Long before I knew that this game was coming stateside, I had a pending preorder with Play Asia - just like with Odin Sphere. With Princess Crown never reaching the western shores of the gaming world I didn't took any chances and ordered both right away. This particular game was holding back Luminous Arc too, so expect some first impression on the DS title soon.
There's an 18-track audio CD and a small postcard booklet included as bonuses (probably the booklet is a preorder bonus) and the game rests on a single DVD. Go here http://www.ncsx.com/2007/040907/grim_grimoire.htm and http://www.siliconera.com/infosphere/grim-grimoire/ to have a preview and a small explanation on how the game works.
Unlike most japanese strategic games, Grim Grimoire is real time with a side-scrolling perspective with resource collectors, fighting units but fortunately no base to manage. There are a lot of mechanics typical of turn-based strategic games such as four magic schools compensating each other (Glamour, Necromancy, Sorcery and Alchemy - didn't really knew that Glam was magic - I guess Helstar were wrong), units with two different body types (Astral and Corporeal - or just the game says, Substance - and probably there's more) belonging to the four magic shools, each with HP, MP and of course cost to be summoned. But, first things first: the game is absolutely stunning. The baroque use of colors, the attention to detail on all animations and not-so-static character portraits (they breath, open and close eyes, they are lip-synched to the dubbing and so on), backgrounds and UI sharpness truly make the game one of the most pleasent things you ever seen - where, for example, Super Paper Mario achieves a visually stunning appearance for the sheer simplicity of the graphics, Grim Grimoire achieves an incredibly high artistic profile for fully using the artists ability to bring the tiniest detail into life. Even the in-game cursor can be changed from a simple pointing hand, to a PC-esque arrow, a small magic wand or semi-deformed drawing of the main heroine - and this one is animated in many cute ways.
Unfortunately music doesn't really follow, the first BGMs (and the CD) features rather plain musics that can be found in all games - but, at least, they are well suited for the game.
The game is partially import-friendly: menus are in english, as well as unit data and most useful information, but story, tutorials and objectives are in japanese.
The story is divided in chapters, each represented by a day, in which usually there's an opening dialogue, a battle and an ending dialogue; dialogues are referred as "dramas". All the single stages of a day can be replayed at the main menu. There's also a skirmish option and each battle has a performance rating, although I'm not sure if and what will unlock getting high ratings. All dramas so far have been dubbed and right now are used for character introductions and tutorials - there's already something going on (I think one of the male characters spoke about exposing truth about a teacher or something), but, really, I can't say much.
Battles are fought in real time. The square button and D-pad are used to select, the circle for confirming orders, X for cancelling selections and menus, triangle to bring up a spawning point menu, R1 and L1 to cicle through building queues, start for pause.
Selection is done just like on a PC RTS: move the cursor over a unit, push square and the game will pause. Then you can move the cursor where you want the unit to move and press circle to confirm the order. While paused, the game brings up a small menu with some icons: the first is always the movement action, the others change based on which unit is selected. Grunt units will have harvest and somethingIhaventreallyunderstood plus special actions, basic units will have attack, defend and mages will ahve their special magics. You can select multiple units by keeping square pushed and move the cursor over other units or press up on the D-pad to select all units of the same type visible; left and right are used to cicle through each unit of the selected group.
Unfortunately there aren't quick groups and moving the cursor around the map is quite tiring, but fortunately the game pauses while issuing orders and the minimap is clear enough to see where your units, resources and enemies are.
There's only a single resource, mana, and it's harvested from giant crystals that must first be possessed by your basic grunt unit, then you can send other grunts to bring mana back and forth. A possessed crystal can be attacked to remove a possessio or you can break the supply chain, just like old fashioned RTS.
Each player starts with one unit spawning point (let's call it HQ) and with enough mana you can create other HQs; each HQ belongs to one magic school and can produce only that type of unit; if you want a Necromancy unit you need to create a Necromancy HQ, and so on.
Each magic school has three types of HQ, each with its own upgrade path.
The final goal of the skirmish games is to annihilate all enemy forces, both units and HQs and there are three difficulty levels. The first skirmish games are a bit difficult, but I blame it on the language barrier and the fact that you actually need to get used to the game mechanics to navigate freely on the battlefield - I probably overlooked some shortcuts, I do hope there's a way to move on the minimap placing a small cursor over it, wandering around with just the standard cursor (and the Dualshock analog stick) is very, very, very clumsy.
Wii port, now.
The battlefield is composed by a series of floors connected by one or more set of stairs; flying units can traverse floors without any limit, walking units need to use the stair to move around - and with pits and one set of stairs connecting some layers you can use the background at your advantage.
The game is really interesting and entertaining. The hardest part is to become used to the controls. Once understood, the game is exactly like any other RTS: you select units, send them against unit they are strong against, collect resources and so on. The manual lists a total of 20 units, but I think there would be more and more - and the ones I've seen are simply beatiful, ranging from small bow-wielding fairies to giant fire-breathing dragoons. It's all in 2D with rather complex and cute animations and unlike Ar Tonelico or Atelier Iris there are no hicchups during battles, a defenitively good point.Can't wait to have my hands on the US version of the game - just like I did with Disgaea 2 I'll have to hold back so that I won't have to replay the boring (but extremely short, under ten minutes each) tutorial levels...but I already know that I won't be able to...unless Super Paper Mario arrives.
