GRIMOIRE has arrived

[Tigranes]

I keep telling myself to wait for GoG release and a manual, but I feel the pull of this wonderful looking Wizardry clone.  My biggest problem with Wizardry VI and VII was you needed a notebook handy just to play, and I can see from the pics that Grimoire has annotated map feature. It would be nice if it had a vitual notebook too as well as some class requirement charts or refrence cards. 

 

You can tell it took 20 years to make with the art, some of the creatures have that old school charm style wise and then others, like the gang at the beginning, look contemporary in the way they were drawn and colored. 

 

The map works well and you won't need a separate notebook, there is a lack of class reqs and other information until Cleve puts out a manual and/or the community info pooling comes together a bit more. Right now it's more like if you fired up Wiz7 but didn't have the manual, which can be fun in a trying different things way.

[majestic]

I think I need to reroll. Again. Looks like berserkers are better than warriors in all ways except having access to certain weapons that templars can also use (and I have a templar in my library thanks to a lucky roll of 30).

 

Templars and bards also effectively gain access to cleric spells after a few levels and the only casters worth taking seem to be the necromancer with what looks like the only unique spell list in the game and the sage for the ancient history skill they only have and having access to a lot of utility spells.

[SonicMage117]

Steam is very important in this case, the developer is more active on the Steam forums than anywhere else.

 

Anyways, the reviews are more "legit" now and it seems like the average continues to fall.

 

From 74% to 71% overnight.

[Tigranes]

I think I need to reroll. Again. Looks like berserkers are better than warriors in all ways except having access to certain weapons that templars can also use (and I have a templar in my library thanks to a lucky roll of 30).

 

Templars and bards also effectively gain access to cleric spells after a few levels and the only casters worth taking seem to be the necromancer with what looks like the only unique spell list in the game and the sage for the ancient history skill they only have and having access to a lot of utility spells.

 

I just can't be bothered rolling for a templar at the start, especially since I can't tell yet what most classes do. 

 

A lot of classes seem to gain equivalent spell selection with other classes later on, and with 8 character slots coverage is never the problem I think. I've gotten a lot of mileage with an Aeorb Sage, who can lockpick and identify and detect secrets right off the bat, in the first areas.

 

The lockpick minigame is totally weird, you get a little cryptic phrase clue then essentially play the game of hangman? It's fine, it just boggles the mind who would choose hangman as the mechanic for a lockpick game. I suppose all the locks in this world are primarily magical, and locksmithery is seen as a literary art that tests travelers in the ways of symbolism, or something. 

[the_dog_days]

 

I keep telling myself to wait for GoG release and a manual, but I feel the pull of this wonderful looking Wizardry clone.  My biggest problem with Wizardry VI and VII was you needed a notebook handy just to play, and I can see from the pics that Grimoire has annotated map feature. It would be nice if it had a vitual notebook too as well as some class requirement charts or refrence cards. 

 

You can tell it took 20 years to make with the art, some of the creatures have that old school charm style wise and then others, like the gang at the beginning, look contemporary in the way they were drawn and colored. 

 

The map works well and you won't need a separate notebook, there is a lack of class reqs and other information until Cleve puts out a manual and/or the community info pooling comes together a bit more. Right now it's more like if you fired up Wiz7 but didn't have the manual, which can be fun in a trying different things way.

 

 

Am I the only person who still uses a real spiral notebook when gaming?

[Hurlshort]

I use a notebook for certain MMO's, and quite a bit for any RPGmaker projects I am doing.

[Tigranes]

I enjoyed the stylus semi-manual mapping in Etrian Odyssey recently. Made me think that although I never really played, say, the earliest Wizardries, there is a certain fun in mapping the dungeons yourself if the game provides extensive, labyrinthine, dangerous dungeons full of interesting stuff.

 

After a couple hours to figure basics out I'm starting to really get into it, it feels like a really good game despite the suboptimal interface. Actually, even with the suboptimal interface, it's faster to grow on me than Wiz8 or M&M6 was when I first tried them (long after release). It feels like those days when you are figuring out what skills do and what this new item does instead of reading it all up online or in-game and never having to discover anything.

[majestic]

I just can't be bothered rolling for a templar at the start, especially since I can't tell yet what most classes do. 

 

A lot of classes seem to gain equivalent spell selection with other classes later on, and with 8 character slots coverage is never the problem I think. I've gotten a lot of mileage with an Aeorb Sage, who can lockpick and identify and detect secrets right off the bat, in the first areas.

