With the game's full release, about time I throw my two-cents in. - tl;dr Secrets of Grindea does well at supporting good build choices, the combat's overall very enjoyable, characters and story's a fun time, etc. Highly recommend giving it a shot. Combat's very action-paced and lets you set it as fast or as slow/safe as you want to take it. Characters are fun and have flavors all around. Unique personalities all over, makes reading the dialogue more fun. Story's a touch basic at first but starts to pick up some super interesting angles come about past the first quarter of the game. Kind of thing that makes you really curious where they're gonna go with it. And I can assure that the ending of the game's story is an interesting one, for sure. Highly likely it'll land for you in some way. Lore, like with the story, seems to only get firmly established past that first quarter, but if you're the kind who likes to read a bit about the inner workings of this world's religion and histories and other, y'know, lore things, I found it interesting personally. Not a make-or-break but if you do decided to look into things a bit it makes the world feel much more fleshed out. Does well at making you care more deeply about what's going on and what this world is. Secrets of Grindea is, evidently, meta, but the fun kind. Takes the concept of a world working off of video-game esque rules and roll with it. While some things are poked fun at, it doesn't question itself on why what way is done which way and spoiling the whole thing, so it's a fun run of these ideas that actually dips into some interesting ideas as a direct result. Queue the whole "Human Card" question that comes up later in the game. Based heavily around the video-gamey nature of monsters dropping collectible cards, but it's a question they take seriously, and it pays off greatly in how they develop the idea of humans potentially getting "farmed", complete with the catastrophic ramifications that would come with. An example of how Secrets of Grindea's able to use some of the meta elements very well. Regardless, details for each point on: -------------------------- - Combat Very action-RPG with a high emphasis on build variety and blocking/parrying, albeit not universally. You're getting the most fun out of figuring out what among the game's class options (Which in this case skills are divided between 1-Handed weapons, 2-Handed, and Magic, with magic able to cross over with the melee in a few ways or focused on its own right) are something you wanna use, coupled with a slew of support abilities that work for whatever way you focus on, magic or melee. Combat's pretty active, and I appreciate you can get aggressive. You control the pace of the fight, go in as hard or as patient as you want. You'll get more damage if you're willing to get closer and throw out your defenses, otherwise ranged options do exist and still work well. You can juggle as many skills or spells as you want, and there's perks to support ranges from alternating spell-schools for better EP/Energy Point economy, or go all-in on a specific school to get a tidy damage boost. Melee skills too often like to provide ranging utility and focused damage output, the former good for making use of long ranges or getting surrounded by a bunch of enemies, and the latter being a less versatile but high damage punish that works well for combing off a parry. Parrying, a timed-block mechanic, rewards you with some great damage, which is good to see for encouraging seeking it out where you think you can get away with it. For a game with a "Grinding" identity the combat works well in making the grind more of a good zone-out trying to juggle whatever build you've got going on. Do keep in mind grinding isn't required by any means, just if you feel like it, and I personally feel it's a fun grind when you wanna jump in and chew through a room's enemies for a few minutes to get some specific drops. - Builds The action-RPG balance is hit pretty well with the build options you have to put something together. Plus it's fairly forgiving to switch points around on perks and skills to find something you wanna spin. Perks, do a good job with leaning more into substantial but situational buffs over very slight but broadly applicable ones. Where you can basically put in your level for a 2% damage boost, you can instead put that into something more like a 10% boost off the first attack you make in 2 seconds. So, looking through the available perks for something interesting to work with is pretty fun. Is everything equally balanced? Not quite. I won't spoil what does and doesn't break DPS wide open, but the game generally sticks well to the risk/reward balance with the crazy damage stuff also requiring you to get into enemy faces and/or having to kneecap your defense - World Following the name "Secrets of Grindea", this game's a little meta. You'll see some familliar faces here and there referencing one thing or another. However, the game does take itself seriously when it counts. Especially once you start closing in on the final act. More of a vibe of rolling with the concept of a world built close to video game concepts rather than making fun of it. It's a good kind of meta. One strange praise I'll give is that, while there are plenty of well meaning and polite characters, this game's a lot better at portraying straight up assholes. Whether that be your jaded bag-artifact companion or this season-fairy character that is so deep in the "I could've done that better than you" attitude that it feels too real. Again, weird praise, but the characters run all colors in between attitudes, so for this reasoning you get a flavorful world that goes far in wanting to read what folks are saying. - Story Won't go too in detail other than saying it went in some very interesting directions down the line. In short, the plot follows that generally your character and your dad are collecting these powerful artifacts to revive your dead mother, complete with the roadblocks and job you carry to collect things as a "Collector", which includes doing literal quests for people, as the "Do this quest for a reward" is a canonical task that you do for your job. I will try not to say more about the story, beyond that while I was worried they would play the angle of reviving your mother too straight, I can happily say they take a much more interesting direction that just going along those lines. In fact, I can see the story taking a little too hard of a turn for some. On the one hand it feels like the way the story went might have clashed with initial ideas, but on the other hand some foreshadowing does some present in some fairly early moments that seem to suggest stuff was planned early on, so, hard to say. Might be saying to much, but personally, I dug the risks they took. Whether or not it works for you, what develop's gonna stick in your head better than you expect. - Lore I touched on it a little bit, but this is a game with the core concept of a world built with some video-game esque mechanics as canon facts of life. So, you play as a Collector. Someone who goes about hunting monsters that respawn in droves, dropping a bunch of various items. You do quests for people, you get things in return. It's hard to describe the meta element but it's short of being aware its a video game, several quests are often "Get a bunch of this kind of item". It really is like if a world worked off video game mechanics, short of being aware this is literally a game. Monsters respawning in droves and Collecters having to gather a bunch of their drops for one reason or another is just a fact of life. Though the game has fun with the concept with a few jokes, I think the key thing is it doesn't question "why" and try to criticize it. Basically, it's the fun kind of meta. Doesn't focus too much on itself.
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