Legend of Grimrock 2 Review (PC)

If Legend of Grimrock 2 manages to do one thing right, that is to establish that dungeon crawlers are a lot more fun when you can also explore the surface world.

The sequel to 2012’s Legend of Grimrock, the modernized incarnation of the classic, old-school role-playing game genre that became an instant hit with critics and gamers alike, sets out to do everything bigger and better than the original.

Developer Almost Human managed to improve every last bit of the game and to offer a much larger world for players to explore, this time around feeling like a proper, fleshed-out fantasy setting, instead of the more monotonous locale that the previous game took place in.

Those who enjoyed the first Legend of Grimrock game have most likely already gobbled up the sequel, so let’s see what the game has to offer to those who are not at the forefront of the old-school gaming resurgence.

Story

Legend of Grimrock 2 doesn’t have a storyline fashioned in the traditional role-playing game manner.

You don’t start off on a mission to save the world or any other such ancestral duty, you play as a group of four individuals who manage to escape the bonds of captivity due to a shipwreck, but who find themselves stranded on a mysterious and foreboding island instead.

Trading their more mundane prison for an esoteric one, the quartet starts exploring the island of Nex, strange place riddled with monsters, traps, treasures and puzzles, under the control of the Island Master, a character shrouded in secrecy, but presumably wielding immense power.

Your mission is to make your way to the island and discover its many secrets before its perils and monsters overcome you.

The great outdoors is a refreshing change

Gameplay

Although the action now takes place on the overworld, the title’s old-school dungeon crawling roots are clearly visible, and you’ll be able to explore numerous underground labyrinths, as well as a couple of castles.

In a nice change of tone from the previous installment, you’ll be able to explore marshes, beaches, bogs, forests, and a few other outside environments, in addition to inspecting the stony walls of dungeons for secret switches.

The first thing you notice about the world is that it’s remarkably vibrant, alive and active, in spite of the grid-based movement system, hailing back from the days of Eye of the Beholder and Might & Magic.

The monster types are unique to each area and fit thematically, as forests will throw treants into your way and underground caves will assault you with mischievous mushrooms.

Your team is made out of four adventurers, and you can mix and match from five races and eight different classes, each of which offers specific bonuses and traits. In addition to this, there are also sixteen skills to increase as you level up.

The choices at your disposal are quite interesting, from the disease-immune Ratling and the bulky Minotaur and the usual Fighter, Rogue and Mage to the quirky Farmer class, that completely changes a fundamental aspect of role-playing games, the way you gain experience.

The actual gameplay is a mix of grid-based movement and real-time combat, interspersed with exploration and a lot of puzzle solving. The general flow of the game involves a lot of backtracking, analyzing places you’ve already visited hoping to find something you missed on your first pass.

Can you spot the secret here?

Although the movement system makes the game seem static, don’t be fooled by it. Standing still while fighting is a surefire way to take a lot more damage than you ought to, and sometimes a quick path to an early grave.

Things have been improved since the previous installment, and you won’t be able to keep most attacks at bay by simply standing in a diagonal tile and moving away whenever the opponent closes in, as there are many enemies that can keep up with you or even outmaneuver your party.

However, for the most part, your enemies will be pretty docile and you won’t be running for your life as long as you don’t plunge headfirst into uncharted territory. But manageable as enemies might be when they’re not in groups, the game is still quite difficult, and you should try to invest your skill points carefully and to make the most of the tools at your disposal, such as the ability to craft potions.

Although the world is fairly linear, you’ll be able to come across monsters that you’re not quite ready to face yet from time to time, but for the most part, everything you’ll encounter is pretty well balanced, provided that you’re ready for the obvious challenges.

The game doesn’t hold your hand, and at times it’s an exercise in frustration, as you won’t really know how to progress or what a certain hint means, and some rules you have to figure out yourself.

The bad thing about the bigger surface world is that you won’t know where certain clues apply, whether there is something to solve right in front of your eyes or in a distant land, making it harder to progress sometimes.

This is really nice and satisfying when a couple of things fall into place and you discover that you had the key to a previous puzzle all along, merely unable to identify it for what it actually was, but it also means that, when you’re backtracking and retracing your steps across the island several times, you’ll feel like screaming at the monitor.

Platin sum' beets

Some of the puzzles feel really contrived, and some secrets rely simply on you reading the map and guessing that there’s something concealed there, such as tiny buttons hidden in plain sight on rocks in the underground dungeons, and since you also get a shovel early on, along with the option to dig in front of you, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ll single-handedly revive the island’s agricultural industry, by the time your adventures in Nex are done.

But for the most part, the puzzles, a huge part of the entire experience, are pretty well made, with adequate clues and a lot of variety, from activating pressure plates to pulling the right levers and uncovering secret switches or dodging various hazards.

Unfortunately, the pitfalls of the archaic game design paradigm also translate into a lot of stupid and contrived puzzles and encounters, of which the deadly traps are the most annoying. Running into something you can’t avoid and have no prior knowledge of, resulting in a guaranteed death, means that you are forced to reload and breaks the flow of the game.

The combat system is also a bit cumbersome for my taste, since you have to click a lot and fidget instead of having a better, quicker way to perform attacks, special abilities and to cast spells, and the two-dimensional grid movement system coupled with real-time combat seems a tad clunky.

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Sound and visuals

The first thing you notice about the game is how well the water looks. I spent a good two minutes just staring at the waves, and that’s something you’ll find yourself doing a lot. For an old-school role-playing game, Legend of Grimrock 2 looks very good, even though that is one of the last things its fans are looking for.

Needless to say, it’s a pretty compelling bonus, one that greatly enhances the experience, even if that experience means higher-resolution giant spiders to face.

Some of the textures, of course, look a bit muddier on close inspection, and some assets could do with a better design, but overall, the game looks tight, the game world is very detailed and varied, it feels alive in spite of the static grid it’s represented on, and some of the effects are really good looking.

The music is also spot on, evoking all the great feeling of such a brave journey of exploration, providing a fitting and subtle background that foretells the mystery awaiting to be discovered by you.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion