Grimstone is garbage

[Vukmir]

I keep seeing comments about how deep and awesome grimstone is, after hours of grind and pain i finally finished it and i can clearly say that this game is overhyped embodiment of bad RPG designs. There, i said it. It's at the same tier with free asset rpg maker games.


Spoilers below this point


- No item descriptions. For example we have salt. Wtf does it do? You use it and game tells you it gets rid of evil spirits, wtf are those? It goes away after some time and game now tells me i'm not that lucky anymore. Wtf does that mean? If you search for explanations on internet it is basically a shorter and barely working version of "repel" but without a guide you'll have no idea what it does without using it like 20 times. No descriptions on healing items neither. How much they heal? Is it percent based? How much mp coffee gives? None of the questions before can be answered without trying them out and some of them are limited in numbers so good luck!

- Overused, boring QTE system that also punishes you for your weapon choices. Why does every type of attack have to have a QTE to attack anyway? Can't i use some brain dead weapon or skill that isn't as good as other weapons but doesn't need my constant attention? Why do i have to keep looking at that red dash to do some damage? Game also punishes you for hitting yellow line too, as it basically means 50% chance to miss. That simply means if you use any shotgun or heavy weapon which doesn't have sweet spot, you will keep missing even the lowliest enemies over and over again. Enjoy unloading your entire gattling ammo on a dustball and miss every shot.

- Unavoidable OHKO moves, especially on bosses. It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 2024, why are we still putting this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cheap mechanic in turn based RPGs? You can say "oh just focus on those enemies first so they don't trouble you" but when you give it to a boss, in this example the final boss, and put the cherry requirement like "beat final boss with everyone alive" behind it, you just make it the crappiest cheapshot ever. Worst choice of design ever.

- Classic boring RPG grind system which hits you with lvl walls over and over again. Oh you beat this area? Cool but next area regular enemies will wreck your party in two turns. Keep farming for hours till you can survive the next area. Rinse and repeat.

I have no idea why people like this game. It brings nothing new to the table, you do the same thing over and over for 20-30 hours while reading a lame ass story written by middle schoolers. To me it was second worst game in the collection after combat ants and i still have no idea why is this so overrated.

[0JMachine]

this is a compilation of "emulated " games. its going to exhibit that era; warts and all. theres honestly a lot of modernity in these games as well. games in the 80's were honestly harder and clunkier than most of the 50 here.

[Crispin GG]

For some people, especially who played these grind heavy JRPG's in this era, these games are very cozy nostalgic games. Some even find the repetitiveness of the grinding meditative and calming.

There is a certain joy to be found in figuring out the game, its systems, is characters and enemies. Finding out exactly where to go and not being hand held the whole time.

This game captures early JRPG games perfectly, but also has a interesting, uncommon setting for these games and updated JRPG elements like mounts and QTE's. Not for everyone but people do like it for good reasons I feel.

[PlantMurderer]

It has all the trappings of the early RPGs, which is the point. My only "real" issue is that the games of old came with a manual explaining quite a few items and mechanics; this one doesn't and it's probably the most mesmerising decision.

[pi73r]

Ye, the rpgs are meh considering how weak you are early game forcing to grind hard.

[11clock]

Originally posted by Crispin GG:

Some even find the repetitiveness of the grinding meditative and calming.

And these people are crazy. Grinding only exists to pad out playtime and turns a game from entertainment to a chore. Skinner-box design like this is horrible and should be avoided when developing games.

[Crispin GG]

Originally posted by 11clock:

Originally posted by Crispin GG:

Some even find the repetitiveness of the grinding meditative and calming.

And these people are crazy. Grinding only exists to pad out playtime and turns a game from entertainment to a chore. Skinner-box design like this is horrible and should be avoided when developing games.

I think crazy is a bit harsh, alot of people feel that way. Maybe its mostly driven by nostalgia? But it exists. Sure its padding, but also drives the fantasy of becoming stronger and building your characters up, and a chore to you doesnt mean it is for others.

I have a similar feeling when grinding in a game like Diablo, there's something soothing about it to me and I enjoy the process more then I probably should.

