Review: Legend of Grimrock II (PC/Steam)

In this review, we seek the essences in the PC/Steam game Legend of Grimrock II. We find out how well this RPG game plays.

This game was released in 2014. It is the sequel to the game Legend of Grimrock. That game got a pretty solid score, so we thought we’d play the sequel to see if it continues that level of gameplay.

The story is that your party is being transported on a prison ship. Suddenly, a storm hits and the ships compass is magically scrambled to take the ship off course. The ship then crashes into the rocks. The cage you are in survives and floats on a piece of the ships hull. Eventually, you land on a beach on the mysterious island of Nex. You then break out of the cage and go exploring the island.

The game itself allows you a multitude of options. From forming your party to choosing the difficulty, you have plenty of options afforded to you before you even start playing. One thing to note that forming your party offers you more options then the last game. This can be good or bad depending on what you are looking for in a party.

As for the game itself, it plays much like the previous game. You still have the tile-based movements and real-time combat. You also have your character sheets, inventory, and skills at the ready. A fourth page has been added, though. This page is the traits that you have. You start off with a few, but a number of them can be earned simply by adding to your skills on level up.

Levelling up has been overhauled. Instead of being limited to a few traits, characters can be built up using the whole range of skills. Additionally, each skill has been reduced to max out at 5. While that sounds thrilling at first, you only get one skill point for each level up. This means that you still need to pick and choose where to focus your characters skill improvements wisely.

Formation strategy remains the same, though the increased number of classes can change your strategy around a bit.

Of course, the big difference in this game is the fact that you are no longer confined to a single dungeon like the previous game. Instead, you get to explore a whole island filled with smaller dungeons. The general goal is to locate the power gems and place them on the essence altar. Doing so will yield one of the magic essences used to unlock an end game location.

Another big change is the addition of permanent injuries. While you can equip items on various parts of your body, it’s possible to injure those parts as well. Injuring your feet, for instance, will slow you down. Injure your body and you’ll be unable to regenerate over time. If you injure an arm, you’ll either be unable to use a weapon or shield with that arm. The two ways you can heal is through healing potions and use of the magic crystals.

Alchemy has been overhauled to some degree in this game. You are no longer confined to using flasks. Instead, the flask is automatically created and removed once you are done. This can be a real stress reducer in the long run as you no longer have to juggle through your inventory to produce potions on short notice. What’s more is that using your mortar and pestle will yield a simple screen with all your herbs nicely in a sub-menu. This can help produce those potions more easily.

Another big change is the two tabs for your hands. Before, you could only equip two things at most – one for each hand. Now, you can switch between one tab or another for a different set of equipment. This can be very useful if you want to switch purposes of your character quickly.

As for what you see on the island, there are new things besides the essences and power gems. For one, there are now heads that will drop small hints here and there. Another new feature is a hub world that you unlock with hub keys. There are four areas that the hub can access and can save you a fair bit of time travelling depending on what you are doing.

One of the big changes is the introduction of water areas. You can actually go swimming in deep water, although, swimming might not be the accurate term here. Instead, you simply sink to the bottom and walk around underwater. Don’t stay underwater too long or you’ll start to drown. A big pitfall, however, is the fact that you cannot attack underwater. For whatever reason, only specialized weapons can be used underwater. Beyond that, simple swords and knives will simply remain unusable.

Also, all the over world areas connect to each other for the most part. Dungeon’s also have multiple levels, but saying they are true 3D is a bit of a stretch. Instead, the different levels only overlap wherever there is a bridge. Otherwise, you can simply move from one floor to another. Think of the single floor multi-level layout as being similar to the original Doom – 3D in some respects, but 2D in others.

For me, this is one of those games where the developers did have a lot of the right ideas, but the execution wound up falling short.

One of the great ideas was to ditch the single dungeon concept and move to a large world to explore. It’s a great idea because it opens up a whole lot of possibilities. In fact, the Might and Magic series did precisely this and the quality wound up skyrocketing as a result. Really, this was a great move.

