You may remember me writing another, broad and general review on this game. And this time I would like to focus on a couple of things.
This time I warn you: Please don't go on reading, because I will share some "spoilered information" in here - especially in section 1!
Let's go ...
1. Toorum
My second play-through with the "Legend of Grimrock" I did with a special party - the one game-mode in which you do not play with a party of four characters, but only one single character - the single hero "Toorum".
The game never reveals why exactly Toorum was cast into this mountain. But during your first time playing the "Legend of Grimrock" you very likely will find notes written by him. So you know: Actually he was a guy who was in this mountain (long) before your party was judged to be imprisoned in this hell of a dungeon.
There are two purposes of "Toorum's notes" for this game:
a) On the one side it adds some atmosphere and background, some kind of a mystery to this dungeon; because with finding the notes and with knowing that never ever someone returned from mount Grimrock so far, you now realize: either he still is in this mountain or he died searching the dungeons;
Spoiler No. I
AGAIN! If you don't feel like wanting to learn to much about the game, STOP tf READIN'!
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b) on the other side the different notes give you an idea about secrets or simply warn you about certain special conditions; so these notes are meant to be some kind of help or advice for your first time in the "Legend of Grimrock".
Spoiler No. II
Now, if you go on playing the "Legend of Grimrock" the first time, sooner or later you may find a hidden, secret area.
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Besides finding an awesome axe you receive also the bones of Toorum. So right now you know: "Dang, he did not survive; but at least he left an awesome axe"
Spoiler No. III
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Who is it that speaks to me in "my" dreams in the game?
Yes, sometimes when your party/ Toorum rests you dream something weird about a voice speaking to you ... And if it is not Toorum, who is it?
Yes, sometimes when your party/ Toorum rests you dream something weird about a voice speaking to you ... And if it is not Toorum, who is it?
Spoiler No. IV
In order to make the Toorum-mode of the game available to you,
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you need to cast his bones into a blue crystal. Blue crystals exist on nearly any floor; they are there to give you a save- and rest-spot. And if you hurl the bones of Toorum against them, you will "hear a sigh of relief", and the bones are gone. This is how you "activate" the Toorum-mode.
Spoiler No. V
Toorum is a human, therefore a standard race of this game. And he is a male-character.
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But he is not skilled in one of the three standard classes. You will recognize two specific things:
a) On the one hand he really has some really good ability scores. I did not check it thoroughly; but it felt like being a lot more ability points then what you get, when you create your own human character.
b) Toorum owns six skills - three of the fighter class and three of the magic-user class. It is called a "ranger", but it reminds you more of the combat-mage.
a) On the one hand he really has some really good ability scores. I did not check it thoroughly; but it felt like being a lot more ability points then what you get, when you create your own human character.
b) Toorum owns six skills - three of the fighter class and three of the magic-user class. It is called a "ranger", but it reminds you more of the combat-mage.
)Back to Toorum again:
So this is, how the things started with my second play-through with Toorum. And I decided to make him a sword-fighting badass!
In contrary to my first play-through, which was in "hard" (especially challenging monsters), "old-school" (without maps), and with the "default party" of the game, this time I played in "easy-mode" and in "no old-school"-mode, because this time I wanted to focus a lot more on the secrets and the treasures to find. And the auto-map was supposed to help me here a bit, because I wanted to compare my automaps with the official maps available on the Grimrock-forum.
And the game went on ...
2. Easy mode
Easy mode means exactly this: The monsters react slowly; if they hit, they dish out little damage, and the AI seems to be less decisive. Comparing it with hard this means that the "Legend of Grimrock" is nearly a piece of cake, if you play it in easy. But ...
"Easy" may be the source of some frustrating experience - regarding the "boss"-fight at the end. (The exact nature of this "boos"-fight I won't mention, because this really is something you need to experience yourself - by either playing the game yourself or watching one of the many, many YouTube videos. The "boss" is a very cool and impressive combination of riddle, puzzle, combat and arcade actually.)
But this I tell you:
Spoiler No. VI
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There is one frustrating thing about the "boss"-fight: You will have plenty of monsters spawning like crazy and blocking your moves. Although the "boss"-fight takes place in a huge chamber with a few scattered pillars/ walls and some holes in the ground, you would have plenty of room to evade the "boos" and use the vast space to your advantage. But all the different monsters you have met during the second half of the dungeon simply become hindrances for you - especially the quickly moving ones. And if you don't keep a close eye on your surrounding, you all of a sudden may end up in dead ends, because the creatures simply block your way. If this happens, you really should consider reloading your last save ... Because as long as you don't have "crippled" the "boss" in terms of puzzle and riddle enough, you literally stand no chance in fighting him if cornered by monsters. Although the boss would take care of at least one monster next to you, you really are the next thing to die without further ado. And really, this is not funny ...
During my first play-through in hard I was so used in getting involved in many tight situations; so I was somehow prepared for this "boss"-fight; but it is a whole lot different from what you experience in the "easy-mode".
And this is - actually - the first minor "mark" on this game I don't appreciate so much. But this mark is only a scratch, not really something that harms the overall impression of the game ...
