Rating of
4/5
More, Yet Less
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/08/16
Almost Human, the Finnish Indie developer behind the welcome return to ‘Adventure/RPG’ style dungeon crawling with 2012’s “Legend of Grimrock,” has brought us a second dose of the same medicine after a two-year development cycle. “Legend of Grimrock 2” (“LoG2”), (which was originally planned as a DLC for “Legend of Grimrock”) looks, on its surface, to provide more of the same gameplay as its predecessor, but in a less confined, less dungeon-bound environment, much like “Dungeon Master 2: The Legend of Skullkeep” expanded upon the relatively straight-forward dungeon delve of the original “Dungeon Master” – and the ‘Dungeon Master’ series is clearly the strongest influence and inspiration behind Almost Human’s work. Unfortunately, “LoG2” – in spite of its obvious improvements – fails to improve on the most flawed aspects of the original game, while simultaneously bungling one aspect of the gameplay completely.
Presentation
“LoG2” uses a mildly-updated version of the engine that was used to build the original “Legend of Grimrock.” For the most part, the polygonal environments, textures, animations, and lighting effects are indistinguishable. I did notice, however, a bit of a weird gridline pattern that appeared on solid surfaces in response to lighting, which makes it obvious that the lighting engine is indeed different, and less well-optimized than it was in the original game. The most noticeable visual difference between the original game and this sequel, however, is the fact that instead of being confined to underground dungeon corridors at all times, the player is frequently tasked with exploring outdoor areas (and even a few underwater areas). Overall, there are a large number of new tilesets (both indoor and outdoor) built into the new version of the game engine.
The soundtrack is still rather understated, with most of the game accompanied by ambient dungeon noises and the unhappy cries of far-off subterranean creatures. However, there are a significant number of boss battles added to “LoG2,” which have accompanying music. There is also a rather pleasant opening/closing song, complete with orchestration and vocals that I quite enjoyed.
Story
“LoG2” begins similarly to the first game, with a group of prisoners trapped in a cage on board a ship. Presumably, these condemned folks are on their way to the dungeon Grimrock from the original game in order to prove their innocence or die in the process. However, the ship never makes it to its unknown destination, but is instead tossed onto a mysterious island by an unexpected storm.
Our heroes – a fully customizable group of personality-free player pawns – find their cage washed ashore on the island’s beach, while the crew of the ship are all missing and presumed dead. After a brief period of scavenging on the beach and warding off the aggressions of some local fauna, the party begins to discover handwritten notes from someone calling themselves “The Island Master.” These notes taunt the party and goad them into an island-wide series of traps and puzzles, making the game’s core premise seem like the writer had been binge watching “LOST” and the ‘Saw’ movies.
Like the original “Legend of Grimrock,” “LoG2” isn’t a narrative heavy game, but its location on a mysterious island covered in ancient ruins invokes the same sense of mystery and wonder. The condescending notes from the Island Master and recurring appearances by a psychotic leprechaun arsonist just add further incentive for the player to figure out what, exactly, is going on with the island.
“LoG2” lasts approximately 25 hours and has two different possible endings.
Gameplay
“LoG2’s” gameplay is divided far more starkly in half than most dungeon crawling ‘Adventure/RPGs’ of this sort. Whereas most games in this tradition are focused heavily on puzzles to the exclusion of all else, with the occasional combat against a small number of sluggish enemies to break up the endless chain of brain-teasers, “LoG2” has a lot more combat than the typical game of this type… and it still isn’t very good.
I was unhappy with the fact that enemies did seemingly random amounts of damage in “Legend of Grimrock,” and while that has been largely ironed out in this sequel, the fact that the uniform damage dealt by enemies is ‘A Whole Lot’ is a very unfortunate occurrence. Every enemy in “LoG2” is extremely dangerous when first encountered… and many of them remain extremely dangerous for far too long. I felt like my party of characters wasn’t competent in battle until approximately level 13… and with an estimated party level of 15 by the end of the game, that is far too much time spent floundering around in every battle. And, of course, there are a LOT more battles in “LoG2,” with many more unfortunate occurrences of 3+ enemies ganging-up on the party at once (which, as always, makes strategic movement impossible due to lack of available space). This kind of enemy spam is particularly noticeable during the games boss battles, which are never fun or engaging. Perhaps the most annoying thing about the re-balanced combat in “LoG2” is the fact that the party, no matter how it is constructed, simply cannot stand toe-to-toe with enemies and exchange blows. Enemies have far too much health and deal far too much damage per turn. Instead, the player is literally forced to sidestep from grid tile to grid tile in order to stay out of an enemy’s danger zone (e.g., in front of them), swiping at the enemy with an attack as the party passes.
