Grimrock

To comprehend Legend of Grimrock, you'll have to harken back - about 25 years into the past - to the age of so called "dungeon crawls". Gloriously beefy bulks of role playing goodness they were; setting standards for the whole genre. These days, howe'er, pure-breed dungeon crawls are widely considered all but obsolete. Almost Human wanted to change that: With Legend of Grimrock, this Finnish team of four has created an RPG that might have the modern looks, but on the inside it is wired so pleasantly old-fashioned, it might as well have carelessly overslept the past two decades.


A functional story, roughly told

In Legend of Grimrock, you play traditionally as a merry band of four heroes that initially gets thrown into a vast dungeon. What deadly secrets may lurk in these murky depths, you will learn over the course of 13 expansive levels. But be warned: Cutscenes, voice acting, even interesting characters - you won't find anything of that; only a few panels of text to convey the paper-thin plot. While that may well fit the retro-style concept of the game, it nontheless comes as a detriment - in this regard, the game stays way behind its possibilities.


The basics of Legend of Grimrock: Back to the days of yore

Just like in Dungeon Master (1987) or Eye of the Beholder (1990), the game's environments are mapped onto a grid of squares. You control your protagonists from the first person perspective, but you can only turn by 90 degrees and trot through the hallways step by step. Neither is there any diagonal movement, nor the ability to jump or climb, as all the levels are substantially planar. Concessions to modern gaming are rather marginal, and for instance can be found in the control scheme: Instead of clicking directional arrows, your party can be conveniently controlled WASD-style.

In this tried and true formula you explore tricky mazes that brim with puzzles, nooks and crannies. Many secret doors can only be opened by finding and activating tiny switches in the dim-lighted corridors. To keep the search manageable, most wall textures will repeat quicky. That may sound drab and take away from the atmosphere, but there's a point: On the one hand the uniform environments make switches stick out, but at the other hand players may easily get lost in the monotonous hallways, which - like it or not - is a characteristic trait of a good dungeon crawl.

In order to prevent things from getting too confusing, though, Legend of Grimrock offers a proper automap, including a handy notepad function. True purists who have little use for such modern conveniences will even be able to turn off the automap completely and do the mapping themselves - with pen and paper: The game comes with a graph paper template on pdf - Just print out a few sheets and you're ready to draw some maps.


Taxing riddles

The game draws its charm from exploring corridors, searching for secrets and solving demanding puzzles. There are dozens of logical conundrums and reaction demanding traps and most of them are well thought out. If you hate puzzles, though, be warned: Hints are few and far between. Especially later on in the game, many tasks must be solved without any further help whatsoever. That may be a gratifying challenge, but when push comes to shove, you might be wandering around cluelessly for a while until you figure out the solution. We happened to rack our brains more than once throughout the course of our quest, but in the end we managed to finish the game without looking up a walkthrough - so there's nothing beyond feasible.


Character building: Items and abilities

Keeping an eye out for secret rooms pays off: Many hidden places contain weapons and armour parts that are absolutely vital to keep your party alive. While some basic equipment is gathered quickly, the better gear isn't just scattered over the dungeon floors and waiting to be picked up - it's accordinly rare and you have to earn it. All the more satisfying is the moment where you find a powerful magic blade or a sturdy helmet behind a moving brick wall. Besides, collecting food is a must, since all the action wears down your heroes over time. Hungry adventurers don't regenerate hit points, so you have to fill their stomachs every now and then.

The same amount of care needs to be put into your characters' skills: Warrior, mage and rogue are the classes to pick your heroes from, furthermore you can manage their abilities, attributes and personal traits. The stat system is robust and so conventional that versed RPG gamers should feel at home immediately. There are no active skills, most upgrades you gain through levelling up are of passive nature. Only mages can gain new abilities by attributing skill points in certain ways. And here's another warning: Taking back points is not an option. If for whatever reason you developed one of your heroes into the wrong direction, you have to put up with it.


Combat in Legend of Grimrock: Tried and true

As to be expected from a typical dungeon crawl experience, there are all kinds of creatures roaming the corridors. Those real-time battles are neither offering a challenge, nor much variation, though. Enemies simply walk up to you, then stop walking and start hacking, biting, casting magic or doing whatever else it takes to hurt you. You respond with a few simply timed sword strikes or arrows, fire up a spell, or quaff a potion in case of emergency. To use your weapons, you click the according symbols right next to your character portraits - there are no hotkeys for attacking.

There's not much tactical depth to combat, either and reaction is only an issue if you're backing away from an enemy. Things get a bit more frantic only when performing magic: Legend of Grimrock uses a rune table, which means you have to click and combine different symbols in order to conjure different spells. That may take a moment getting used to, but is learned pretty quickly.

Despite the real-time mechanics, accurate aiming or even active blocking is neither possible, nor necessary - Legend of Grimrock is not an action game, after all. Battles are fair for the most part; only towards the end the developers went a little overboard: The final battle comes of as annoying rather than thrilling. Our advice, basically for the whole adventure: Keep saving your game frequently!


Technically sound, graphically sharp

The game might be old-fashioned, but it does certainly not look the part: The 3D graphics are not to be sneezed at. Monsters are well-designed and animated, textures are sharp, lighting and shadows are believable and help providing a dense and creepy atmosphere. Technically the game deserves praise across the board: On our test rigs it ran stable and stutter-free, no notable bugs, no crashes, no cause for complaint. The almost complete lack of music is unfortunate, but certainly not detrimental to the suspenseful atmosphere. Better sound effects, however, would have been nothing but beneficial.


Length, price and marketing

Taking your time in search of secrets should net you at least 15 hours with Legend of Grimrock. That's an appropriate amount of play time for your money, since after all the game will cost you no more than 15 bucks, and even less if you preorder. This well-done resurrection of an old genre will be availavle on April the 11th as an English-language version for download via Steam, GOG.com, and the official site, Grimriock.com.