Codex Review RPG Codex Review: Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar

[NotAGolfer]

nowadays it means avoiding all frustration and making sure progress goes on, making challenges illusory

Not this canard again.

Nobody. NOBODY advocates for this definition of balance. It's a strawman.

It's not that they advocate for it, it's more of a thing that happens in the current "industry" to guarantee good reviews, happy players and secure return of investment. Or are you telling me games like Dragon Age or POE could have been released with frustratingly hard early areas, like Wiz 6? Where D.W Bradley chuckled and said "lol they better step up and maybe after 3 party rerolls they'll begin to have a chance", the modern designers would make sure people doesn't begin to cry and request a steam refund.

Wiz VI early areas aren't that hard. They're just random. And some of these random encounters you just can't win. I'm not sure that forcing the player to reload because of stupid constant random encounters (so winning doesn't even feel rewarding because they didn't gate off content, they just happened to be in the way) is something worth imitating.
In good games random encounters are just trash mobs (or at least interesting like in case of Fallout). Sure, if you enter a high level area too soon they will wipe your party too but in any case they have to be weaker than the bosses in that zone. In Wiz VI they sometimes are much deadlier instead ... mostly because ridiculously high numbers of enemies and you losing the battle of mana attrition. So you know that it's the RNG that screwed you, the RNG that they implemented for everything including party generation where it doesn't even make sense - like some D&D cargo cult worshippers.

Of course you can still break this game by giving everyone that crit kill ability or the one where they hide in shadows, but if you play it normally you have to reload quite often.

tldr: Everything is shit. And that includes the majority of old games of yore.

A slavish devotion to balance is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Which noone ever asked for. So what's your point?

 

[YES!]

We just need simple bullets listing ... For instance, this game could be reviewed as "Like Wiz7."

The last review says "buy wizardry instead"

I was sure this was your review.

I honestly don't see the confusion. Can you please explain what is confusing you about those statements? You seem to think there is some sort of crossover when there isn't. One describes a game, one gives asinine and retarded advice. But, seeing as you are more than half the people finding that review useful, please explain how it is useful and to whom?

First you claim reviews should be a one liner then you call the only person that does that a fucking idiot. What does that tell you about yourself?

There is a world of difference between a useful one liner and one that is fucking retarded. If you can't see that then guess what? You are retarded.

If I said people should talk in sentences and someone replies with - Balls having the for yet gone is the best way out yeah! Is it a sentence? I guess, but it isn't useful one bit. Coherent and useful is implied. Why would I want a one sentence review that makes no sense whatsoever?

At this point I'll assume that is your review since you are too fucking stupid to see how retarded and useless it is to everyone besides other fucking retards.

Please don't reply unless you are willing to confirm you understand there is a vast difference between useful and useless. And if you can confirm this please explain how I am wrong and how the retarded review that is helpful to no one who is not a child idiot or retard is actually useful to someone to someone who isn't a child idiot nor retarded.

 

[Snorkack]

WTF

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimoire:_Heralds_of_the_Winged_Exemplar

The game was eventually released on August 4 with no warning

The fringe role-playing game website RPG Codex published an amateur review of the game that criticized Grimoire's "broken combat", missing features, overpowered NPCs, repetitive tilesets, transparency artifacts, and bad quest design, stating that "Grimoire is still unfinished". However, the reviewer expressed hope that there was "a great game behind all the flaws" and that further patches might improve the game.[16] User reviews on Steam were generally positive[17].

Must be written by a RPGwatcher.

 

[Lord Andre]

To be fair, PoE did have spikes in combat difficulty here and there but it sucked on all other fronts. Bland character system, bland abilities, bland spells, bland itemization, bland encounters copy pasted ad infinitum. Literally nothing fun was allowed.

And don't get me started on Twitcher system and combat... makes Gothic 3 look like a fucking design masterpiece.

 

[Lord Andre]

WTF

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimoire:_Heralds_of_the_Winged_Exemplar

The game was eventually released on August 4 with no warning

The fringe role-playing game website RPG Codex published an amateur review of the game that criticized Grimoire's "broken combat", missing features, overpowered NPCs, repetitive tilesets, transparency artifacts, and bad quest design, stating that "Grimoire is still unfinished". However, the reviewer expressed hope that there was "a great game behind all the flaws" and that further patches might improve the game.[16] User reviews on Steam were generally positive[17].

Must be written by a RPGwatcher.

Shittiest review on the Codex is still 10 times more prestigious than anything found on 'professional' game sites. Angry Joe must be butthurt again editing wikipedia articles and shit...

 

[DavidBVal]

Wiz VI early areas aren't that hard. They're just random. And some of these random encounters you just can't win. I'm not sure that forcing the player to reload because of stupid constant random encounters (so winning doesn't even feel rewarding because they didn't gate off content, they just happened to be in the way) is something worth imitating.

