I played through the first one recently, I liked it mostly, it has a lot of good aspects to it and a couple not so good. The grid based but not turn based feature was interesting I thought, as I've never really played another game like it, you need to use different tactics to a regular RPG which was refreshing.

I've played the first Grimrock for a fair way and enjoyed it, but I'm not a fan of the realtime combat. I appear to be repeatedly dying with squares full of knights stabbing me.

May go back to it at some point

clueless1 wrote:

I bought both Grimrocks on sale from GOG and finally had a chance to check them out. Holy smokes, Grimrock II has an amazing atmosphere to start the game off. I just broke out of the cage and explored the island for 5 minutes, but I could feel the game sucking me in. I had to force myself to stop because I'm about 65% through Ultima Underworld and I don't think I could pull off two RPGs at the same time.

Not having tried the combat yet, I'm just going off of reviews and Youtube footage, but personally, I think turn-based combat would be more satisfying. I know that is not how Dungeon Master, EOB and UU worked, and this game is based off of those, but it seems that the real-time combat can be exploited by memorizing side-stepping patterns to beat the crap out of just about any monster. A turn-based system would avoid this. But at any rate, the graphics, sound, puzzles, and overall atmosphere make these two games very compelling. For sure my next RPG after I finish UU. 😎

The movement system is the combat system. Managing threats by avoiding getting cornered dodging projectiles, incapacitating foes etc is the point. If you have time to stand still and sidestep all the time you've effectively already won.

I think it works very well as designed, I wouldn't want it turn-based any more than I would want Doom turn-based.

You might be surprised at the idea of a turn based Doom - it actually works extremely well. Check out DoomRL.

Any tips for not dying when there's six Knights in a square stabbing me are welcome, I'm not happy with RPGs seemingly relying on twich gaming.

Now that I've tried the combat, I stand by my original statement: I'd prefer if the combat was turn-based. I can see getting used to the controls enough that combat becomes easier than it should. But ynari's situation of 6 knights making it difficult to maneuver sounds frustrating. I've only combated two at a time in the beginning of the game. It would've been awesome if they gave the player the options of turn-based or real-time combat.

You're not supposed to be surrounded by 6 knights, you're supposed to outmaneuver them.