Legend of Grimrock (2012)

Like most people who love the Dungeon Master/Eye of the Beholder mold of gameplay, I lapped up Legend of Grimrock like someone who has gone far too long without water in the desert. But just beyond bringing back a long since believed dead RPG subgenre, Almost Human managed to modernize it and give it the slick presentation to make it feel just as vital for gaming these days as those games did in the past, without compromising any of the gameplay.

Mind you, the game isn’t perfect. If you plan to enter the Grimrock, you’ll should expect countless plate and button puzzles to sate you for a lifetime. Really, if there was one thing I hated about Eye of the Beholder, it was the sometimes inane and cryptic puzzle design. And Grimrock goes far beyond the call of even those games and cranks the puzzling up to eleven. Sure, some people say this is actually a core element of those types of games, but I disagree. A few puzzles are nice, but if I wanted to play adventure games, I would do so.

That said, after a few tries you’ll probably be able to solve most of them, as you learn what type of puzzles the game throws at you. But honestly, after some time solving just another of those becomes a chore. I think at level 9 puzzle fatigue began to set in for me and I started looking up a FAQ, as I couldn’t be arsed to decipher the more inane ones or just lost my appetite for them. Also, there was one later puzzle that annoyed me to no end, as you had to put four pretty common items into the right slots. Apart from the annoyingly cryptic hints, that far into the game I’ve learned to unload useless stuff like skulls and stones somewhere on the ground whenever I felt like it. And since I freely moved between different levels, I now had to backtrack nearly three levels to find three of the four items.

So, no, the game isn’t perfect, especially if you prefer your RPGs with a little less puzzling. But then there’s good stuff too. I love fighting in Grimrock. In most RPGs, when you reach the endgame, there are few monsters that can seriously harm you. Not so in Grimrock, even weaker enemies can kill you rather fast when you let your concentration wander. The heavier ones thought, can kill you in mere seconds. From the first moment you enter Grimrock, till the end, you’re endlessly on the lookout for monsters coming around a corner. Soon each new room looks like a deathtrap and often that fear is justified. I haven’t played a game in a long time that kept me at the edge of my seat for it’s entire playtime like Grimrock did.

Not that the battle system is perfect either. Magic is nearly useless. I initially started with a party with two mages, but after seeing how cumbersome the interface for spells is, decided to start anew with no mages. And never looked back. But yeah, fighting is a high tension affair that never got boring in the game. There’s just enough variety to the enemies to not get bored with seeing the same type of monster again and again, but not too much to make most of them forgettable.

The skill system is no revelation in terms of breadth, but since all you do is exploring, puzzling and fighting, there’s not much use for an extensive system anyway. So, it’s a barebones action RPG in terms of complexity, which fits right in with the games it’s trying to emulate.

But where Grimrock is unbeatable is atmosphere. Like some of the best CRPGs, Grimrock tells its story in pieces: here a few rotten parchments from a traveler who wandered these mazes long before you, there an inscription on the wall that inferences deeper mysteries hiding deeper down. Even the puzzles and the level structure itself reveals a rich backstory. Sure, not an especially original one (long forgotten evil sealed in a dungeon is pretty common in fantasy), but the delivery of the story is what counts and Grimrock manages it pitch perfect. I’m sure even after you’ve beaten the game the mere memory of exploring Grimrock, the sights of the levels and the intensity of the fights will stay with you.

Legend of Grimrock manages to transcendent all its shortcoming and provides a truly magnificent experience. Who would have thought that after Anvil of Dawn there would ever be another game of its kind, one that rivals even the classics.

5/5

You Have to Win the Game (2012)

Ah, the days of my youth. While VGA was slowly becoming the norm even then, I remember playing a few CGA games on my first PC. That said, while You Have to Win the Game sports a CGA color scheme, the gameplay is pretty polished (which was rarely true for platformers on PCs in these days) and feels much more modern. YHtWtG is a metrovania style exploration platformer where you collect the usual skills (double jump, wall crawling) to advance. The game has enemies, but you weaponless and can only avoid them.

To actually win the game you have to find a word scribbled somewhere on the background in the game and then use it at the appropriate moment by accessing the commando console (the magic symbol the game speaks about, which is the key above TAB, which on US keyboard layouts is the Tilde (~) and the Grave accent (`), on my it was Degree (°) and Circumflex (^)). That probably was my only annoyance, since it switched the gameplay at the last moment from typical platforming to bloody stupid lateral puzzling (one reason why I rarely play adventures, I hate that kind of puzzles). And if you don’t do that, you’ll be put back at the begin of the game and have to play it all over again (fucking annoying).

Still, despite the final puzzle, the game is fun to play, uses the limited color scheme to look absolutely amazing and has save points at all the right places to make even the more demanding rooms enjoyable instead of frustrating. Definitely recommended.

5/5

Kickstarter Watch: Xenonauts

I don’t know how much time I put into playing UFO: Enemy Unknown and X-Com: Terror from the Deep since they came first out, but it felt like years. Yet I never managed to be beat them, I always get bored after some time. And yet a year later or so I always start those puppies up again. Call about addiction.

And those guys from Goldhawk Interactive are trying to get me back into the game again, with something like X-Com on steroids. Xenonauts is already looking better than any of the official sequels (not that hard to do considering what the franchise has been put through) and all the spiritual successors. Can’t wait to play the full game.

Kickstarter Watch: Alcarys Complex

So, what about the Alcarys Complex kickstarter project?

I’ve seen a couple of jRPGs on Kickstarter, thought so far most of them look like someone slapped the out-of-the-box elements of the latest RPG Maker together to get a few screenshots that recreate the look of 16bit SNES/Genesis jRPGs. And while I actually like the whole RPG Maker scene, there are some truly impressive jRPGs out there, you already get those for free and none of the kickstarter jRPGs projects so far look even as good as the best of them.