 

The lockpick minigame is totally weird, you get a little cryptic phrase clue then essentially play the game of hangman? It's fine, it just boggles the mind who would choose hangman as the mechanic for a lockpick game. I suppose all the locks in this world are primarily magical, and locksmithery is seen as a literary art that tests travelers in the ways of symbolism, or something. 

 

 

Aeorbs are the best race for Sages - by far, actually. They get a 2.0 bonus roll multiplicator. Templars are sort of paladins, high martial skills with access to cleric spells and a holy symbol for buffing (that barely ever works at level 1, which tells me that they really weren't meant to be rolled as starting class).

 

My current lineup is Berserker, Metalsmith, Templar, Thief, Bard, Necromancer and Sage - and I picked up Little Rosy.

 

There are two lockpicking minigames - the hangman one which uses lockpicking as skill and the chest one where... you do whatever. Cut wires, apparently. Because chests are da bomb. Geez.

[majestic]

The one thing that bothers me the most about the game is the intentional anachronism stew. On the one hand you have an automapper, a quest journal AND the ability to leave footnotes on the maps and on the other hand you can't even load your game without quitting it first, and while you can reroll as much as you like it's as much a pain in the arse as it can be. Roll three times, pick race again, roll three times, pick race... whatever for? Either give us infinite rerolls in a usable fashion or roll the bonus only once without rerolling. *shrug*

 

Well, I got patience. At least all those hours spent grinding in MMOs are paying off now.

[Osvir]

Watched a couple of vids, read coments, reviews kept ticking hours. Gave in and bought it.

 

Unarmed Berserker Leonar are pretty good too.

 

Still don't quite know what's a good Bonus Point spread is though, during CC.

 

Do I put melee on extra health? Attributes? Skills for Rogueish and magical? Tips?

Edited August 9, 2017 by Osvir

[Tigranes]

Health for the two frontliners is good given how many hits they take. After that, who knows? I've been doing attributes mostly, and then skills for the likes of Sage who have a lot of things to spend on.

[SonicMage117]

So far the game reviews have took a nosedive. From 80% to 66% positive in the lsst 2 days. I realize we are living in an optimistic world where we want to see these types of old-timer games succeed (I'm looking at you Alvaron) but that doesn't displace the truth here.

 

So far, it's not one of the more enjoyable titles of the year. Average at best, I can see why people are disappointed but I also know why people want a game like this to succeed so badly. I think it's 50/50 on whoever plays it so I'm not surprised by the 66% positive that is currently on Steam ratings. I think that's fair for this title.

[majestic]

Heh. Cleve's recent patch broke my game. Not only did my character library disappear (including the pre-made characters) the game now can't overwrite saves any more. It pretends to do, but simply doesn't - so just in case you're playing check if that happens for you too.

[SonicMage117]

Heh. Cleve's recent patch broke my game. Not only did my character library disappear (including the pre-made characters) the game now can't overwrite saves any more. It pretends to do, but simply doesn't - so just in case you're playing check if that happens for you too.

I read about that happening in some reviews.

 

I wonder how old Cleve actually is abd how many years he has on programming vs how much knowledge he has in it. Strange that so many problems have occured, at least to me.

[majestic]

For what it's worth, reinstalling the game fixes the savegame issues. Looks like Steam's auto-updater doesn't roll out the latest version of Grimoire.

[ShadySands]

What's the verdict? Best game ever or the best game of all time?

[SonicMage117]

With 19 hours of play...

 

"By far the the least playable game I've ever purchased from Steam. It runs at 1024x768, and even then the windows and print are tiny. No manual. No explanation of anything. Crashes constantly. Every update brings another set of bugs. The graphics are from 1993. The interface is horrid. I can't believe someone took 20 years to create this garbage. To me it runs like a game an 11th grader created in a semester. I've been playing these games since Pool of Radiance. This is not a throwback to those games (unless you consider the lack of polish and clunky coding as a throwback). If you have nothing else to play wait for the next few updates then carefully consider buying it for around $10."

 

I'd say this is still best game of all time for the stubborn 45yo though (Alvaron I'm looking at you!)

[Obsidian sucks]

The one thing that bothers me the most about the game is the intentional anachronism stew. On the one hand you have an automapper, a quest journal AND the ability to leave footnotes on the maps and on the other hand you can't even load your game without quitting it first, and while you can reroll as much as you like it's as much a pain in the arse as it can be. Roll three times, pick race again, roll three times, pick race... whatever for? Either give us infinite rerolls in a usable fashion or roll the bonus only once without rerolling. *shrug*

 

Well, I got patience. At least all those hours spent grinding in MMOs are paying off now.

