GrimGrimoire

Plot

The main character, Lillet Blan is a young magician admitted to a prestigious magic school, the Tower of Silver Star. Though she attends normal classes for the first four days and meets the various professors and students, on the fifth day she awakens to learn that everyone in the tower is dead. Before Lillet is also killed, she is suddenly propelled back in time to her first night at the school. She then relives the five days before the tragedy over and over again, retaining the knowledge of the magic she learns in those five days and desperately trying to solve the mystery to prevent the same events (or worse) from taking place. Lillet discovers dark secrets about her classmates, teachers, and even the school itself before she discovers the truth.

Gameplay

Lillet appears onscreen as a cursor which is used to guide troops around the field. Units known as familiars are created by placing summoning circles called runes on the map. Mana can be spent to upgrade the Runes in each fight. New runes and familiars are found as Lillet collects and studies the grimoires. Resource gatherers take the form of elves and other small creatures who harvest mana from crystals. Unexplored areas of the tower are shrouded in a fog of war.There are a number of ways to select individual or multiple units. The game consists of a story mode and a series of bonus maps that are unlocked upon completing the story mode for the first time. The game's plot is presented through cut scenes with large, animated character portraits. Only the familiars are under the player's direct control.

There are four different magic schools with a rock-paper-scissors arrangement of strengths and weaknesses among the schools. Glamour summons fae-type creatures such as elves, fairies, and unicorns. Glamour is strong against necromancy and weak against alchemy. Necromancy summons undead units, which are astral and cannot be affected by most physical attacks. However, they are weak against magic. Necromancy is strong against Sorcery and weak against Glamour. Sorcery are units which are demonic in nature and have high hit points. Sorcery is strong against Alchemy and weak against Necromancy. Alchemy units specialize and have fierce ranged attacks. They are strong against Glamour and weak against Sorcery.

Reception

GrimGrimoire was well received by the gaming press. It received an average ratio of 78% at GameRankings and 79% at Metacritic. GameSpot gave it an 8.4 and praised it for its storyline, characters, and aesthetics. IGN, which also gave it a score of 8.4 praised the cut scenes, battle system, and 2D gameplay. RPGamer gave a score of 3.5 out of 5 and also praised the game's interface and its voice acting.

GameSpot and RPGamer criticized the small soundtrack and the lack of map variety. 1up gave the game a C+ and criticized the game for being "too watered-down" compared to the layers of complexity found in other titles from Nippon Ichi Software America.