Grime: Review

When you say “soulslick”, you mean something already familiar, and in some places even hackneyed. But Grime can’t be called familiar at all. If only because the main character in this game is created from stone, and instead of a head he has a black hole.

Stone head

Imagine if the work Salvador Dali used for something more mundane and widespread – for example, for the decoration of a cinema. And the lyrics Boris Viana from his “Foam of Days” – for advertising brochures and signs. Both are famous surrealists. Here in Grime the seemingly familiar “soulslice metroidvania” was placed in a surreal world, where there are stone heads and faces all around; where a huge statue can suddenly fall from the sky, and then we will jump on its hands; where you even have to fight with heads, and jugs can push you away with their hands.

Description on Steam corresponding: “Extraordinary matter self-destructs while the world shudders and contracts – it squeezes you tightly and spits you out onto the uncharted shore of life. You don’t know what he’s hiding, so alien in his recognition, and yet you have to fight for survival in the horror that reigns around.”.

At first, you really don’t understand what’s going on here, who we are and where we are. But it’s still interesting, I want to look at everything around with my mouth open. Gradually we learn that we have found ourselves in the world of the Opening Sky, where some Mothers whisper and pour breath into the stones, and they are born as ugly boulder-heads or spike-heads, live their lives in the city of Litit, protect it, some try to carve statues, make art and dream of “ascension into delightful proportionality”.

Our hero is just so proportional, polished, or hewn. And his appearance here is greeted with admiration, apprehension or aggression. Some cry from their ugliness, and when they notice us, they rush out shouting, “This is how I should have been.”! Give me this form!».

But, as it turns out, our form is incomplete, imperfect – perhaps because instead of a head the hero has a small but distant black hole. Therefore, other, more perfect representatives of the hewn ones treat us with disdain, call the hero a fake and promise to erase him into bricks. We need to prevent this from happening, figure out what’s going on, free the stone-heads and other freaks from the tyranny of the Mothers and… However, you’ll find out for yourself. At some point, this surreal, the very atmosphere and events gave rise to the feeling that everything was happening in one of the worlds of Planescape: Torment .

And the characters are very bright. Consider the funny big-headed one who, as soon as he sees us, becomes a kind of adept of the hero, gathers followers and periodically makes offerings to us, killing other fans with joy – he waves his arms so hard.

Absorption of ugliness

Gameplay Grime also knows how www.captaincookscasino.uk to surprise. In fact, this is a mixture of soulslice and metroidvania, but with its own ideas. The main one is just a black hole instead of the main character’s head. With its help, you can block attacks, stunning enemies, grab spears thrown at us and send them back, and most importantly, absorb objects and enemies. This allows you to accumulate "breath", which works as a healing potion and restores health.

And if we absorb some opponents (they are called victims), then we get their abilities. True, you need to devour a certain number of victims, and then on a special obelisk (local fire) the ability needs to be sprouted with the help of hunting points, which we get for killing especially strong enemies. Among these “live” skills are bonuses to stamina and endurance, the ability to restore part of the “stamina” when parrying. Or there is an ability that allows you to leave your “echo” after a successful dodge – if it takes damage, then again part of your stamina will be restored.

Add here all these tricks with echo dodges, and the result is quite a fresh feeling from the seemingly typical soulslice battles. Often you have to think what is more useful – to kill or absorb the enemy. Sometimes one is better, sometimes another. If health and breathing are low, we look for how to restore them first. But at the same time, for killing they give more ardor, which affects the experience gained.

With ardor and heat

Yes, Fervor is a special resource that increases the amount of mass awarded for killing enemies. And mass points are an analogue of souls, gold and experience, for which you can use the same surrogates to pump up the character’s characteristics (strength, agility, endurance, health, intelligence). The mass is also used in trade – you can buy different types of weapons and consumables (throwing daggers, bombs, temporary increases in defense or damage, and so on).

Weapons, by the way, differ in damage and speed and have requirements for character parameters. In addition, each has a special attack – one knocks back and stuns the enemy, the other allows you to jump on the enemy and hit. But as a rule, we exchange armor for found objects (for example, frescoes) or remove them from the bodies of defeated enemies – in this world we literally tear out a stone torso, arms or legs. Characteristics are unknown, but all items are accompanied by beautiful and again surreal descriptions.

It is interesting that in the event of the death of our “black hole head”, it is precisely the reserve of ardor that is lost, but the mass points remain practically untouched. And then you need to ardently run to your frozen stone statue to return this resource. This allows you to level up your character faster – experience points are always with you. In the meantime, you will run to the place of death, and again accumulate enough ardor.

On the one hand, this makes the game easier and eliminates the fear of death – you still don’t really lose anything. But on the other hand, in fights with tough enemies and even more so with hardcore bosses, the decisive factor is still the player’s skill, his reaction and ability to read the opponent’s timings. From this point of view, fervor seems somewhat artificial, an unnecessary characteristic that was invented only to give the game more originality. Well, they came up with it and came up with it – the main thing is that it doesn’t interfere.

Everything with your feet, with your feet

Another point that makes what is happening hardcore, but with a minus sign, is the very limited possibilities of teleportation between surrogates. This is already somewhat devaluing Grime like a metroidvania. There are plenty of places you can’t get to or go through until you get an ability, like pulling objects or dashing in the air after jumping. But the need, when there are no teleports, to return for a long time, is annoying. True perfectionists and metroidvania lovers will spit and run, but the rest will most likely perceive the game only as a soulslice.

But there are no complaints about the platform part – the complexity here is adequate, there are many interesting situations. And the traps pleased me with their surrealism: how do you like stone hands flying from above right into your forehead??

The set of enemies is also good. There are, for example, bombs on legs that need to be thrown away with a blow so that they explode the monster running towards you. With an arsenal of weapons it’s more difficult: there are repeated alternative attacks, and the usefulness of the heaviest clubs is questionable – they are very slow.

Some also complain about bugs, but I haven’t encountered them. But I would like the optimization to be better – sometimes “freezes” happen out of the blue.

Grime has some game design and optimization issues, but they’re not that significant. But there is a lot of atmosphere, pleasure, originality and surprise from what you see. So fans of the genre should definitely play. With fervor.

Pros: very original world; amazing story and unusual characters; intense gameplay that adds freshness to the must-have soulslick experience; chic visual style

Cons: the authors constantly chase the player back and forth, seriously limiting the possibilities of teleportation; there are bugs; imperfect optimization.