In Wizardry 6 and 7 I think you had to create the whole character everytime you wanted to reroll the stats, so it is an improvement

 

I cant wait to play this game, it looks awesome. Dude really shot himself in the foot concerning the bungled updates and subsequent review drop. 

[Wrath of Dagon]

My policy is always to wait for at least 2 weeks to up to 2 months depending on the game for the patches to stabilize.

[Tigranes]

Game seems to be in a pretty stable state since *.*.*.12 or so. I've had no problems (and, in fact, no crashes since v1) and the savegame crisis also seems to be over. Now he just needs to do the quality of life stuff like removing looping enemy sounds and that manual (which, anyone who's played the game will realise by now, is actually going to take a lot of work to write). 

 

I've never actually been a huge Wizardry/M&M fan, but beyond the clunky interface the game content is actually really good, something which still surprises me. Here you have this wacky guy with a wacky development schedule and tons of wacky interface / coding decisions, but in terms of level/quest design and the like the game is really sensibly made: every dungeon is full of interesting stuff (probably the equivalent of 25 Skyrim dungeons each time), and discovering little quest hints and solving puzzles through hints in NPC convos and environmental secrets is intuitive and logical. The combat experience also settles down after the first 2-3 levels where you die like flies, especially as you work out basics like keeping VIT high for penetration. I think anyone who still enjoys playing old dungeon crawlers or other old RPGs can get with it. 

 

We'll see how it gets mid-game, of course, I keep restarting the first few hours...

[SonicMage117]

For Goty, the general consensus so far is:

 

Best AAA game of the year: Nier Automata

Best Indie Game of the year: Tie between Hollow Knight and Sundered

Best Art Design: Pyre

 

Realistically all the games on the list will win an award from VGA this year (yes it matters). Take that as you want it. I'm a realist.

 

"My" goty doesn't have any relevance since anyone can say any bad game is their goty...

 

Grimoire is such an example but at least it has spirit. The community makes me laugh as well.. the split is clear. Too many great rpg's have been released this year though which is Grimoires Achilles heel... where to start? Realms of Arkania: Star Trail, Legends Of Trail: Cold Steel, Ys 7, Ys 8 and Pyre..even move to West Of Loathing, then try Absolver. Games made by kids but higher quality and more depth than Grimoire at any rate. Hopefully this unbiased result answered your question!

[Tigranes]

What are you talking about? What is this post trying to say? Why is it in this thread? Are you some kind of weird RSS scraper that gained half sentience? Gripping stuff.

 

I had my sage try to read a scroll of Fireball, forgot I didn't put incantation skill on him, and the thing backfired wiping half the party. Stellar. 

 

One nice thing is how the dungeons will drop little omens of the boss or other weird denizens as you approach, from the weird pungent smell to the little traces. 

 

Definitely needs to sort out the enemy sound looping, and a few things like that, though. And there's no telling whether quality/bugs will hold up later on in the game.

Edited August 12, 2017 by Tigranes

[Bartimaeus]

What are you talking about? What is this post trying to say? Why is it in this thread? Are you some kind of weird RSS scraper that gained half sentience? Gripping stuff.

 

No, I believe that was Terminator (...suddenly, I can't help but think that the username isn't coincidence). Mr. Mage here is slightly more advanced than that.

[SonicMage117]

People recently asked in the thread if it's goty worthy, nobody was kind enough to answer them, even the ones playing the game.

 

I think it will go down in the world's guiness book of records for game in longest development cycle but I don't think it will win any award. In fact I am certain it will not.

 

It's in the same league of Mighty No.9 and No Man's Sky. I salute anyone who is proud of that. All these games have their cult following though, it's just that Grimoire being of the most niche genre out there has the smallest.

 

On the bright side, the review rating went up a whole 3% today. So fans will be grateful for that pie of cheese (I'm looking at you Alvaron!)

 

Welp, that concludes tonight's update!

 

And yes, I noticed that all people who unliked on this forum are basicaly put in the same "villains squad"... Don't like Obi & Terminator, suddenly they are bots or alternate accounts from the same person. Nothing new here. Sorry you guys don't like my posts and what I say, unfortunately it won't discourage me from updating on Grimoire's progress... simply because I am Cleve's biggest fan here.

Edited August 12, 2017 by SonicMage117

[SonicMage117]

Just In:

 

Cleve says his next game will be an isometric lovecraftian action-rpg with 2D sprites. Now THAT would be amazing! Too bad it might be another 20+ years for that.