[Foamed]

OP completely missed the whole point behind UFO 50's experimental storytelling. The games were developed by UFO Soft in the 1980s in an alternate universe from our own. The games tell you a chronological story of the company, how technology, art, and game design evolved over time, and also the (fictional) people working there.

What we're seeing/playing are just the emulated versions of those games, they aren't meant to have modern features, quality of life improvements, or any game design we find in modern titles.

[Crispin GG]

Originally posted by Foamed:

What we're seeing/playing are just the emulated versions of those games, they aren't meant to have modern features, quality of life improvements, or any game design we find in modern titles.

Not entirely true, there is absolutely game design and complete genres that didn't exist back then, (house party and pilot quest or Rock on! as examples).

But yes otherwise this is a great thing to keep in mind.

[catsgomeow]

"We carefully chose what elements to modernize. Every game shares a unique 32-color palette and we took great efforts to make them look and sound like actual 8-bit titles from the 80s. On the other hand, it was important to us that UFO 50 was fun and surprising for modern players, so we chose not to limit ourselves to the genres and design conventions of the past." -a direct quote from the Steam store page for UFO 50. If Grimstone was indeed designed with this approach in mind I feel it is an objective failure. Many people seem to be of the opinion that it is intended to be a bog standard 1:1 homage to rpgs of the time with all their blemishes and jank intact but frankly I find this perspective absurd.

[der.dida83]

I wouldn't call it garbage but being maybe halfway through I would also see it as generic JRPG with a lot of annoyances that other JRPGs even back then did a better job with.

The first point you bring up especially really bugs me. I got the dog and until trying it out had no idea dog treats would give him permanent stat boosts. I just eventually used it to free space in the inventory which, of course, is filled up quick and you cannot store any items outside your inventory

Also never could figure out what the dog's foraging skill does since neither items nor skills are ever described.

Using the battle system over and over also gets tiresome and again, it's impossible to find out beforehand how weapons work, e.g. The bow only having a tiny red bar.

Having a customizable party that you are stuck with adds some replay value but also adds a lot on the map that serves no purpose for your party... Or does it? Again, how do you figure out if the giant animals or the fields of plants serve any purpose for your party? I assume they are for characters that I don't have.

Characters stay very shallow, I don't know a thing about any of my characters beside the beginning description.

I also find it annoying that not every town has a stable and only the second town has a bank. A lot of backtracking.

Also I never saw in any JRPG ever that end bosses respawn (at least some of them do here) , I guess that allows you to grind until the cows come home but the purpose of a leveling system isn't to fight the first boss over and over again...

In conclusion I think the idea this game has has some potential. A western styled JRpg... well also had been done before... but not done to death at least.
But the execution is just half-assed here which makes the game ok, at best, for me.

[Foamed]

Originally posted by Crispin GG:

Not entirely true, there is absolutely game design and complete genres that didn't exist back then, (house party and pilot quest or Rock on! as examples)

You missed the part where I mentioned that UFO 50 is set in an alternate universe/timeline than our own.

Again, it's experimental storytelling about fictional people working at a fictional lovecraftian video game company creating fictional games for a fictional computer system.

It doesn't matter if the genres existed in the 1980s (i.e. real life) or not, it's about telling a story, they games were intentionally developed to follow a certain design philosophy.

I personally don't think Grimstone is really that much fun due to the poor pacing, the uneven game balance, and the grinding you have to do. However I do find it interesting from a creative and storytelling perspective (meta wise).

[HarajukuKid]

Your opinion is certainly valid but yep, I liked most of the things you're criticizing. I liked figuring out what things like the salt and the coffee did, and thought it was pretty easy to do so. For this game as for many in the collection, pushing up against it, testing it, and figuring out what's what was, for me, a big part of the fun. Also I thought the mythology of the world that you piece together as you progress was pretty cool and definitely set the game apart from most actual games of the era that it's clearly inspired by.

[fakename]

Originally posted by catsgomeow:

"We carefully chose what elements to modernize. Every game shares a unique 32-color palette and we took great efforts to make them look and sound like actual 8-bit titles from the 80s. On the other hand, it was important to us that UFO 50 was fun and surprising for modern players, so we chose not to limit ourselves to the genres and design conventions of the past." -a direct quote from the Steam store page for UFO 50. If Grimstone was indeed designed with this approach in mind I feel it is an objective failure. Many people seem to be of the opinion that it is intended to be a bog standard 1:1 homage to rpgs of the time with all their blemishes and jank intact but frankly I find this perspective absurd.

