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

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Lurker King

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At least after reading this I know where felipepe's biggest anal pain comes from. He can't live with the injustice that Cleve charges 40 bucks for his game while his precious weaboo crap is being sold for the same price as a six-pack of toilet paper.
Elminage Gothic is not a weaboo game though.
Cleve is a weaboo lover. Deal with it.

Cleveland Mark Blakemore said:
Are you familiar with Manga? It is a genre of RPG invented by the asian cultures. It is a synthesis/blend of fantasy and science fiction that is really a liberation of the human imagination. Anything can happen and does. There are giant robots in Grimoire, fire-breathing wicker statues, laser-wielding alien bounty hunters and extra-dimensional creatures right beside vampires, knights, dragons and sword-swinging dwarves. You can ride on the back of a giant turtle, travel to several other dimensions and use computer terminals. Most of this stuff is in beta testing right now, some of it is still under development.

It is Saturday night here in Australia and I was just about to take a break and watch a gigantic Manga classic on public television. It is really amazing stuff. I discovered it only a few months before I started work on the game and it has truly been the primary force behind the design, I was so impressed with it when I first saw some Manga cartoons and movies. I had never seen anything like it in Western culture and it appealed to me on a very deep level as an artist, I felt like it was a type of narrative that shattered boundaries and adopted a child's viewpoint of intense wonder at the world. It is not fair to say it is escapism as it is always tinged by deep moral imperatives and real emotional bonds of loyalty and friendship as well as love. It is hard to explain without seeing it.
 
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an Administrator

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At least after reading this I know where felipepe's biggest anal pain comes from. He can't live with the injustice that Cleve charges 40 bucks for his game while his precious weaboo crap is being sold for the same price as a six-pack of toilet paper.

Try the superdemo, it's free ! herp derp

Elminage Gothic is not a weaboo game thought. I'd appreciate it if people would stop calling in that. It has no weeb-appeal, sold 9k copies, and got mixed ratings and Stema. Proper weeb games always loved by players and sell much more than that. You might just as well call Grimoire a AAA+ title.

It's a simplistic snorefest with animu graphics, what do you want me to call it if not weaboo crap ?

INB4 an Administrator posts another picture of a boring maze like map and tells me that the game is super complex.

Well, Felipepe has barely 4 hours in Elminage Gothic to begin with :M
 

Grauken

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The Steam time metric is rarely useful, people can play offlline, play it on GOG and just have steam copies for completeness or play pirated copies
 

Invictus

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FelipePepe, manboons are not learning animals. Where are all your persist spells for this area? You should have 9 different orbs floating in the viewport and you should keep them refreshed, knowing this is a very dangerous area.

As for these troglodytes, are you aware there about three different ways to completely avoid combat with the heavier encounters here altogether?

Yes, if you charge around this area on Progress Quest punching buttons, these trogs will make hamburger out of you quickly. Those impaler spears are designed to kill newbs and Brazilians very quickly down here.

I don't think after 40 hours you should know this little about what you are doing. Grimoire is not an anime grinder. It takes brainpower to play. The insta-kill is a classic part of Wizardry and many other RPGs which you claim to be familiar with ... but I don't think you are. You are like a popamole in sheep's clothing, creeping about in the game going guize I'm totally hardcore wiz player ... but your amazement that your candy ass is getting waxed down here doesn't make any sense. This is a very dangerous area. You cannot popamole through it.

Try thinking a bit about all the options available in the game other than just charging around and crying mascara tears because your like totally maxed out giant got killed by a spear. Thrown and everything. FelipePepe, Grimoire is not for amateurs. If anything, what I meant by unbalanced was simple - there are exploits in the game that even enable people like you to win it. You're right. I need to fix those immediately because amateurs and millennial crybabies should not last ten seconds in the Saltwyrm Caves. The trogs are guarding one of the tablets down here and they have standing orders to kill Brazilians twice. The only way you should be going through this area is with persistent spells floating around like Armorplate, Magic Screen and Missile Screen ... ready to be jumped at any moment. Did you discover how to make the trog army stand aside and let you pass?
I rate this post "Butthurt"...

Sorry, is the purpose of the game to accommodate people who do not learn as they play? Because I never designed Grimoire for people who just want to punch buttons and collect cheevos. FelipePepe is crying because his favorite giant got killed by a spear. Well, that happens when you charge around inside a foggy cave with trogs hurling spears at you from all directions. Try throwing up missile shield or armorplate.

I don't believe FelipePepe has ever played any Wizardry game in his life. Or most blobbers, for that matter.
You haven't designed it for people who wand well-designed and tightly balanced games of any sort either, going by his review and comments...