Bard + someone that can pick locks makes it not random.

 

[Roguey]

For those who don't follow the Grimoire megathread, it should be noted that someone who is not a Cleve fanatic has discovered another inaccuracy in this review:

Fought the infamous instakill spear trogs today for the first time and... what's the big deal? Cast armorplate and not only did I hit first due to speed, but they failed to penetrate a majority of the time.

Really had expected some nightmarish encounter wherein my party would be devastated by constant spears from every direction, what I got was their failure to penetrate a necromancer's robe and some pretty easy encounters even with basic autoattacking.

It's time for an official acknowledgement that this review is an IGN/Gamespot-level embarrassment. Controversial and/or unpopular opinions are perfectly fine and valid, but factual inaccuracies are inexcusable. Perhaps this fiasco could have been avoided if someone on the RPG Codex editorial staff other than Felipe had either actually played through Grimoire themselves or given it to someone who could fact check it, like mondblut, whose knowledge of Grimoire is perhaps second to only Cleve himself. Turns out Felipe could have just made up anything he wanted, and it would have gone through (because that's what happened, though not intentionally). We don't call IGN IGNorance for nothing, yet here we have this Fake News review from someone purported to be "the perfect man for the job." Really damages Codex Credibility.

 

[Saduj]

He sold over 5K copies at an average of let's say 37, so the gross is 185K

Minus Steam fee, minus VAT and sales tax from end users it is something like 120K USD. That's a lot of Zimbabwe Weimar Republic Australian Dollars.

Something weird is going on with the sales figures, at least according to Steamspy. The number of owners dropped by over 50% in 2 days and now sits at 2,383 ± 1,405.

https://steamspy.com/app/650670

I can't imagine that over 50% of sales were to the shitty buy/leave bad review/return cretins. Something else has to be going on here.

 

[DavidBVal]

He sold over 5K copies at an average of let's say 37, so the gross is 185K

Minus Steam fee, minus VAT and sales tax from end users it is something like 120K USD. That's a lot of Zimbabwe Weimar Republic Australian Dollars.

Something weird is going on with the sales figures, at least according to Steamspy. The number of owners dropped by over 50% in 2 days and now sits at 2,383 ± 1,405.

https://steamspy.com/app/650670

I can't imagine that over 50% of sales were to the shitty buy/leave bad review/return cretins. Something else has to be going on here.

Nah SteamSpy does that from time to time

 

[NotAGolfer]

Wiz VI early areas aren't that hard. They're just random. And some of these random encounters you just can't win. I'm not sure that forcing the player to reload because of stupid constant random encounters (so winning doesn't even feel rewarding because they didn't gate off content, they just happened to be in the way) is something worth imitating.

Bard + someone that can pick locks makes it not random.

Lute doesn't work all the time. And it starts to get more and more inefficient even as early as the dwarven mines.
Also it helps the least where it would be needed the most, on those random encounters I mentioned, the ones with a very high number of enemies (like 3 stacks of 5 or 6 foes). And the max number of enemies affected by the sleep spell is limited to 10 (if cast on level 7, dunno how to translate music skill to spell level). Add the fact that you can't target single enemies with attacks and that hitting them makes them wake up again and it IS random.
That fireball mage spell was actually way more useful than the lute.

 

[Stavrophore]

Game looks like dungeon master, well it was good 25 years ago, but for current standards the look, the company movement and UI is just abysmal.Hence target demographics -40 years old grognards. Only worse are those dos CMD based RPGs from 80s. Only nostalgia googled individuals can enjoy this. Better to read book, then indefinitely just roll dices to "slash attack for 4-6hp" or "fireball 20-35 fire dmg", rinse and repeat, because these types of games are pretty simple.

Byt the looks of gameplay on YT,It's even more horrible than M&M 6 and 7. Oh and 8 bit music, it's like im back to atari/amiga again lol, a game that started dev in 1997 with 8 bit music lel.

 

[DavidBVal]

Wiz VI early areas aren't that hard. They're just random. And some of these random encounters you just can't win. I'm not sure that forcing the player to reload because of stupid constant random encounters (so winning doesn't even feel rewarding because they didn't gate off content, they just happened to be in the way) is something worth imitating.

Bard + someone that can pick locks makes it not random.

Lute doesn't work all the time. And it starts to get more and more inefficient even as early as the dwarven mines.
Also it helps the least where it would be needed the most, on those random encounters I mentioned, the ones with a very high number of enemies (like 3 stacks of 5 or 6 foes). And the max number of enemies affected by the sleep spell is limited to 10 (if cast on level 7, dunno how to translate music skill to spell level). Add the fact that you can't target single enemies with attacks and that hitting them makes them wake up again and it IS random.
That fireball mage spell was actually way more useful than the lute.