Autosaves
Deaths are not punishing (yes, flat out NOT)
It's never hard to figure out what to do or where to go

How is that 1:1? Play more video games.

[catsgomeow]

Originally posted by fakename:

Originally posted by catsgomeow:

"We carefully chose what elements to modernize. Every game shares a unique 32-color palette and we took great efforts to make them look and sound like actual 8-bit titles from the 80s. On the other hand, it was important to us that UFO 50 was fun and surprising for modern players, so we chose not to limit ourselves to the genres and design conventions of the past." -a direct quote from the Steam store page for UFO 50. If Grimstone was indeed designed with this approach in mind I feel it is an objective failure. Many people seem to be of the opinion that it is intended to be a bog standard 1:1 homage to rpgs of the time with all their blemishes and jank intact but frankly I find this perspective absurd.

Autosaves
Deaths are not punishing (yes, flat out NOT)
It's never hard to figure out what to do or where to go

How is that 1:1? Play more video games.

I did think it was kind of funny how its literally more convenient to just put all your money in the bank then die to get a free full party heal+revives instead of actually using the inns or paying for revives at the church but that felt more like part of the jank and poor game design to me not modern "design conventions". Would also disagree with the "never hard to figure out where to go" point, only got lost wandering around for an hour with no idea where to go once so I guess its not too bad but that happened to me zero times when playing through Mother 1 which as I understand is considered to be pretty cryptic by nes rpg standards sooooo..... I'm not a final fantasy or dragon quest guy so I see very little reason to go back to those older titles, they likely are way worse then Grimstone frankly I don't think that's worth finding out considering how bad Grimstone is already. Ill give you the autosaves thing though, kind of forgot about that since every game in the collection which saves also autosaves, feels less like a point in this specific titles favor when every other game in the collection is already doing it.

Also im not calling the game a 1:1 80's rpg myself, other people are using that excuse to try and dismiss the games easily fixable design flaws (see literally this thread among nearly every other discussion about this title). I do think the game is bad and shares many problems with those older games but yeah its obviously not 1:1, see my original post wherein I call that perspective absurd.

[Man on Fire]

i'm not gonna rag on OP i in fact want to agree with him AND call out everyone on this forum doing this baffling what-about-ism with all these games not just Grimstone. having beaten it too, the game is miserable and i HATE how people on this steam forum are always either saying "it's MADE to be miserable", "it's emulating a game considered terrible on purpose" (really like this when alot of these games ADD NEW miserable elements. NO old game made you do a golfing-style one pass QTE game and would never make EVERY SINGLE ATTACK ALL GAME that mechanic), and finally and best "you know if you do exactly this in exactly this way you can win (they never say you'll have fun but you can win) and if ANYTHING was done to make the game easier then it wouldn't be a game (cause it's so painfully short or i grimstone's case if you didn't grind and die to basic mobs or if some characters didn't start terrible the game would shave off 8-10 hours)

i own FF1 the grind is not this bad the autokills are not this frustrating, i own dragon warrior 1-2 they are not this grindy, i have even played FF2 which is nearly un-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ playable. no one is saying "oh they should have added something like rub in FF1 lowering your INT and making all magic worse for eternity [don't clap back i know that is bugged in the nes cart], no one is demanding you open a menu to go down stairs like dragon warrior, no one is saying it should be baffling like taking one wrong step out of bounds in FF2 then getting OHK-ed by an enemy too fast to dodge or run from...BUT this game does suck that's just a fact and like the choices making it suck are petty and pointless they do not actually evoke EITHER the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ or the good games people are imagining they do.

lastly OP is right a fake meta story doesn't justify making 50 miserable games, nor lying fans playing both sides of the fence...is the game a bad emulation of only terrible games from the NES library but attempting to be perfect? why modern terrible QTE!? or is it the game updates old games in modern ways in an alternate universe? then why SLAVISHLY recreate terrible old mechanics!? guess you WANTED the worst of both worlds *shrug*...glad we agree the games are in fact ♥♥♥♥!