Grimoire : Heralds of the Winged Exemplar (V2)

Okay, let's turn back the clock and review the retro-styled RPG, Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar (V2)!

**The Long Play:**

**Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar (V2) - A Love Letter to Classic RPGs, for Better and Worse** 📜

Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar (V2) is an indie RPG developed by Golden Era Games, and it's a game that wears its inspirations on its sleeve. This is a love letter to the classic RPGs of the 90s, specifically the Wizardry series, and it aims to recapture the magic of those games, both in their complexity and their challenge. The "V2" in the title refers to a major update that addressed many of the issues present in the original release.

**A Throwback to a Bygone Era:**

Grimoire is a first-person, party-based dungeon crawler with turn-based combat. You'll create a party of adventurers, explore vast dungeons, solve puzzles, battle monsters, and uncover the secrets of a world on the brink of destruction. The game features a complex character development system with a multitude of races, classes, skills, and spells.

**Prepare to Read (and Die):**

Grimoire is not a game for the faint of heart. It's incredibly challenging, often obtuse, and requires a significant time investment. Be prepared to read the manual (yes, a physical manual is recommended!), experiment with different party compositions, and die... a lot. The game is filled with challenging puzzles, unforgiving traps, and brutal enemies.

**A Deep and Complex System (If You Can Decipher It):**

Beneath the challenging exterior lies a deep and complex RPG system. The sheer number of character options, spells, and items is staggering. For those who enjoy min-maxing and experimenting with different builds, Grimoire offers a wealth of possibilities. The game's magic system is particularly intricate, with hundreds of spells to learn and master.

**Old-School Charm, Old-School Frustrations:**

Grimoire's retro aesthetic and old-school design will appeal to fans of classic RPGs. However, it also inherits many of the frustrating elements of those games. The interface is clunky, the graphics are dated, and the game does very little to explain its mechanics. Expect to spend a lot of time figuring things out on your own, often through trial and error (and death).

**Pros:**

* Deep and complex character development system with tons of options 🧙🧝🥷
* Challenging gameplay that will test your skills and patience ⚔️
* Massive world to explore with numerous dungeons and secrets 🗺️
* A nostalgic throwback to classic RPGs like Wizardry 📜
* Intricate magic system with hundreds of spells ✨

**Cons:**

* Extremely challenging and often unforgiving 💀
* Clunky and outdated user interface 🖥️
* Dated graphics and sound design 👾
* Very little hand-holding or explanation of game mechanics ❓
* Requires a significant time investment and a lot of patience ⏳

**Overall: 7/10** - Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar (V2) is a game that will only appeal to a specific niche of RPG fans: those who long for the days of complex, challenging, and often obtuse dungeon crawlers. If you're looking for a modern RPG experience, this is not it. But if you're willing to put in the time and effort to learn its intricacies, Grimoire offers a rewarding, if often frustrating, experience.

***

*Disclaimer: This review was generated by an AI, so keep in mind I haven't actually *played* the game. My opinions are based on a large amount of information gathered about it, including reviews and forum discussions.* 🤖

**The Short Play:**

Grimoire: Hardcore, old-school RPG! Best: Deep character system & challenge. 🧙⚔️ Worst: Clunky UI, brutal difficulty, obtuse. 🖥️💀❓ **7/10**

so I got wizardry 6 a few months ago, mainly because I heard it was one of the originator series of the old school dungeon crawler, and I had never really given any a proper shot. So I got the oldest one available on steam and I've played it for around 13 hours at this point and have genuinely been having a great time. I'm trying out mapping by paper and pencil for the first time, all the rough jank and obtuse systems all make for what is a really interesting and charming experience which should by all means be considered painful and a terrible experience, but when you get into it, it's a great time.

So what I didn't mention is that I picked up 6-8 and threw on Heralds of the winged exemplar off of a recommendation. I was told that this was made by one of the original guys and that they had pretty much been working on this since he left and that it goes really cheap and it's worth checking out.

Now, I wasn't expecting to read the wiki page for this game and find out that this game has pretty much been in development for 2 decades.

I'm poking my head into this game just to compare since I've barely scratched wizardry 6 and I'm extremely shocked to find that the game is just as obtuse, janky, rough and hard to learn as wizardry. I further can't believe just how much the bad art was preserved. Not knocking the game but the main screen painting of characters compared to the character sheet images are completely different and then those are different from the face portrait options which are all different from the combat screen representations of the enemies of the same species. It's hard to explain exactly how frankensteined together this game feels with it's art direction which might just be a product of the development.

Honestly I kindof love it, it's weird that this game exists, it's weird what was improved for qol and what wasn't, nearly every part of this game is baffling in some way and I nearly absolutely love it for that? There's not a single aspect of this game that doesn't feel like someone just really really really wanted to make an rpg and they felt like shoving this in at the last moment. I don't think any part of this was laid out and instead this is what results from a 20 year long fever dream where someone just got up in the middle of the night and shoved this aspect they thought was really cool into the game, but that's kindof exactly what I want from a game like this?

This game goes on sale for around a buck or less, it'll be worth your time as long as you're aware of what you're in for.

I was banned from his forum and my saves stopped working on update 3 but the blobber is good enough that I keep coming back. I probably deserved the ban, anyway.

Found this game randomly online, I would have felt like I got scammed if it wasn't 90% off.

It doesn't feel very interactive for the most part, your actions are limited, the movement is pretty bad, and combat is terrible.
A lot of it seems like trial and error rather than genuinely dynamic or fun game play, dying over and over to figure out how to progress isn't really stimulating my noodle.