We were talking starting area, of course your tactics need to evolve and of course you'll still die randomly from time to time. It's Wizardry.

 

[Tigranes]

Game looks like dungeon master, well it was good 25 years ago, but for current standards the look, the company movement and UI is just abysmal.Hence target demographics -40 years old grognards. Only worse are those dos CMD based RPGs from 80s. Only nostalgia googled individuals can enjoy this. Better to read book, then indefinitely just roll dices to "slash attack for 4-6hp" or "fireball 20-35 fire dmg", rinse and repeat, because these types of games are pretty simple.

Byt the looks of gameplay on YT,It's even more horrible than M&M 6 and 7. Oh and 8 bit music, it's like im back to atari/amiga again lol, a game that started dev in 1997 with 8 bit music lel.

"I like new things because they're new, they must be better right like who even likes old things they must have nostalgia goggles that makes them crazy people who like shit things cos god forbid old things are any good"

You are the gorilla in Brecht's Parade of the Old New, chanting: Here comes the New, it’s all new, salute the new, be new like us!

 

[YES!]

Game looks like dungeon master, well it was good 25 years ago, but for current standards the look, the company movement and UI is just abysmal.Hence target demographics -40 years old grognards. Only worse are those dos CMD based RPGs from 80s. Only nostalgia googled individuals can enjoy this. Better to read book, then indefinitely just roll dices to "slash attack for 4-6hp" or "fireball 20-35 fire dmg", rinse and repeat, because these types of games are pretty simple.

Byt the looks of gameplay on YT,It's even more horrible than M&M 6 and 7. Oh and 8 bit music, it's like im back to atari/amiga again lol, a game that started dev in 1997 with 8 bit music lel.

Current standard produces shit like Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 and this review. This review could have been one sentence and saved everyone a lot of reading. The one sentence could be - "I love Pokeman!"

Your little wisdom spew could be one sentence too - "I too love shit for retards and children!" You should start prepping your console for Destiny 2 and leave people that like rpgs to the supposed rpg site.

 

[Reapa]

For those who don't follow the Grimoire megathread, it should be noted that someone who is not a Cleve fanatic has discovered another inaccuracy in this review:

Fought the infamous instakill spear trogs today for the first time and... what's the big deal? Cast armorplate and not only did I hit first due to speed, but they failed to penetrate a majority of the time.

Really had expected some nightmarish encounter wherein my party would be devastated by constant spears from every direction, what I got was their failure to penetrate a necromancer's robe and some pretty easy encounters even with basic autoattacking.

It's time for an official acknowledgement that this review is an IGN/Gamespot-level embarrassment. Controversial and/or unpopular opinions are perfectly fine and valid, but factual inaccuracies are inexcusable. Perhaps this fiasco could have been avoided if someone on the RPG Codex editorial staff other than Felipe had either actually played through Grimoire themselves or given it to someone who could fact check it, like mondblut, whose knowledge of Grimoire is perhaps second to only Cleve himself. Turns out Felipe could have just made up anything he wanted, and it would have gone through (because that's what happened, though not intentionally). We don't call IGN IGNorance for nothing, yet here we have this Fake News review from someone purported to be "the perfect man for the job." Really damages Codex Credibility.

what credibility?

 

[Grauken]

didn't you know, we're a prestigious magazine

 

[AArmanFV]

didn't you know, we're a prestigious magazine

Tier 1 magazine

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Bull-fucking-shit.

Your beloved PoE is the very definition of what David is talking about. Sawyer-style "balance" means EXACTLY that: ensuring failure is not an option. Just take a close look and do the math on PoE and you'll quickly realize that passive leveling trumps everything else. Player agency is kept to a minimum in order to ensure you can't possibly screw up.

PoE wasn't brought up-once in this thread as a positive example, neither was Sawyer's input in that game. Why is everyone in this thread acting as if in the last 10 years only two RPG games were released: PoE and Grimoire. You don't have to look that far. Both Age of Decadence and Underrail are properly balanced games. Sure there are some combos that are stronger but you don't run into totally broken shit by mistake. I'm sure most "balancefags" means something more like Underrail than PoE.

 

[Archibald]

If the review is correct on this then in Grimoire's case what you do does matter.
Either pick the same cheese tactics over and over or die. You have the choice.
Which devalues all the care put into partybuilding and makes this a poor ass Wizardry clone.

