Spoilers. Finished it, here's my review and thoughts.

[Gekko]

Finished the game today. Here's some of my thoughts:

First of all, there seemed to be a bit of a style change to the original in how the game progressed. At times the puzzles and riddles produced almost a La-Mulana feeling. It seems this game moved on from simple dungeon crawling to more varied grand puzzle that the player was solving. Definitely a welcome change - as much as I enjoyed the original game, its linearity wasn't really to my liking. The more open world style with choice for your path might actually make me replay this game.

Level design seemed to utilize more height differences. I was initially a bit skeptical on how that would work in a tile-based game, but in the end it wasn't that bad. The only times I found myself kinda disliking this was when I had to peer through some floor grating (like in the castle "test chamber") and I couldn't quite rotate my camera to the right angle. Portal style levels with the tile movement was a curious design. The height levels worked fine for some puzzles. This also made the dungeons seem a bit more spacious. Water was a good addition. I particularly liked those secrets that you got by risking drowning by searching some extra area underwater.

But then, there were the monster spawns. I'm not a big fan of those situations where you enter a tight corridor and monsters spawn at your both sides. There were occasionally times when monster attacked you from four sides without giving you any room to maneuver and avoid being flanked. This didn't happen often, but there were some cases. Traps are one thing, as are the secrets like the ancient claymore, but the main playthrough should perhaps give a slight warning before spawning a party-killing horde of enemies at all sides. I don't mind if you end up in that kind of situation due to your own mistakes, but there should always be a less fighty way out. The first game had a problem where you could dance around and avoid any enemy retaliation. When the player is forced to fight enemies directly, fair-and-square, the player can no longer use his personal skill to fight the enemies. Instead, the game turns into a more traditional CRPG when focus is placed on good party composition and stats. There's some appeal to that too. Boss fights are an obvious exception to this - I liked them all. My favorite was the desert, if you can call that a boss fight.

The new classes call for another game, but at least the alchemist is a fantastic class. The idea of some dude growing herbs in his pants is great. Something I did notice, though, was that my mage was underperforming in lots of situations. In the end I used him as a utility character instead of combat. Sure, at times a nice puff of fire was the thing needed to kill enemies weak to that, but mostly the spells were simply a more convenient way to get light. The force field spell was particularly useful in a tight spot when I could create my own battlefield instead of being attacked from the flank. Could use more spells though. I didn't get enough levels before finishing the game to cast all my scrolls, but things like shoveling by magic would be neat. I kept forgetting where my spade was. After playing Might & Magic 6 a non-combat mage was a refreshing change too.

The looks were a definite upgrade, and I'm not referring to simply more advanced rendering. At times I found myself bored in the first game as all I ever saw was those grey-green stone bricks with the occasional spike pit. With Grimmy 2, there were tropical beaches followed by forests and bogs with around half of the game spent in a dungeon. The outdoor areas were my favorite portion of the game for sure, not necessarily for anything else except for the more varied paths you could take. When you look at the map, the outdoor areas aren't that much more varied when it comes to choosing a path, but at least they give that illusion. When I did the ruins of Desarune, followed by getting lost in the archives and then the sewers, it was as if the greatest fanfare when I finally stumbled out on the Hamlet of Stormreach on the fantastic beaches. This more varied palette was a huge improvement. I wish there was more stuff to do in the outdoors though. It's obviously an expense, but I would have liked more varied appearance to the dungeons instead of using the same grey-green bricks everywhere. My least favorite area was the graveyard. It simply felt dull, except for the grave robbing. Was there some elaborate puzzle in the grave inscriptions though? The monster design is pretty cool. I got Might & Magic 6 vibes from a lot of them.

The map is great. I generally make a lot of notes when playing this kind of games. I'm not sure if the map was as smooth in the original Grimrock as I played that in Oldschool mode. The automatically generated map seemed to work better for me: When I didn't have to manually check if I got every tile right I had more time to add my 1000 different notes and memos. There should be an option to move your markings around without deleting them though, and the text editor should have scrolling. If I need to fix a letter early in my note, I need to erase everything up to that letter.

The puzzles were great, excluding a few exceptions. It's been a while since I played the first game, but I don't remember it having riddles and clues on how to solve the puzzles. As I said above, I got the vibes of La-Mulana. Especially the talking stone heads giving you hints were a great mechanic. I didn't really get stuck on any of the puzzles so much as I got to missing some obvious wall switch. Due to making the La-Mulana connection I might have cursed myself as I assumed the dungeons would involve inter-dungeon puzzles. In the ruins of Desarune (I think) you find the four figurines. I somehow managed to miss the room where you are supposed to leave them on the four shelves and tried rubbing the statues on half the game world, wondering how they are linked to my bag of assorted clues. There was some of this world-level puzzle solving though, namely the serpent staff. I hoped there was more of this sort - when I realized the game isolated almost all puzzles in the same dungeon it was usually a bit too easy to clear them. The final puzzle had me stuck, though. One of the stone heads in the Barren Desert tells that you've been lied to and six is the most powerful figure. At this point I may have over-thought it a bit as my table now has around 10 assorted wrapped papercubes and 3D shapes with the world map and clues drawn on them. What was that hint about, though? The fifth shrine had nothing to do with the number 6. Everything about the shovel and its related riddles was fantastic. I don't know if you can find enough golden keys to open every golden lock in the game, but I got the feeling that you can't, or if you can you aren't expected to. It was a pretty cool system to choose from a few possible bonuses to your party.

