Grim Grimoire [PS2/JPN]

» Press START and you'll be able to choose "NEW GAME" and "LOAD GAME."

» In the intro to the game, two drops of water join together and move across a leaf and drip off while a light streams in from the right. The camera pans out to take in a forest scene with light steaming in from the background while a blue tinged fairy flits across. Scene change again to a thick forest with a mountainous backdrop with parallax scrolling in full effect. A mass of sparkling blue fairies rise in the backdrop. After that, the characters appear in sequence as follows with English names on top and Japanese names below:

Lillet Blaw
Margarita Frozen
Batido Ballantine
Hiram Green
Amaretto Vergine
Advocaat
Opalnera Rain
Chartreuse Grande
Gammel Drask

After the character introductions, the shadow of a dragon flies over an expanse of treetops and a stone gargoyle may be seen perched on a ledge against a backdrop of clouds. An image of the school is shown as the camera slowly pans away followed by a quick shot on the front of the Silver Star Tower that serves as the Magic School.

» The voice of Lillet provides the introduction to the game and she talks about Grimoires and her first visit to Silver Star Tower where she flies in on a blue dragon. The camera slowly moves up the tower and the voice acting ends. The head wizard Gammel Drask appears and he welcomes Lillet who's holding a red tome and wearing a purple/black "witch" costume. Lillet is a new student at the Magic Academy and she shows her enthusiasm for the curriculum. If you check out the background while the two are talking, you'll see neon-outlines of a goose and a unicorn move from right to left.

» If you stare at either Lillet or Gammel, you'll notice that they're not static character drawings. They're actually rendered models and they breathe realistically in that their bodies slowly and almost imperceptibly undulate with each breath drawn. Both figures also blink as they stand there talking. After their conversation is over, a little munchkin named Gafu appears holding an upside down straw broom. He's also breathing. When Lillet sees him, she thinks he's adorable but he scoffs at such an assignation.

» Afterwards, Lillet meets Margarita Frozen who wears a brown corseted dress and a matching bonnet. A green frog with yellow blinking eyes may be seen sitting on top of her head. After their conversation, a sequence entitled "The Night Before" plays where Lillet is in her pajamas and talking to Gafu when they're eventually joined by Margarita. Afterwards, you'll be prompted to save your progress to memory card. Each 8M memory card can hold 4 data save slots for Grimoire.

» After saving, a DIARY screen appears where you may revisit the Prologue of the game, the Night Before, or continue onwards to the First Day at Silver Star Tower. The music on the Diary screen is strangely reminiscent of Harry Potter movie music. You may select three levels of difficulty for every mission - Sweet, Easy and Normal.

» The First Day scenario begins with Gammel lecturing to Lillet from a book while she follows along from her opened grimoire. In the next scene, a practice battle ensues where Gammel teaches the ways of Grimoire troop movement. A group of elves with a flower stuck to their pointy green caps serve as the grunts in the mission where they gather mana.

» After the introduction, the playfield appears with a base spinning slowly on the lower-left corner of the screen and your first elf gleefully bopping in place on the lower platform a few steps away from the base. A Mickey Mouse-style glove serves as your pointing cursor which is moved with the L-analog pad. The d-pad cannot be used. To select the elf, move the glove over him and the hand quickly holds a magnifying glass. Once hovering over the elf, press the SQUARE button to activate him and he'll exclaim his acknowledgement. Move him to the right towards the area indicated by the blue arrow by moving the hand over the arrow and pressing the O button. He'll agree and mosey on over. You've reached a crystal-laden area and the elf will immediately begin hauling mana (looks like crystal shards) back to the base of operations.

» To create more elves to help haul mana, move the glove over the spinning green circle base and press SQUARE. A little elf icon will appear on the lower-right corner of the screen. Press "O" on the icon and wait about a minute for the elf to magically appear and immediately send him to work. Each new elf costs 50 mana crystals to create. To complete the mission objective, create 10 elves and send them to work. After each mission, your Units Produced, Units Lost, Units Killed, Mana Mined, Elapsed Time, and Total Score is shown while colorful radiating fireworks burst in the background.

» In the next scene on Day 1, Batido Ballantine and Hiram Green are chatting when Lillet enters the scene. After Hiram introduces himself and Batido haughtily dismisses Lillet, Hiram reprimands him. After this scene, you're prompted to save your progress again to memory card. Day 2 starts afterwards.

