Game Review: GrimGrimoire OnceMore

By JD

​Player(s): 1
Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5

GrimGrimorie OnceMore is a remaster of the original GrimGrimoire first released in 2007 by Vanillaware, developers of 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Dragon’s Crown, and my favorite: Muramasa: The Demon Blade. Players take on the role of Lillet Blan as she arrives at the Tower of the Silver Star and spends her first five days in training as a mage... and then lives through those days again... and again... and so on...

Yes, the plot of this game is the classic Groundhog Day-style time loop. With each iteration of the game's five days, new information is revealed on what exactly is going on at the tower. Each piece of info builds off another and eventually turns what seemed like a freak accident into a series of overlapping plots coming together. Scenes are never overlong, giving the story a somewhat fast pace, but the short structure of the time loops mean that things are never explored with quite as much depth as I would have liked.

I think Manuel gave me one of "those" games again.

He does look like a man of wealth and taste.

Lillet is joined in this story by her fellow students at the Tower including Margarita, another young witch with a bullfrog familiar named Surely (I am serious and please don’t call me Shirley), and her professors like Advocat the devil and Chartreuse the werelion alchemy professor. (I don’t know why but I feel like I need a drink.) The voice acting matches well with the characters’ personalities: Wendee Lee as Lillet is an energetic student trying to figure out what exactly is going on, and Yuri Lowenthall as Advocat takes every chance to ham up the devil’s scheming charm.  

As for the music of the game, there’s not a lot for me to say on it. I’m writing this less than a day after beating the game and I can barely remember any of it other than maybe a few music cues for in-game events. The rest mostly faded into the background never standing out for reasons good or bad. Not a deal breaker for me, but it could be for others.

Vanillaware’s beautiful artwork is once more on display here, and it's been updated for HD. Each character is distinct and dripping with the traditional Vanillaware style. I wish that attention to detail carried over to animation in the cutscenes, but sadly it's mostly just characters standing around visual novel style, with mouths flapping and camera movement serving as the only animation in most of these scenes. The camera movement is especially bizarre because it seemed to squish and stretch both the characters and the background, and it made me feel slightly uneasy. It’s not a big thing, but it’s something I might have expected to be updated in the remaster.

The good ol' Uno Reverse argument trick.

I didn't realize this was a Narnia reboot.

In between the drama of the story, there’s also the main gameplay. I didn’t realize until I started playing that this was a real-time strategy game. I must admit that I've never really been one for RTS games before. I’ve played maybe a few matches of Starcraft in the mid-2000s, and really enjoyed Swords & Soldiers on WiiWare, but never really tried anything else in the genre before this. Because of that I was worried about having to learn how to play a game in this genre, especially with the limited buttons afforded by a console controller. Thankfully the first few in-game days are tutorials, and they got me up to speed on everything I needed to know for battle. 

In general controls are fairly simple. Battles all take place on large 2D maps, and you use the joysticks to move the cursor horizontally and vertically around the map while using buttons to select units one at a time, or all of any particular unit type on screen. You then move your cursor to another location on the map and issue them orders like: “move here”, or: “attack this”. These orders are selected from submenus for each selection of units. Selecting units can be a bit finicky though, especially when multiple types of units are bunched together. Once again, it’s more of a minor annoyance than a full on deal breaker. Just make sure to check that you’ve selected the unit you want to and not the Rune behind it, or you may find yourself with one extra Imp to take care of.

I haven't seen this much love in a room since Narcissus discovered himself.

So I guess that means she's never seen a marching band with her dad.

Each battle starts by giving the player a certain amount of Mana and/or Runes. Mana lets you conjure and upgrade Runes, and Runes allow you to spend Mana to summon units. Runes come in four Schools of Magic: Glamour (Fairies and other Fey creatures), Necromancy (Undead), Sorcery (Devils), and Alchemy (Constructs). In standard RTS fashion, each group has one unit for harvesting Mana, and a few more to be used for battling and destroying your enemies’ units, crystals, and Runes. Each School is strong against the one that comes after it (Just imagine that there’s another Glamour after Alchemy), and remembering the loop will be vital for completing the stages of this game. Once, I found myself stuck on a stage trying to defeat a Sorcery-using opponent with my own Glamour-using units for more than an hour. After realizing my mistake, and switching to Necromancy units, I cleared that stage in less than ten minutes. Sadly all battles aren’t as simple as that. Some of the battles tasked me with destroying all of my opponent’s Runes and the battle dragged on for an extra five to ten minutes as I scoured the large map to find the last set. 

New for the remaster is the addition of a skill tree for each of the various grimoires. Players are awarded coins that can be used to upgrade their units for completing story missions and extra trials. Many of them are simple stat buffs, like extra health or higher movement speed, but higher-level upgrades grant new unique abilities or resistances to other Schools of Magic. This was very useful to access at the beginning of a battle as I would shift around my upgrades to the units I would be using in the fight. Much like choosing the right school of magic, choosing the right upgrades can make battles so much easier.  

The start of a basic battle.

One of the upgrade trees.

There are multiple difficulty levels, and some of the higher difficulties even offer extra upgrades you can pick for bigger bonuses. I played through the game on Normal difficulty and still found most of the battles to be challenging, even as my tactical knowledge increased in-game.

It seems a lot of games from the PS2-era are getting remastered this year with Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 4 released already, but you’d be missing out if you didn’t consider purchasing GrimGrimoire OnceMore. It's a great and stylish RTS that is accessible even for relative newbies to the genre like me. If you liked Vanillaware’s 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, and want to see where the studio cut its teeth with the genre, make sure to check this game out.

For More Information On GrimGrimoire OnceMore:
https://nisamerica.com/grimgrimoire/

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Story: B
Gameplay: B
Graphics: A
Sound: C

Overall Rating: B

Pros:
+ Fantastic art.
+ Interesting plot unfolding over the time loops.
+ Easy to understand RTS gameplay with lots of options to suit your strategy preferences.

+/- Maybe bit short (15-ish hours) for some people’s tastes

Cons:
- Some control issues adapting RTS to console.
- Some battles can drag on.
- Minimal cutscene animation.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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I leave you with a joke that surely writes itself...