Yes, lets just quote the review:

Of course, every RPG has a few cheesy tactics or overpowered items, spells, skills and builds. With a good guide you can usually become nearly-invincible. But I played Grimoire blindly, without even knowing what most stats do. And there were so many overpowered things - items, skills, spells and even recruitable NPCs - that you basically need a guide on how NOT to cheese: don't use Deep Freeze, Bards, Hold Monster, Lethal Blow, Vorpal Sword, Paralysis, Psychopompic Orb, Time Stop, Crown of Gorgon, etc. But even if you stop cheesing, enemies certainly won't.

Essentially what you said about devaluation of partybuilding is same thing. Really when we think about choices in such games what we usually think about is partybuilding and character development.

 

[Iznaliu]

This may not be a hardcore rpg site but since at least 03 posting inflammatory crap and insulting members has been standard. It just used to be directed at popamole idiots like you.

I don't think people who insult every other member least long on here.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

WTF

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimoire:_Heralds_of_the_Winged_Exemplar

The game was eventually released on August 4 with no warning

The fringe role-playing game website RPG Codex published an amateur review of the game that criticized Grimoire's "broken combat", missing features, overpowered NPCs, repetitive tilesets, transparency artifacts, and bad quest design, stating that "Grimoire is still unfinished". However, the reviewer expressed hope that there was "a great game behind all the flaws" and that further patches might improve the game.[16] User reviews on Steam were generally positive[17].

Must be written by a RPGwatcher.

That is one major smear hit piece. Expected as much of decline central Wikipedia. Really bitchy.

I am so going to enjoy watching the tide turn over coming months when it becomes obvious to all that Grimoire is the greatest classic RPG ever written.

If you know which quote I am talking about by Jonathan Swift you will know why all of this is a great honor. It could truly be said in earnest that I have brought every asshole on the planet out of the woodwork in fuming, blood rage butthurt opposition. I have never seen so many neckbeard lobsters spitting and spinning in their study chairs. They literally are risking strokes by just thinking about the Clevethulu.

Fantastic honor for the decline to produce such a tidal wave against me. Alas, all to no avail. Besides, their ancestors got their asses kicked bringing 300+ people to a Neanderthal fight, did they really expect their marshmallow flabby frames would fare better? Saps is good at losing.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The only major gaming publication to review Grimoire was the German magazine Gamestar. The game was reviewed by Pathfinder: Kingmaker developer Sascha Penzhorn.

Rock Paper Shotgun posted an article by No Man's Sky writer and veteran industry reviewer Alec Meer covering his attempt to write a review, which he said failed

Senior editor John Walker wrote a sidebar to the article, observing that players who claimed to be enjoying Grimoire might be lying

truly, a bunch of veteran men for the job

 

[Fowyr]

Sure there are some combos that are stronger but you don't run into totally broken shit by mistake. I'm sure most "balancefags" means something more like Underrail than PoE.

I once saw "broken" Underrail character. Post-Junkyard, too much in social skills and thievery, too little in guns and psionic. But even this character could be saved by skulking around and stealing oddities to make next level and raising combat or psionic skill by 40 points.

 

[Pookie]

The only major gaming publication to review Grimoire was the German magazine Gamestar. The game was reviewed by Pathfinder: Kingmaker developer Sascha Penzhorn.

Rock Paper Shotgun posted an article by No Man's Sky writer and veteran industry reviewer Alec Meer covering his attempt to write a review, which he said failed

Senior editor John Walker wrote a sidebar to the article, observing that players who claimed to be enjoying Grimoire might be lying

truly, a bunch of veteran men for the job

Wait so... someone who had worked on one of the most hyped up and poorly received games of all time is writing reviews of other peoples games?
It seems people who can't create tend to become critics.

 

[Infinitron]

For those who don't follow the Grimoire megathread, it should be noted that someone who is not a Cleve fanatic has discovered another inaccuracy in this review:

Fought the infamous instakill spear trogs today for the first time and... what's the big deal? Cast armorplate and not only did I hit first due to speed, but they failed to penetrate a majority of the time.

Really had expected some nightmarish encounter wherein my party would be devastated by constant spears from every direction, what I got was their failure to penetrate a necromancer's robe and some pretty easy encounters even with basic autoattacking.

It's time for an official acknowledgement that this review is an IGN/Gamespot-level embarrassment. Controversial and/or unpopular opinions are perfectly fine and valid, but factual inaccuracies are inexcusable. Perhaps this fiasco could have been avoided if someone on the RPG Codex editorial staff other than Felipe had either actually played through Grimoire themselves or given it to someone who could fact check it, like mondblut, whose knowledge of Grimoire is perhaps second to only Cleve himself. Turns out Felipe could have just made up anything he wanted, and it would have gone through (because that's what happened, though not intentionally). We don't call IGN IGNorance for nothing, yet here we have this Fake News review from someone purported to be "the perfect man for the job." Really damages Codex Credibility.

Apparently you haven't read the review.