I got stuck at the Runemaster's Trial for a good while as I went there very early in the game and thought the riddle was related to a secret, and as such not mandatory. I left the puzzle undone and went doing most of the other game. When I finally managed to do it I was near my end-game levels and had to facepalm hard when I realized you were supposed to do the pyramid a lot earlier. At least the desert fight was easy. I also got stuck in the castle pillar puzzle. I assumed it had something to do with the pillars in the floor below, since there was such a great number of them that surely there was some elaborate puzzle related to them. I spent an hour trying to figure out which ones had candles, if the ones without candles formed a shape, etc.

I was quite surprised when I realized you can actually screw yourself over by managing to drop a key in some place that you will never look at again, or not realizing you need the horn or serpent staff more than once. Another issue that might arise is the fact you need to have a mage or someone with at least two levels in concentration to get through the Crystal Mines and the Nexus. It's probably possible to grind enough enemies to get some levels in concentration if you notice that those skills are needed during end-game. Or, do you absolutely need to go through these areas as there are 4 extra essences in the game, if you only try to escape? In addition there are a few cases where you can lock yourself in a room permanently and need to reload. This can happen if there's a switch next to a gate, you click the gate and then instantly sidestep in the room. I guess the game assumes the player has brains. I was simply surprised to realize this can happen in a game made in this time and age when it seems like a law of the industry to never make games unwinnable.

I finished the game in 27 hours and found 50 of the secrets. Now to wait for the user levels.

[eLPuSHeR]

Nice review.

[minmay]

You don't need to use the lightning bolt spell to solve that puzzle in the crystal mines. You can just throw a lightning bomb at the receptor. (Unless you're out of lightning bombs too...maybe you can also throw a lightning rod or something at it, wouldn't be surprised)

I assume the head talking about "six is the most powerful figure" is referring to the fact that the hexagon in the Balance rune has 6 edges. Not a very useful clue.

There are some inter-dungeon puzzles (many of the buried treasure chests in particular, but also things like getting onto Sleet Island) but nothing close to the extent of La-Mulana.

[eispfogel]

The end of Legend of Grimrock 1 explains why 6 is the most powerful figurine

[Dr.Disaster]

I assume the head talking about "six is the most powerful figure" is referring to the fact that the hexagon in the Balance rune has 6 edges. Not a very useful clue.

On the contrary. It's the clue you need to access the 5th shrine.

[Rodin]

You don't need to use the lightning bolt spell to solve that puzzle in the crystal mines. You can just throw a lightning bomb at the receptor. (Unless you're out of lightning bombs too...maybe you can also throw a lightning rod or something at it, wouldn't be surprised)

They also provide Lightning Bombs at the puzzle itself (or nearby - in the same large room, at least). There's also a sword with a lightning special nearby, although that may be the one that requires Concentration. Not sure what puzzle in the Nexus requires Concentration though.

[minmay]

Lightning blade requires light weapons 1 and concentration 1, yeah.

Not sure what puzzle in the Nexus requires Concentration though.

Me neither.

[Smashington]

I assume the head talking about "six is the most powerful figure" is referring to the fact that the hexagon in the Balance rune has 6 edges. Not a very useful clue.

On the contrary. It's the clue you need to access the 5th shrine.

Not exactly the clue. A stone head elsewhere gives a much less cryptic one: "the gate was not opened by the most complex, but the most balanced spell of all" or something like that. I was able to figure out that it means the middle rune by that clue alone (I, too, visited the snake temple only after doing everything else, thinking the Runemaster Trial wasn't an obligatory puzzle).

[Gekko]

Lightning blade requires light weapons 1 and concentration 1, yeah.

Not sure what puzzle in the Nexus requires Concentration though.

Me neither.

I assume the head talking about "six is the most powerful figure" is referring to the fact that the hexagon in the Balance rune has 6 edges. Not a very useful clue.

On the contrary. It's the clue you need to access the 5th shrine.

Not exactly the clue. A stone head elsewhere gives a much less cryptic one: "the gate was not opened by the most complex, but the most balanced spell of all" or something like that. I was able to figure out that it means the middle rune by that clue alone (I, too, visited the snake temple only after doing everything else, thinking the Runemaster Trial wasn't an obligatory puzzle).

Oops, this was incorrect. In my notes that I used for writing the above text I had written down: "Need forcefield to enter Nexus. Can it be done without a mage?", but it wasn't the forcefield spell that was used after all. There's a staff that can cast forcefield, but needs two levels of concentration. I had assumed the most balanced spell would involve all four of the elemental runes. Can you cast the balance rune without a spellcaster, though?

[Shady_arc]

Can you cast the balance rune without a spellcaster, though?

Of course. The only important difference for a mage is that such character can cast spells with bare hands (everyone else needs a piece of equipment). Just cheked, my fighter can cast the rune.