The ongoing Alcarys Complex kickstarter is a bit different thought. They already have a demo that you can download, the game isn’t done in RPG Maker and they try to subvert a few conventions. Whether that’ll really work is admittedly another question, but they seem to try for some choices & consequences, something rarely seen in jRPGs. So, instead of endlessly grinding you’ll get smart characters interactions, instead of generic world savers you get some characters you wouldn’t have exepected in this type of game.

Sure, they also go for the whole classic 16bit SNES/Genesis jRPG style (a few screenshots of Alcary Complex), but at least their kickstarter doesn’t feel like a few kids trying to hop on the money train.

Kickstarter Watch: Grim Dawn

If you ever liked action RPGs in the vain of Diablo and aren’t satisfied with the massive decline that the third Diablo-incarnation seems to be so far, consider pitching in for the Grim Dawn kickstarter. The guys from Crate Entertainment show an already functioning tech demo, have worked on a similar game previously (Titan Quest) and seem to know where they are going. And the game looks mighty tasty.

Armalyte PC (2010)

I had considered buying Armalyte PC in the past, but something about the art put me off. Thanks to RGCD I got to play the game anyway and what I expected turned out to be true. Armalyte PC is a conversion of an old C64 shmup where instead of glorious pixel graphics they went with what I assume are render-graphics, which to tell the true look absolutely horrible. With pixel graphics everything looks cohesive, with these render-objects not so much. I get just nightmares from the 90ties when everyone suddenly discovered rendering.

As for the rest of the game: the sound is great (+), the ship moves far too sluggish (-) and the gameplay seems to be your standard shmup, nothing you haven’t seen elsewhere, but not too bad either (+/-). I haven’t played too far, because of the graphics and how slow your ship is, but if you can stand that, its probably not the worst shmup you’ll ever play, thought not one of the good ones by far either.

Guxt (2007)

Size and length of a game is often measured in time played, thought Guxt brought home just how wonky such a measuring method is. I’ve played to the end of the third level of this five-level shmup, but needed actually one hour to get even so far. And these levels are small, like 3 minutes at most if you manage them perfectly. Some games generate gameplay by an endless cavalcade of content, others by racking up difficulty so high that you’ll die a thousands times before getting forward. It’s a viable approach to extend play time, thought I would prefer save points, a health bar and some other accommodations for less skilled players.

If the game wasn’t that good, I probably would have given up after dying countless times in the first level (I’m just not good at shmups, that’s why I love emulators and save stats). Guxt shows the same level of polish Pixel has applied to his other two big games (Cave Story and Ikachan). Controls are perfect, the pixel graphics are damn beautiful and the game is just pure fun to play. If it wasn’t so hard, I probably would even try to beat it. But I have only so much patience with seeing the same level again and again. That’s why I prefer a lower difficulty and a higher number of levels. It might be not the hardcore experience some crave, but at least more players will actually see most of the content (thankfully there are also youtube playthroughs).

Appy 1000mg (2011)

Appy 1000mg is another Ludum Dare entry by Sébastien Bénard (I spoke about his entry Time Pygmy here). It’s a mini-platformer that tells a short story that mainly goes for a shock effect. The main gimmick is that you start out in happy land, while occasionally flashing back to a disturbing vision of the world. When you take your medicine, it’s back to happy land, but when you’re back in horror land, fluffy creatures becomes mad suicide bombers. Mostly you explore a bit, collect a few items and get to the end of the level and the game. The game engine and the controls are good, but there’s just not much gameplay to this game and the shock effects barely register with a jaded modern audience. Nice try thought.

Knight ‘n’ Grail (2009)

While I kind of get the idea why some people still make games for dead platforms (either because it’s a nice challenge or an aesthetic ideal), I think it’s unfortunate since when once in a while a good game actually comes out, those playing it are mostly enthusiasts for the platform and the few others who stumbled upon the game and are willing to fiddle around with emulators. Not many, I gather.

Point in case Knight ‘n’ Grail, which is a metrovania platformer for the C64 which is thankfully not only available in disk format, but also as a digital download (and at the low price of ca. 3€ it’s pretty much a steal). The game isn’t perfect, the boss enemies are too easy, you either get music or sound, but not both at the same time and sometimes the controls can be a bit wonky (not to the extend that they stop you from playing, but there’s definitely room for improvement).

All that said, the game sports beautiful sprite graphics of the kind you rarely see these days, the gameplay follows proven paths (map, double jump, different weapons and armors) and has some clever tactical touches. Your chosen elemental armor either stops damage from enemy attacks (wind, fire, ice, etc.) or from touching the enemy itself, but not always both when the element of the attack and of the enemy are different. Size-wise, it’s medium. Depending on how good you are you can clear the entire castle in under 3 hours, but those are really fun hours.

All in all, if you like metrovanias and dig a beautiful looking old-school game, I would definitely recommend it.

PS.: if you’re like me and never touched a C64 emulator before, I would recommend playing the game with the CCS64 (Vice hang-up on me). When you start the game and can’t get anything to work apart from using SPACE to see the map, go to input and enter:

Control Port 2 = Joystick
Node = Key-Set 2

Then you can use Right-CTRL, SPACE and the NUM-Block. Furtermore, if you want to use a game pad, use JoyToKey.

Hell is freezing over. Shadowrun Returns as a tactical old-school RPG

The only RPG beside Planescape I played in all it’s pen and paper glory. I read all the novels. Even the bad ones. Have the latest core rule book, despite not playing the PNP version anymore. Back in the day when I played Fallout 1&2, I thought the only thing better than this would be a similar game in the Shadowrun setting. First Wasteland 2 and now this. Pigs might fly after all…