So. Grimshade. It’s a JRPG by developer TALEROCK and publisher Asterion Games. What else is there to say? It does very little to innovate in the genre and, in fact, what it does it doesn’t make fun. The entire battle system feels like unnecessary grinding, when that’s what’s supposed to be the fun part.
Now, the main reason this is so slow is probably because each character has only one or two attack moves, but whatever it was, it was enough to turn me off from the game already. Having to wait so long for AI to take their turns, sometimes having 5 turns pass before I get to control something, was tiring. I want to get to the action. Credit where it’s due, the world looks interesting, but it feels like I’m being restricted just for the sake of making the game longer or making certain encounters distinct.
Along with that point, the somewhat free roam sections are mostly just because of the lack of direction the game gives you. The most you get is “Head Northwest,” and that’s if you remember to check the map. A lot of the time, it’ll just expect you to know what everything means or what to do next. There is a lot of tutorial text, and I tried to read it all, but still ended up missing some things. With balancing all the mechanics, Grimshade wasn’t very fun, especially when it came to what they call tension.
The tension mechanic I think is what draws me away from the action a lot. There are times when all you want to do is go in for the kill, but if you do, you are actively punished by this attribute called tension. Every time you attack or get attacked, your tension goes up. Build up enough tension and you have to wait for it to go down. This sounds interesting in theory, but the intended difficulty level is not balanced well. Often I would end up in a downwards cycle where I can’t attack because I have too much tension, but in waiting for it to go down, I get attacked and my tension goes up again. It’s probably what infuriated me the most about playing through battles. I’m okay with short encounters, but if the random enemy I encounter on the way from one mission to another takes me 20 minutes and 3 retries to defeat because there’s no real way to heal your team, then something’s wrong.
And as for the story, it’s very bland. Now of course they’ve built a whole world with some very nice art and animation and some cool character design choices, but the main storyline is a generic storyline about “ether something something darkness something crystals”. There are a lot of words tossed around that mean absolutely nothing to me.
Check Out my Grimshade Gameplay Video:
I wish Grimshade tried harder to engage the player, because I don’t really see anyone enjoying it. It’s a tolerable game at best, but I wouldn’t recommend a game for just being tolerable. The story is bland, the action is flat out boring, and all in all I just had a frustrating time doing what the game thought I should already know how to do. Multiple snide comments, from the tips on the loading screen to tutorial notes scattered about, make it clear that this was a game designed with the developers, not the consumer, in mind and it shows. Grimshade is certainly a game and I would say a JRPG, but whether it’s fun and engaging is another story.
Grimshade is available for PC for $19.99 via Steam.
I am an aspiring game designer looking to explore the philosophy behind game creation. Some of my favorite games include Overwatch, Super Smash Bros, Portal, and Beat Saber.
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