» Day 2 starts a lot like Day 1 with Gammel lecturing while Lillet follows along. A floating blonde fairy girl appears between them with both arms and legs crossed while gossamer wings beat gently behind her back. The second practice session starts where the blonde fairy girl and her identical friends are the attackers in a simple skirmish. The elves from the first practice level are also present to perform grunt work to retrieve mana. The first function to perform is to press and hold the SQUARE button and then hover the cursor over all four of the fairies to select them and move them as a group towards the south. In the next sequence, the game will show a jester-like imp on a lower level who'll scale the stairs and attack one of your fairies. Watch as the two attack each other automatically when they're in range of each other. After a few blows, the fairy defeats it and the tutorial continues with more movement exercises and a short lesson on how to get the elves in your party to prepare a crystal shard so that mana can be harvested from it. After defeating two more groups of enemy imps, the lesson is over and the second day continues with a conversation between Lillet and Amaretto Vergine that's disturbed by the lecherous Advocaat. You'll be prompted to save your progress and the 3rd Day starts.

» The third day starts with Gammel and Lillet interacting instead of Gammel just lecturing. Afterwards a "Grimoire Data" screen appears with four types of magic listed on the right portion of the screen as follows:

Glamour
Alchemy
Sorcery
Necromancy

Each section contains three spaces but only the Glamour section has two tomes that are available. The other spaces are all blank. If you check out the first tome under Glamour, you'll see the elf and fairy icons are unlocked and available but the third, fourth and fifth levels are not available yet. The third level features a "HEAL" icon while the fourth features what appears to be a spirit. The fifth level icon shows two arrows arcing from the left to the right. The second tome under Glamour only has the first level unlocked - the chamber creation talisman utilized by elves so that they can harvest mana from a crystal shard. A bar below the tomes titled "Characters" shows the different creatures available in the game including Unicorn, Blob, Homunculus, Golem, Chimera, Gargoyle, Imp, Grimalkin, Demon, Dragon, Guardian, Ghost, Phantom, Skull Image, and Charon. The correlation of each creature to the type of magic that it is governed under is also shown by way of an icon system.

» The practice level on the 3rd Day starts with a tutorial on switching between grimoires to access different spells and magic by pressing either the L1 or R2 trigger. The lesson goes on to show how to use an elf to create defensive guard towers which automatically shoot out eldritch attacks whenever enemies draw near. Think of them as automatic defensive measures when soldiers aren't stationed at a certain spot. The goal in this level is to collect mana to create at least five fairies and then send them to destroy at least one of the demons stationed near the bottom of the level and the demon portal. After successfully completing the assignment, Chartreuse Grande elicits a yelp from Lillet before the two get to their introductions and consequent interaction. Opalnera Rain walks in and contributes to the conversation.

» Day 4 is another day of learning for Lillet but her teacher on this day is Opalnera which has an impossibly thin waist to accentuate her hourglass figure and heaving bosom. She dresses sort of like Elvira. At the outset of the practice level on Day 4, the first grimoire of Necromancy becomes available and the Ghost and Phantom are available for use. After the practice level opens up, select all five ghosts and then send them upwards to the crystal shard and they'll prep it for cultivation. After the structure is built, they'll automatically move mana to the base of operations below. Next, level up the base so that Phantoms may be produced. Phantoms are the warrior class in Necromancy and they're powerful creatures who destroy the jester-like fire creatures with two hits each. One Phantom basically does the damage of three fairies acting in concert and are a relative bargain at only 75 mana per Phantom. In addition to attack capabilities, Phantoms may also be commanded to perform patrol duty by highlighting the EYE icon and then selecting a target area on the level. Once triggered, it'll continually move back and forth between its origin point and the target destination. The aim in this level is to destroy the demon portals on the upper levels of the stage.

