As tough as nails Metroidvania titles go, GRIME is right up there. It's been styled as a Dark Souls type romp meets the side-scroller experience.
There's plenty of those around, so where does it stand out? Its icky concept helps, but it's also just a great platformer... if you can get past the difficult.
Grind in GRIME to Enjoy the Grimy Experience
This one is by Clover Bite, an indie game studio in Haifa, Israel. In its appearance it looks very much like Metroid Dread (2021) with its graphical style.
Where it differs from Nintendo's classic is this is one dirty, filthy, grim underworld of a game that's brutal and tough as nails.
We'll get into the difficulty debate a bit later, but we'll note for now if you persevere with GRIME you get an often excellent Metroidvania (and action-adventure RPG) that's compelling and dank.
Its concept is about anatomy. You don't get many details early on, but as you explore a dank labyrinth maze you learn to understand what's going on. Namely, you're formed of Breath and this drains as you lose mass and whatnot.
Seriously, it'll make more sense if you just play the game.
You get a mass system you have to manage. If you die, you respawn at a save point and continue to develop your powers with each playthrough.
Some of the baddie destroys abilities you get help you to recover health, which is handy, and you can power up RPG steal your abilities.
There's a lot to really like in GRIME.
The atmospherics are terrific and you really feel gross and icky going about in the underworld. All the gurling weirdos you meet make you feel uncomfortable.
Want a suitable creepy soundtrack to go with that?
Well, you get one thanks to British composer Alex Roe. His work features a mix of electronic music, orchestral sweeps, and male choirs chanting.
Where GRIME will remain divisive is with its difficulty.
Its taxing as you can get wiped out pretty quickly by enemies. But if you play well enough, the game is actually very generous with you. Killing an enemy with the absorb button will help you earn health back.
That's just kind of tricky to get right.
What we find tedious about the difficult games debate is the "git gud" brigade who've convinced themselves that "true gamers" play on the highest difficulty and complete games through their sheer brilliance. This way, they are superior to all around them.
Basically, it's just a pathetic ego exercise for them.
When in reality games as difficult as this ostracise a lot of people. If you want a pick-up-and-play game, you'll be left frustrated with GRIME. And we'd instead recommend similar titles such as the eerie Carrion (2020) or the outstanding Dead Cells (2017-onward).
It's annoying as there's such a simple solution developers can use:
- Easy mode
- Normal mode
- Hard mode
We feel not offering these options is obstinate. But there we go! It's Clover Bite's choice and the result is a murky 2D Dark Souls experience if you're looking to punish yourself one.
Its peaks are very high, but we felt its difficulty holds it back.
These sorts of games require a lot of time and commitment to get the most of. Like many older gamers, finding the time to do that is tricky.
It's a shame as we loved the best bits of GRIME, but grew weary of repeating sections of the game over and over as we kept dying.
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