gotten after MM10 - went to play EOB, which was dropped about 10 years ago unfinished.
Even that was not enough to alleviate my cravings, so I found this.

What a shock! Just after EOB I got into such a similiar game. YAY!
A couple of minutes into a game... Just after I finished EOB, I have to go through same interface hell... Damn!

I hate. I HATE, I SO MUCH HATE HIDDEN BUTTONS! The only reason I finally beaten EOB is automapper which(oh, salvation!) showed those cursed buttons. It's so much fun to explore dungeons and solve riddles. But I'm quite an unattentive type, so I had to inspect every wall closely to be sure there are no those buttons. But just as with automapper in EOB, which spoiled a number of really fun puzzles(hidden teleporters and rotators became not a puzzle at all) the same haunted me here - I looked at walkthrough for those hidden buttons and from time to time accidently saw soltions, which I wanted to avoid...

After some first steps I found out that ranged weaponry is insanely powerful, so my main party was full-ranged - 3 rogues(front row with a strong dip in evasion ofc) and an ice mage - being a notorious mistake I regretted for most part of the game - firstly, Ice spell is quite deep in dungeon, damage output is low, mana spended to quickly and all this hussle with 4 clicks to cast. As soon, as i got volley for all three rogues, mage just standed there, well, holding his torch. For a moment I rejoiced after finding light spell, but first cast showed its inferiority to good old torches, so meh. Although he did saved some hassle against ranged enemies and tough opponents by freezing them in place.

All in all after bow was found the party started working really nice - the only serious problem was slime dungeon, since at that point ammunition was scarce and I had to get there later. If i knew that crossbow was there, on the other hand, I'd done it much, much sooner. Fighter's challenge was no challenge at all - simply got to a corner with use of bombs, froze side attackers and fighted front ones, maddly hitting forward key to get ammo back, when retreating to safety of corner. used 3 hp bottles though.

Most powerfull foe was the first ogre - I spented all ammo and he still had alot of HP left. Rocks rock! =)

Another problem with party were frost lizards - damage output was just not enough, so the fights were quite lengthy, maybe a fronline fighter with good DPS could made them easier. On the other hand, Liches and fire guys went down fast and without hassle. I can only imagine what kind of pain is to fight three liches simultaneously with hth chars...

The boss fight was... Not fight at all. Why, oh why, I spent so much time making my guys strong and cool, if lvl1 party could've killed him just as fine. Still MUCH better than MM10's excuse for a final fight though. The puzzle part was fun. But actual fight... Meh. Since game allows to throw STACKS of bombs, and by the endgame I had somewhere about 30-40 in total... He eatten those bombs and died in two or three volleys of ranged damage.

Abscence of strategy is main flaw of Grimrock, in my opinion - two-step and remember-the-map covers everything you might need. In particular, a couple of minibosses with cool powers and stuff would make quite a change. Moreso, Grimrock has four time as big dungeon as EOB, yet it actually has LESS different foes. Not to tell, that EOB have NPCs and some nice quests apart from crawling/exploring per se.

The second flaw is interface hell. Even though I understand developers' wish to stay true to the ways of old, it was overkill. Shortcuts would make the game so much enjoyable. As of now potions are almost useless due to hussle involved, the same goes to enchanted arrow. Although, ammo autocollect is a godsender, if not a god itself...

And the third: gimped char system. Three classes. Max one or two skilltrees. No actual choices here. Add the fact that mages are useless. And you pretty much left choiceless. Alchemy is also stillborn. And I really hoped to use my ingridients to make some majestic potions with some recipe from down bellow...

Other than that - best game for a long,long time. Waiting for grimrock 2. Although, I think, that making the game outdoorish would kill the magic - with a rolesystem and strategy elements as of now it won't make nice free-world adventure. Dungeon Crawler only.

Ah, almost forgot. No bugs! NO BUGS! How could that possibly be true???

[Komag]

Pretty nice review, sounds like you had a good time! You might try Master Quest, as it adds a Quickbar hotkey system to help with potions and stuff, and lets you progress your players much higher.