3. Impression after 2 play-throughs
The "Legend of Grimrock" is an old-school dungeon-crawl RPG-videogame. Tile-based movement, only "character sheets", but no display of your characters within the game, some kind of real-time-combat which is "limited" in terms of movement and cool-down-phases ... It's really that. There are no dialogues, no special sub-plots or quests. But you will face certain situations in which you don't marvel at the impressive graphics and claustrophobic atmosphere, but in which you have to use your brain in order to get passed a certain situation. And these riddles, puzzles as well as (few) arcade-things do not get any modification based on the easy-normal-hard-mode of the game. They remain the same.
Here two things are to be considered:
a) maybe it could help a bit to reduce the graphics details in order to get passed "timed puzzles", because again and again people have recognized that the input via keyboard or UI might have a lower code-based priority then graphical things ( I did not face any trouble though);
b) take care that your party-members don't carry too much wight, because weight has a negative effect on all your activities - especially movement.
And here I had to realize one special thing: If you play a party of four, it will take some time before your party is more or less well equipped. You start the game barehanded; and you need to find and collect stuff like weapons, armor, magic items, food (!), herbs for potions (!) and again FOOD! Food is important, especially with minotaurs in your party. And the consumption of food rises the more weight you carry and the more activity party-members have. But food, btw., has its weight as well.
And if you play Toorum alone you won't have so much of an issue equipping him pretty soon pretty well. All in all there are enough armor-sets and weapons scattered all over the dungeon; so playing Toorum will lead you to leaving stuff where you found it - unless the newly found things are more awesome - naturally. But it may become a major issue with the food even with Toorum. Because even Toorum has only limited room for items. Yes, you find sacks and even boxes which add more space to the available room; but this also means that you will more likely end up being overloaded as well.
This micromanagement-system is a challenge of its own. During the better part of the game with Toorum I really had a lot of trouble; there were only few times in which my Toorum was not suffering from too much load - and that was basically at the beginning of the game until I found the first heavy armor-types and at the end of the game when I dropped all the stuff I did not need for the "boss"-fight.
And this is what I learned: Although Toorum is quite a muscle-dude, he also has good reflexes. And people on the Grimrock-forums keep telling: "Forget his skills adding strength to him; take care of raising his evasion; armor weighs too much, and you'll never be able to compensate all the damage with the armor; evading damage is different, because it is an all or nothing thing about damage; you need to know that although heavy armor compensates a lot of damage, it also makes you a lot easier to be hit!"
So this would be my plan for the next time: Don't take care of the Valor-armor, but keep an straight eye on maximizing evasion. Less armor means less trouble carrying things around means less trouble with food ... It is just as easy. And if I understand people correctly: This is actually confirmed - somehow-ish.
Just as an aside: You will find plenty of scrolls - describing spells, how to prepare potions, having some hints and Toorum'snotes. These weigh "a lot" and especially block a lot of your luggage-space because each one is treated equally big/ space-consumptive like for instance heavy armor-cuirasses ... Yes, no "detail-work" here like within Diabolo ...
Spoiler No. VII and VIII
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You do not need to own the items in order to prepare the potions or to cast spells; they only tell you, how to do so. That'S it. Write things down on a sheet of paper or "download" perpared documents on the web many fans have created.
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If you play Toorum, you won't find any single Toorum note. Guess why ...!
a) How would it be to play Toorum again, this time focusing on his "mage-part" while playing the "Legend of Grimrock" in "hard"-mode?
b) And with having learned different aspects about this game so far, how "easy" would it be to play this game with a fully optimized party of four in the game-mode "hard"?
And this is something that strikes me a lot: Although I have played through this game two times now in about three weeks, I still feel like this game has not lost anything of its "taste", "impression" ... I still get overly excited at challenging combat, the atmosphere drowns me in suspension, the more complex riddles feel "new" anytime I encounter them, and sometimes monsters still give me the creeps ...
4. Bottomline
Okok. The last half did not have as many spoilers as the first half; and yet you have learned a couple of things about this game, which you would not know, if you do not play the game. It is simple as that.
And playing the game is something I really like to recommend you to do.
a) For the old-school-fans this game is a must.
b) For the ones never having experienced this kind of gamers this game is a very different experience from what you get in games like Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, or Skyrim/ Elder Scrolls/ Morrowing/ Oblivion, Diabolo, Gothic I to x-thousand, or MMORPGs ... And even, if you think the tile-based movement and "simplicistic" means of combat and simulation may be boring (the opposite is true, because it is a very different means of playing a game), the graphics and whole atmosphere are more of a candy then super vast landscapes in so-called sand-box games who have nothing else to them as the "thing-"compensating size ...
If you like to run through this game as fast as possible, you will still have likely a weekend of gaming ahead - even the developers are rumored to having said that even they would need a lot more then 10 hours to get through a game-session once; if you try to get all the secrets and details of this game it is very likely that you spend like 25-30 hours or more on a single play-through. And it is worth it. Each dungeon beginning with the second one is huge enough to keep you busy for a while. Yes, the first dungeon is pretty "small" and "less challenging", because basically it fulfills its purpose as kind of a tutorial letting you learn how to survive in this game ... And this tutorial already is pretty neat and catching ...
I hope all of this helps a bit ...
All the best!
Mad
tl;rd