The fact that the combat is now even more tedious than in the original “Legend of Grimrock” is exacerbated by the fact that none of the game’s controls have been improved at all. Attacking and casting spells is still entirely mouse-driven and overly cumbersome. Even worse, melee weapons now come with special attacks that need to be charged by holding down the mouse button instead of just clicking, rendering them almost entirely useless due to how long charging takes. The fact that Almost Human refuses to add hotkeys for things like attacking or drinking potions is not a good sign regarding their willingness to listen to customer comments, as it was a common request for the original game and scripting hobbyists have posted macros to enable such improvements on the game’s official forum. I’m not a fan of scripting or macroing in games, but I did find that the Steam controller saved the day, with its ability to create a ‘Mouse Region’ around the attack icons that made them much easier and quicker to access than would otherwise be the case.
Even as a returning veteran of “Legend of Grimrock,” I found “LoG2’s” party construction choices to be a bewildering array of bad options. I vaguely remembered Evasion being the best defensive stat in “Legend of Grimrock” and was completely dumbfounded by its uselessness in the sequel (Protection and Elemental Resist stacking are the only things that provide useful defenses). Likewise, light weapons and light armor may as well be paper imposed between the party and the game’s super-powered monsters (as always, I’m talking about Normal difficulty!), and the new Firearms weapon category is incredibly situational and practically useless outside of boss battles.
The generic character class choices (Fighter, Rogue, Wizard) from the first game have been rounded out with additional choices – Berserker, Knight, Battle Mage, Alchemist, and Farmer (an oddly effective joke character) – but the skill trees have been completely reworked and rebalanced so that no previous experience with the game series does any good. The previous character races (Human, Minotaur, Lizardfolk, and Insectiod) have likewise been complemented with the Ratling. About the only new feature here that is obviously good is the Alchemist’s class ability to replicate herbs held in their inventory, allowing for the brewing of infinite potions (and since the herb-based potion brewing system from the first game is largely unchanged, having access to infinite herbs is essential).
Despite the significant downhill slide in “LoG2’s” combat, the game’s environments and puzzles have been significantly improved. “LoG2” only has a couple of logical fails in its puzzle design, and the secret areas are, for the most part, more sensibly hidden than the first game, with in-game hints as to their locations. Of course, I was still annoyed by the number of tiny hidden buttons the player is expected to find while simultaneously avoiding deadly floor spikes or rushing through a flooded area before the party starts to drown (I really would have liked a water breathing spell or potion!). The mysterious island that is home to “LoG2” allows the game to have more of a mock-open-world format, with multiple dungeons that rarely exceed 3 floors, all tied together in a coherent and fairly non-linear way (indeed, a repeat player could do a lot of sequence breaking if they remember the clues required to solve certain puzzles from an earlier playthrough).
The flatter, more connected layout of the “LoG2” world reminds me a lot of the world layout in “Dungeon Master 2.” And the final oversight that Almost Human failed to add to their engine is something I have never seen in an Adventure/RPG besides “Dungeon Master 2”: A Merchant. The Merchants in “Dungeon Master 2” were something of an enigma, and allowed players to swap their unused treasures for coins, food, or other treasures that might be more useful (plus bartering with them was kind of fun in and of itself). Instead of an interesting mechanic like Merchants, though, “LoG2” has adopted the grinding that has typically been absent from this type of puzzle-heavy RPG. Indeed, I feel like, if I had wandered around earlier areas for numerous game-days, killed respawning enemies, harvested their flesh for food, and gained levels, the unpleasant combat could have been made slightly less unpleasant. Yet, since grinding has never been an aspect of this style of game in the past, it didn’t cross my mind until far too late… and even then it seemed far more boring and tedious than slogging away through annoying fights in order to reach the next cleverly-designed puzzle.
Overall
Almost Human has a great game engine on their hands with the revised version used in “Legend of Grimrock 2.” Unfortunately, due to their unwillingness to improve the engine’s combat systems and insistence on adding MUCH more combat to their game design formula, this sequel, despite being bigger and having more than its predecessor in every way is less enjoyable.
Presentation: 4.5/5
Story: 4.5/5
Gameplay:
Puzzles: 5/5
Combat: 2/5
Overall (not an average): 4/5