There's an 18-track audio CD and a small postcard booklet included as bonuses (probably the booklet is a preorder bonus) and the game rests on a single DVD. Go here http://www.ncsx.com/2007/040907/grim_grimoire.htm and http://www.siliconera.com/infosphere/grim-grimoire/ to have a preview and a small explanation on how the game works.
Unlike most japanese strategic games, Grim Grimoire is real time with a side-scrolling perspective with resource collectors, fighting units but fortunately no base to manage. There are a lot of mechanics typical of turn-based strategic games such as four magic schools compensating each other (Glamour, Necromancy, Sorcery and Alchemy - didn't really knew that Glam was magic - I guess Helstar were wrong), units with two different body types (Astral and Corporeal - or just the game says, Substance - and probably there's more) belonging to the four magic shools, each with HP, MP and of course cost to be summoned. But, first things first: the game is absolutely stunning. The baroque use of colors, the attention to detail on all animations and not-so-static character portraits (they breath, open and close eyes, they are lip-synched to the dubbing and so on), backgrounds and UI sharpness truly make the game one of the most pleasent things you ever seen - where, for example, Super Paper Mario achieves a visually stunning appearance for the sheer simplicity of the graphics, Grim Grimoire achieves an incredibly high artistic profile for fully using the artists ability to bring the tiniest detail into life. Even the in-game cursor can be changed from a simple pointing hand, to a PC-esque arrow, a small magic wand or semi-deformed drawing of the main heroine - and this one is animated in many cute ways.
Unfortunately music doesn't really follow, the first BGMs (and the CD) features rather plain musics that can be found in all games - but, at least, they are well suited for the game.
The game is partially import-friendly: menus are in english, as well as unit data and most useful information, but story, tutorials and objectives are in japanese.
The story is divided in chapters, each represented by a day, in which usually there's an opening dialogue, a battle and an ending dialogue; dialogues are referred as "dramas". All the single stages of a day can be replayed at the main menu. There's also a skirmish option and each battle has a performance rating, although I'm not sure if and what will unlock getting high ratings. All dramas so far have been dubbed and right now are used for character introductions and tutorials - there's already something going on (I think one of the male characters spoke about exposing truth about a teacher or something), but, really, I can't say much.
Battles are fought in real time. The square button and D-pad are used to select, the circle for confirming orders, X for cancelling selections and menus, triangle to bring up a spawning point menu, R1 and L1 to cicle through building queues, start for pause.
Selection is done just like on a PC RTS: move the cursor over a unit, push square and the game will pause. Then you can move the cursor where you want the unit to move and press circle to confirm the order. While paused, the game brings up a small menu with some icons: the first is always the movement action, the others change based on which unit is selected. Grunt units will have harvest and somethingIhaventreallyunderstood plus special actions, basic units will have attack, defend and mages will ahve their special magics. You can select multiple units by keeping square pushed and move the cursor over other units or press up on the D-pad to select all units of the same type visible; left and right are used to cicle through each unit of the selected group.
Unfortunately there aren't quick groups and moving the cursor around the map is quite tiring, but fortunately the game pauses while issuing orders and the minimap is clear enough to see where your units, resources and enemies are.
There's only a single resource, mana, and it's harvested from giant crystals that must first be possessed by your basic grunt unit, then you can send other grunts to bring mana back and forth. A possessed crystal can be attacked to remove a possessio or you can break the supply chain, just like old fashioned RTS.
Each player starts with one unit spawning point (let's call it HQ) and with enough mana you can create other HQs; each HQ belongs to one magic school and can produce only that type of unit; if you want a Necromancy unit you need to create a Necromancy HQ, and so on.
Each magic school has three types of HQ, each with its own upgrade path.
The final goal of the skirmish games is to annihilate all enemy forces, both units and HQs and there are three difficulty levels. The first skirmish games are a bit difficult, but I blame it on the language barrier and the fact that you actually need to get used to the game mechanics to navigate freely on the battlefield - I probably overlooked some shortcuts, I do hope there's a way to move on the minimap placing a small cursor over it, wandering around with just the standard cursor (and the Dualshock analog stick) is very, very, very clumsy.
Wii port, now.
The battlefield is composed by a series of floors connected by one or more set of stairs; flying units can traverse floors without any limit, walking units need to use the stair to move around - and with pits and one set of stairs connecting some layers you can use the background at your advantage.
The game is really interesting and entertaining. The hardest part is to become used to the controls. Once understood, the game is exactly like any other RTS: you select units, send them against unit they are strong against, collect resources and so on. The manual lists a total of 20 units, but I think there would be more and more - and the ones I've seen are simply beatiful, ranging from small bow-wielding fairies to giant fire-breathing dragoons. It's all in 2D with rather complex and cute animations and unlike Ar Tonelico or Atelier Iris there are no hicchups during battles, a defenitively good point.Can't wait to have my hands on the US version of the game - just like I did with Disgaea 2 I'll have to hold back so that I won't have to replay the boring (but extremely short, under ten minutes each) tutorial levels...but I already know that I won't be able to...unless Super Paper Mario arrives.
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