» Day 5 starts with Lillet by herself while winds howl in the background. Batido joins her but something dire and deadly has happened. The practice level features the tutorial stylings of Margarita. The goal in this level is to withstand the attacks of the enemies without losing any of your guard towers or structures. The enemies try to mount concerted attacks but as long as you generate new Phantoms and Fairies to fend off the attacks, you'll be fine. Although the Phantoms are strong attackers, they have low HP and are slow. So, the fairies have an advantage in that they are fast and have higher HP. After the level is over, Lillet is by herself again for a few seconds when she's joined by an armored demon with white hair a blue complexion and a crown on his head. Everyone is gone. Kaput. Lillet is shocked at the revelation but before she can do anything, a time warp of sorts sends her all the way back to the beginning of her stay at the Magic Academy. After this scene, a revisiting of the Night Before scene is played where Lillet is speaking to Gafu when Margarita joins the conversation. From this point fourth, all five days will repeat again where Lillet has to discover what caused the tragic circumstances that befell nearly everyone at the school. Each day is prefaced by a "SECOND" designation - for example SECOND DAY 1 to let you know that you're on the second go-around for the five days of Grim Grimoire. Although the days are similar, there are different circumstances and character interactions that occur. For example, on day one, Advocaat appears during Gammel's lecture. He wasn't there on the first day one. The battle in the Second Day 1 pits the player's contingent of fairies against demons and some imposing beasts which do a lot of damage. We played this level on the EASY setting which wasn't difficult but we're guessing the NORMAL setting is a lot more challenging. After completing the stage, the first book of Sorcery is unlocked which gives players the ability to control Imps.

» The SECOND Day 2 features Lillet and Advocaat who gives her the second book of Sorcery with two spells available at the outset - Grimalkin for Level 1 and Egg for Level 2. The action in this level gives you four Imps to use to collect mana and two Grimalkins. Soon after the level starts, the Dual Shock 2 controller will start rumbling and the screen will shake. A mighty wyrm is making its way towards your little encampment and the only way to stop it with your little crew is to send the Grimalkins to meet it and cast a sleep spell so that it dozes off and stops its rampage. The key to this level is to generate an egg and then incubate it. A mighty wyrm will hatch from the egg and counter the enemy wyrm as well as the first wave of enemy attackers who will run roughshod over your entire encampment if you're not quick on the draw. Wyrms cost 500 mana each and take time to grow so you'll have to act quickly since the Imps are slow at gathering mana. If you have two wyrms attacking the enemy at once, you're nigh unstoppable. Slow but unstoppable. The enemy will be able to generate two more wyrms of their own to counter your forces but by the time they're operational, you'll have another two wyrms of your own to meet them head on. After completing this level, the third book of Necromancy is unlocked which adds Obelisk and Skull Image to your repertoire.

» Battles are fairly straightforward where familiars are marshaled into direct conflict against enemies on a playfield which is more vertical than horizontal.

» The voice actress for Lillet in the Japanese version speaks more naturally than the actress who does Lillet's voice in the North American version of the game.

» The dialogue in the cut scenes is voiced entirely by actors while the text of the dialogue scrolls on the lower portion of the interaction scene.

» Enemies include red suited jester-like imps, grim-reaper-like beings that serve as the front of a ship, stone golem-like beings with burning fire within, basilisks, and other exotic creatures. The artwork is excellent and the creatures animate fluidly as they ramble around. Some creatures such as the wyrm take up nearly half the entire screen as they crawl into view and attack with billowing blasts of fire.

» Despite having the massive head of a lion, Chartreuse is soft-spoken and somewhat effete in his mannerisms.

» When a unit is selected, its available functions are shown on the icons located on the lower-right portion of the screen. For example, the elves can only move to collect mana and build structures. As you level up, the elves will gain the ability to heal units. The fairies on the other hand can move, attack, and defend. They cannot perform grunt work however.

» When units are attacking an enemy, they can be moved or made to stand at a position and defend by highlighting the discs on the lower portion of the screen for MOVEMENT, ATTACK, and DEFEND. Toggle between the options by tapping the L1 or R2 trigger and then activate by pressing the O button on the desired action.

» To bring up the MASTER MENU at any time, press the START button and the following options will appear

End Game
Grimoire Data
Practice Content
Options
Return to Game.

» Grim Grimoire is very much our type of game. The missions are enjoyable and later levels are challenging but it would have been nice to have a speed-up cursor command so that we can zip around the battlefield quickly. As it is, you have to push the L-analog and travel around the screen at normal speed to check out your troops and forces and issue commands. When multiple campaigns are afoot, this can cause a bit of frustration and perhaps consternation. As it is however, this will be one of the few games that NCS staffers will play from start to finish.