As for the personal attack on him at the end, anyone who followed his posting on this forum to any extent can see it for BS.

Alright, well I can see you love him. I still don't believe he has much if any experience with Wizardry or any really hard turn-based games before. A lot of this is pretty standard for the classics. Much of this zeitgeist was gathered by looking at the way Wiz 7 played and trying to duplicate aspects of it. Appears this is the first time FelipePepe has seen something like this judging by his comments.
I have stayed away from getting into this review and Felipepe's comments since I both like and respect him... but Mr Blakemore has the winning point here; Wizardry was NEVER "balanced" and while there seems to be a bit of tunning required for the game especially the leveling which will even out the monster variety and power levels most of the oldtime players just know how to fight these supposedly overpowered bosses by casting enchanted blade, armorplate and all those staples of blobbers.

Hell even the Might and Magic games had that down when they created the day of sorcery spells in World of Xeen where you had all the vital spells already in place
I dont want to sound like Felipepe's doesn't know what he is talking about but yeah maybe he needed a bit more of a refresher on how these games are played especially with bosses

For example for the spider boss at the Black Lich's lair the first time I went to fight him without armorplate or enchanted blade for example he wrecked my crew on the first round with his multiple attacks... using these said spells and adjustments for the combat I whacked him alongside the Black Lich not exactly easily but a more managable fight

And for all those that say "hey that is not fair" and grew up with Final Fantasy 4 where you dont need any prefight strategy....well tough; hell even way back in Isles of Terra (my favorite M&M) you had the heroism spell to fight these sorts of super enemies

From day one Grimoire is NOT for causals or players who dont understand what they are doing (although giving them a manual would help a lot too) so complaining that a game literally from 20 years ago has no awesome button or handholding is kind of weird... isnt that the whole point? Isnt it even the slogan "Just like you remebered it but better"?

All in all I really dont like that is has come to this between two of my favorite Codexers and I sincerly hope something can be done about it to mend fences
 

Elwro

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Most great games are not 'balanced'. Fallout was not balanced at all. Wizardries and MnMs neither. They were extremely fun to play due to the diversity of approaches to the problems (Fallout) or parties with which you could seriously attempt the game. As I understand one of F's points, in Grimoire it is hard to stay in a situation in which combat is genuinely challenging, since you either beeze through it or are installed. I haven't seen anyone disputing this; do you find this to be true of your experience?
 

Lord Andre

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Well, Felipepe has barely 4 hours in Elminage Gothic to begin with :M

BTW, I think you're an okay bro so I'm feeling a bit guilty about giving you crap on Elminage Gothic.

But for the life of me I can't understand what people see in this game.

Maps are just mazes with no theme or internal logic except being mazy, the 3d engine looks like it was made by following a gamedev tutorial, textures look like they were found with google and the interface is just windows upon windows of lists.

Fighting is done in limbo dimension where you whack static images. The combat is basically an excel simulator where bigger number better than smaller number, quests are mmorpg tier, writing is RPG Maker tier...

This is by all signs a vaporware.

I simply cannot fathom what hidden qualities this game may have that elude me so.
 

felipepepe

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From day one Grimoire is NOT for causals or players who dont understand what they are doing (although giving them a manual would help a lot too) so complaining that a game literally from 20 years ago has no awesome button or handholding is kind of weird... isnt that the whole point? Isnt it even the slogan "Just like you remebered it but better"?
From the review:
For a final showcase of how unbalanced this game is, take the Hall of Gorrors in Wizardry VII. That was the game's ultimate challenge, an optional area with super-hard boss battles, some of which would take over 20 minutes to beat with a high level party. Grimoire, of course, has its own "Hall of Gorrors" near the end, with seven optional bosses.

I killed all of them in the first turn.
Grimoire indeed starts very challenging - but, after you leave the Super Demo area, it's such a mess that it becomes extremely easy, even on Super Human difficulty. Fights are more about speed, luck and OP skills than anything remotely close to tactics.
 
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Lurker King

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Most great games are not 'balanced'. Fallout was not balanced at all. Wizardries and MnMs neither. They were extremely fun to play due to the diversity of approaches to the problems (Fallout) or parties with which you could seriously attempt the game.

Wizardry was NEVER "balanced"
They are great games despite being unbalanced, not because of it. It’s not as if there is some art of brilliant unbalance design school to being with. You could have multiple approach to problems without a broken combat system. I understand that this game is intended as the genuine sequel of Wizandry 7, but on the other hand is idiotic to assert that only a causal would want a more challenging game.

so complaining that a game literally from 20 years ago has no awesome button or handholding is kind of weird
Manuals are neither awesome buttons nor handholding.

