GRIME

I’m a puzzle game reviewer and I usually never review games outside of this genre. This is one of the very few exceptions, this game is a masterpiece that deserves way more attention.
GRIME is a dark and rather difficult metroidvania, obviously inspired by Hollow Knight and Dark Souls. But they are just inspirations, you never have the feeling that you’re playing an unoriginal game.

You are a newly born black hole and you start your journey through this strange world you wake up in. There’s not much you know, and the few npcs you’ll encounter won’t really help to better understand the world.
But one thing is clear : you’re good at absorbing things and you get stronger, this primal instinct serves as your purpose as you explore the vast world of GRIME.
It might seem too cryptic for nothing or too light as a plot, and I kinda had this feeling too during the major part of my playtime. But everything will eventually make sense, and I can safely say the lore is incredibly good and deep. Everything in the game fits together. You won’t be left with only theories at the end (like most games like this), you’ll truly understand this world, your purpose and how original and beautiful this game is.

The visuals and the atmosphere are outstanding, exploring this surreal world is a pleasure. This game has tons of optional stuff and secrets (even secrets in secrets) and the rewards you get are worth it, especially at the beginning/midgame. Like any metroidvanias, there’s also a lot of (optional) backtracking. It can be extremely tedious if you don’t find the teleport ability in the early/midgame, so I’ll put its global location in a spoiler in case you’re interested.

I guess if you already thoroughly explore, you’ll naturally find it anyway but the faster you get it, the better the game will be. Otherwise you’re left with the nervepasses (shortcuts to various areas) you’ve discovered and, while they can be useful at times, they are not very efficient.

Combat in this game is kinda slow, unlike most metroidvanias. You have a force gauge that drains each time you make an action, and you need to wait a bit to replenish it. Some people will hate it, but it actually isn’t a bad idea at all. As dashing drains a lot of force, you can’t just spam it or you won’t be able to attack. And if you keep attacking, you won’t be able to properly dodge. This forces you to use the most important mechanic in combat : the parry. Parrying an attack doesn’t drain the force gauge, inflicts damage if there’s no armor and lets you safely hit the enemy a few times if there’s one.

The game also asks you to hunt and absorb every possible enemies, that is to say finishing them with a parry to absorb them. Absorbing an enemy refills your breath gauge a bit (you can heal when it’s full), adds ardor (the more you have, the more mass you get from enemies but I’ll talk about that later) and also unlocks traits when your hunt quotas are fulfilled. The parry is important, and the game does a good job at permanently training you. It’s not the ultimate move though, enemies also have attacks that can’t be parried. You need to adapt, and that’s why I think the combat is very interesting and perfectly balanced. Slow, but still very skilled.

You’ll die a lot though, the game is balanced but hard. Any error costs a lot, especially against bosses where missing a parry or realizing you have no force to dash can mean death. Fortunately, the game isn’t punitive. The only thing you lose when you die is your number of ardor and it’s not even completely lost, a statue spawns where you died and you get half of it back if you destroy it. You just respawn at the last savepoint. Bosses are always near a savepoint so no problem, but exploration usually has its lot of tension. When you’re low on health without any heal: will you play super safe or will you try a risky parry to refill your heal gauge?

There are also lots of platforming sections, and very good ones. Especially after you’ve gathered all the different powers from the bosses, these powers are classic but work so well. Just pure fun.

The bosses require you to study their patterns, death is unavoidable for the first few tries. You’ll have to use all your possible moves to defeat them, the focus is mainly on dodging/parrying and speedkilling is not an option. They are all well-crafted and not frustrating at all.
The Final Performance, the penultimate bossfight, has to be one of the best I’ve experienced for a long time. Creating epic bosses is something easy to do, but creating elegant and emotionally-charged ones is something you don’t see that often. That’s just art, the sublime music and the context of this fight really helps a lot.

I talked about the ardor that increases the mass you gain. Mass is gained when you destroy things, items or enemies and can then be used to upgrade your character : leveling up, upgrading your weapons or buying items.
Something important to note is that your choices have to be made carefully. When you level up, you invest mass into one of your 5 skills : Health, Force, Strength, Dexterity and Resonance. The first two are self-explanatory but the last three are used for your weapons : any weapon requires a certain level in some skills to be used effectively, and they also scale with that skill. That means you cannot use all of the weapons you find, you have to commit to one playstyle if you want to get the maximum out of your chosen weapons.
There are pearls you can use to reset your levels if you want to try or change weapons, but they are rare and you need 5 of them for a complete reset so… choose wisely.
The traits you gain from the hunt quotas I mentioned earlier are not active when you get them, you need to spend special points you get after destroying specific tougher enemies. And like the skills, you also need to choose wisely if you don’t want to waste pearls.

GRIME is a demanding game but it’s so fun, nearly every aspect of the game is extremely well done. I thought that getting near the perfection of Hollow Knight was impossible, but I was wrong.
I can’t recommend it enough.

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Developer: Clover Bite
Publisher: Akupara Games
Platforms: Steam – Windows/macOS, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series, Xbox One, GeForce Now, Google Stadia
Release Date: August 2, 2021