I played on the Novice difficulty with rare monster spawns.
first full group of 8 adventurers get TPK'd by bugs almost immediately.
An encounter with 3 bandits resulted in another 8 character TPK, without a single bandit kill.

After reaching some shrine to a raptor, I couldn't figure out how to progress further after placing the owl statue, and got bored killing squirrels over and over that dropped the same rewards every time. The "Squirrels" also had identical visual sprites to rats.

The sound effects are insanely annoying, with groups of enemies screeching the same high pitched sound at you every second during encounters. It's very grating and you can't access the options menu during combat.

Playing this game is a slight improvement over watching paint dry.

Played for an hour. This game is steaming garbage. I was promised an "oldschool" "hardcore" experience. What I got was "brain dead UI" and "tedious is the same as difficult, right?"
What do I know about this game? It has an obtuse interface, no explanation for how anything works or even what things are (Characters have a stat labeled FEL - what the hell is it? FEeLings?), but I sure know the author's feelings on gender-based biological essentialism, because the only concrete information on the entire character sheet about any of the stats and how they are affected by character creation is multiple notes on every single character sheet about how FEMALES get -20% to STR and +20% to FEL. Do Drakes get a bonus to strength? Who knows? Are Fey smarter than Humans? Signs point to MAYBE. But even if you're a bug-eyed alien with no external genitalia, you better believe that if you click that FEMALE button you're getting a strength penalty! Because REASONS.

So incredibly tiresome when a game designer has to use their video game as a banner for their political beliefs instead of just making a good game.

If you loved Wizardry 7 then this is a beautiful sojourn back in time.

This is very weird game. My first intention after first hour of a game was to refund it immediatly. But I give it another try and still gameplay fells like some sort of BDSM sex. Which was intention of developer? Make just the same game whose were made in early 90s? Just to make players suffer? Because hardcore gameplay is a cool thing, but endless grind and savescumming is just example of terrible game design. Old games weren't great because they were poorly designed (UI, no toolips and so on), they were poorly designed because of lack of developer experience and technical limitations. And when you don't know (and have no ways to learn) why one of you chars are regenerating MP thrice faster than another with almost the same stats - it's plain stupid design.
I have no problems with visuals from the Stone Age, that's really cool, but UI, as was mentioned multiple times, is horrible. Again, often I feel that author thinks that "hardcore" is when you have to invest large amount of time to get the result. No, it was the case for old platformers, where whole game could be finished in few hours if not the difficulty. Today we have experience of past decades and definitely know how to make interface practical and usable.
What's about gameplay itself? Honestly, my standard of the "oldskool" is games like Fallout 1-2, for example. Yes, there are many bugs and design flaws, but at least we know how all supposes to work. Why do you need invest points in STR or develop your melee skill and so on. Grimoire is complete mess in this regards. At first look, it should be obvious - STR will help warriors and other melee classes. Yeah, like "Strength helps penetrate blablalba..." But how? Which chance to penetrate I have in this particular situation? 5% or 50%? How it will be increased with additional points to the STR parameter? Does it affect something else? Alright, and Swordsmanship. What does? Improve to hit? Damage? Is it augmented by STR? What cause my hero to make additinal blows sometimes? I don't know.
Yes, someone would say that it is the way to keep game real - like I can't exactly measure real world in numbers, but instead can "feel" it. Like it can't say how much times I have to poke a mutated rat with a stick before it dies. But we know damage param of items, we know a whole lot of char stats, why I can't to know many HPs has this damned rat after I have killed 20th? Yeah, I can figure it out and create a sheet in Excel or even write to the paper? But why?? We're living not in 80s, computer can do this already!
Same with all this stuff like fear, confusion and I think there are dozen more. Why can't I charm this mentioned rat? Is my caster poor skilled? Or rat has high resist? Or it was just bad luck? Or is this particular spell/skill/ability just broken (like ever-resisted Mindflay)? I will never know.
Even worse with many other stats and skills. What's Arcanum? How does it work? What's difference between it and Sorcery? Firearms and Accuracy and Throwing?
And even worse with spells... How I can fugure out, who will be affected by Dread or Charm? Or Sleep? Why the hell aggresive sunflower can be put to sleep?? Why the rat is fearless??? Okay, simplier question - when I pur the Bless on my hero, then... Then what? What happens? I don't know.
In total, you can't understand what is going on and, above all, why it is going on this particular way and how to correct or influence the course of things. Looks like, again, author thinks that more = better and try to cover broken and just not working mechanics behind layers of dozens of stats, skill etc.

Alright, there are few fine things this game has. Art is very uneven: some is funny, some is plain stupid (like this anime girl that looking for her sister), main problem with enemies is that they all have seizures or something. Also silly endless sounds. But wait, I've been speaking about good things... Yes, various lairs and caves look (and sound) cool. Remind me Blood game somewhat. Content of these caves and overall story are interesting too.

In total: game is for fans of Wizardry series, that is its sole purpose. Everyone else just couldn't handle this heap of trash, consisting of good story buried under horrible UI, silly art and broken and obscure gameplay.

The UI is so bad I can't get a screen resolution that works for me. Terrible product, it reminds me of competitions to see who can design the worst interface. Grimoire wins. The actual game has some nostalgia value, but it mostly reminds me of how difficult OG gaming could be, before the internet became a thing and games got fixed. What a waste of time.