... isnt that the whole point? Isnt it even the slogan "Just like you remebered it but better"?
In other words, we could expect the game to be more balanced than Wizandry 7, because that would make it a better spiritual sucessor, right?
 
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Snorkack

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I can't get over this inane repeated 'but muh wizardry was unbalanced as well'.
First, 6 and 7 are nowhere nearly as out of whack as grimoire in its current state. Anyone who says otherwise never played them, period.
Second, even if they were - those are 20+ year old games that are great despite lack of balance in the late game, not because of. There's no reason to not try to make it better. Especially if you spent the last 15 years just 'polishing' and come up with a slogan like 'exactly like you remembered, just better' or so.
 
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Lurker King

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And by the way guys, the way you react to Felipepe’s review is an indictment of why the genre is dying. You think that players have to figure it our all the mechanics by themselves without any input from the developers, and then expect that new players would be interested in these games. You need to teach a new generation how to appreciate these games. If you keep insisting on this delusional attitude that basic things such as manual and good UI are handholding, the genre will die with you. You keep patching yourselves in the back and telling how hardcore you all are, while everyone else ignore your existence. It's your own fucking fault.
 
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luj1

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And by the way guys, the way you react to Felipepe’s review is an indictment of why the genre is dying. You think that players have to figure it our all the mechanics by themselves without any input from the developers, and then expect that new players would be interested in these games. You need to teach a new generation to appreciate these games. If you keep insisting on this delusional attitude that basic things such as manual and good UI are handholding, the genre will die with you. You keep patching yourselves in the back and telling how hardcore you all are, while everyone else ignore your existence. It's your fucking fault.

The retro blobber genre was never meant to be accessible. And no one expects new players to be interested in these games.
 

Invictus

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From day one Grimoire is NOT for causals or players who dont understand what they are doing (although giving them a manual would help a lot too) so complaining that a game literally from 20 years ago has no awesome button or handholding is kind of weird... isnt that the whole point? Isnt it even the slogan "Just like you remebered it but better"?
From the review:
For a final showcase of how unbalanced this game is, take the Hall of Gorrors in Wizardry VII. That was the game's ultimate challenge, an optional area with super-hard boss battles, some of which would take over 20 minutes to beat with a high level party. Grimoire, of course, has its own "Hall of Gorrors" near the end, with seven optional bosses.

I killed all of them in the first turn.
Grimoire indeed starts very challenging - but, after you leave the Super Demo area, it's such a mess that it becomes extremely easy, even on Super Human difficulty. Fights are more about speed, luck and OP skills than anything remotely close to tactics.
But did you use the spells and prebuffs? Those tactics are there to give you a chance to win those fights without cheesing and from your screens you rarely used those or specifically used the diplomacy option to get though those areas
 
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Lurker King

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The retro blobber genre was never meant to be accessible.
Maybe 20 years ago because every player knew what to expect from genre, but now this is a completely idiotic attitude that serves no purpose at all beyond reinforcing a retarded sense of entitlement.

And no one expects new players to be interested in these games.
The next time you bitch that we don’t have nice things anymore I will remind you of that statement.
 

PhantasmaNL

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Grimoire does not have a Super Human difficulty setting.

It may be included in V2 though.
 

Elwro

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I fully agree that the great old games were great DESPITE the lack of balance. I just wanted to point out that just the fact that a game features situations in which SOME otherwise legitimate parties are rotflstomped by the enemies, which some would say is a lack of balance, doesn't make it a bad game. It's bad if, as Felipepe says, you typically one shot the opponents or they do the same to you.

Good manual and a proper UI is a must, of course. All the old great games had them.
 

Tigranes

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90% of this thread is down to people saying "balance" and meaning "the conglomerate of every retarded thing in modern RPGs, some of which may or may not have been said by Sawyer or Roguey or somebody at some point"
 

Haba

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Frankly I don't understand why CC in RPGs needs to be binary - either it works completely or it is resisted completely.

Why to not have partial successes? Strong enemies could simply shrug the effect off in 1-5 turns, giving the party some time to recover. Sleep once, boss wakes up, boss is immune to further sleep.

If you applied this approach to Grimoire, a lot of the fights would be easier to balance.
 

Zombra

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Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Unbalanced games can be fine, but when every combat is a coin flip on who instakills first, something is wrong.

I guess I'm saying that imbalance is OK ... in moderation?
rating_sawyer.gif
 

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