The problem here is the fact that the developers had to cram as many puzzles as possible into these areas. Want to make a small amount of progress? Got to find a switch first. Need to cross that river? Got to solve a pile of small puzzles first. Need to lower one of the large number of gates? There’s a switch or pressure plate you need to trigger somewhere. In the dungeons themselves, such puzzles could be expected. In the overworld, that could help make things interesting. Unfortunately, this game decided to go overboard with those puzzles with the exception of Twigroot forest.

The effect on the game wound up being pretty bad. It went from a game where you are excited to explore to a game that tested your patience to a pretty severe degree. While some puzzles were pretty straight forward, a number of them got to the extreme of giving you instructions in a completely invented language. Sure, they could be solved, but I found myself becoming mentally fatigued from solving so many after a while. It even got to the point where the game simply went from a fun diversion to work as I eventually had to rely on multiple guides just to figure out how to properly advance.

While that is going on, sometimes, the level design left a lot to be desired. One of the big problems were the locations of some of the life crystals. In some areas, they were nicely spread out. In others, there wound up being small droughts between them. The issue of finding these crystals wound up being compounded when a number of them were cleverly hidden away behind puzzles. Yes, in some cases, if you wanted to save and restore health at a crystal, you needed solve even more puzzles. Personally, that made the game less fun and more of a drag to get through.

Another issue is the battle system. This problem has simply remained unchanged from the previous game. At first, you could take on enemies much like your average RPG game. Unfortunately, the difficulty simply ramps up quickly. It gets to the point where you are relying less on your characters ability and more on the ability to simply side step before an enemy attacks. As a result, much like the previous game, this one ends up being less of an RPG game and more of an action game. In order to get far in the game, you more or less have to cheat with the mechanics that it offers.

A lot of concepts are actually very workable on paper. Assemble four power gems to get a key essence orb. Unfortunately, I remain unconvinced that the execution of this is actually well done. They seem more half-haphazardly placed in the area with one or two actually being in a nice designated dungeon. If four ended up being too much, three would have been sufficient. Place two in designated dungeons and one in an overworld area that takes a bit of getting to. That really would have worked better in the long run than what is found in the game itself.

Generally speaking, this is one of those games that actually have a number of great ideas on paper, but the execution ended up falling short. The large island concept is a great idea, but the level design with loads of puzzles just to make the smallest amount of progress ended up making this game feel like a mess. The power gem concept along with the essence keys works great on paper, but it seemed like the developers ran out of time to put everything in nicely. Additionally, the battle system remains the same with all the flaws and steep difficulty curve that compels a player to cheat. In the end, I wanted to like this one, but found myself unable to do so.

Graphically, this is where the game shines the most. The various settings are very nicely laid out. The sandy beaches, forests, cave settings, and castle areas all provide some impressive eye candy. I also really liked how the characters were modelled and animated. Even some of the effects work quite well despite it sometimes being a bit on the simple side. Of course, the best effect was the day/night cycles and how it affected all the overworld areas. This wound up being very spot on. So, an overall great effort there.

Meanwhile, the audio is improved. There’s some subtle music throughout to provide nice ambience. It goes beyond simple intro music. Effects in the different areas are nicely done. Also, the party and enemy effects along with other sound effects are nicely done. So, a solid effort all around here.

Overall, I wanted to like the game more than I did. There are a lot of great ideas that improve the game from the previous one. Unfortunately, issues hold this game back by quite a bit. The biggest problem is the fact that the game crams too many puzzles into a small setting, stalling your ability to really progress much in the game. Meanwhile, the battle system is still a flawed system with the difficulty curve compelling you to more or less cheat. There are also a number of other flaws in the level layouts that make for an irritating play. Graphics are great and the audio is solid overall. So, a fairly mediocre game, unfortunately.

Overall
Furthest point in game: Defeated the rattling boss. Died when I got randomly attacked by elementals.

General gameplay: 12/25
Replay value: 6/10
Graphics: 8/10
Audio: 3/5

Overall rating: 58%

Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.