Grimm’s Hollow is an interesting little RPG I found during an extensive browsing session on Steam. One of those types of quirky finds that turns out to exceed prior expectations, although they were close to zero as I clicked “add to library”. This is a free game, to be clear, so I figured there was no harm in giving it a try.
As a heads-up, the subject matter regarding the narrative is heavy, centered on Lavender, who wakes up in the afterlife and devises a plan to find her brother and leave. There are plenty of emotionally charged scenes, so be ready.
Unlike the fire and brimstone presentation of the afterlife in many games, this has much more somber tones, punctuated by various hues and shades of purple. If some games serve to scare, this one is skewed just as heavily towards the moody and melancholy. The dungeons are small and fairly straightforward, with visible enemies, but with plenty of hidden rooms with meaningful finds and sometimes, NPCs with items to reward.
What impressed me the most was the battle system. It’s turn-based, but it pushes players to engage, with time-based attacks and evades. Each time you pick attack, a meter shows up on screen, and the dial quickly moves from left to right, where you must push the down button at exactly the right time, in the little white part in the middle of the meter. It vaguely reminded me of a simplistic, line version of Shadow Hearts.
The issue with the battle system is that sometimes the attack menu overlaps with the evade prompt, which creates an awkward conflict and makes inputs less clear than they should be. The two systems should not be active at the same time. Thankfully, the game was easy enough, even on normal, where it hardly mattered much. For a more challenging game, this would have been a huge issue. The enemy variety is great for such a short game and was enough to hold my interest, as each one had subtle differences in attack patterns.
This took me 2.5 hours for 2 of the endings and just under 3 to get all four endings, but despite that, this had a solid amount of customization. Although if you want the best ending, you need to max all passive stat bonuses (HP, strength, defense, speed) and special attacks, so in that case, customization is more based on what you decide to prioritize first. Skills can be learned and improved using Spirit Energy(SE), which is gained after beating enemies or found hidden in various parts of the world. Just be aware that SE is also used to buy items, though I had so many from enemies, I never really needed to buy more.
I found the game was frontloaded, difficulty-wise, and the hardest battles were in the opening minutes, so I used all of my SE to boost my stats to start, and it made a huge difference. I didn’t miss the special attacks much in the first half of the game, though the shatter attack to damage and drop enemy defense was one of my favorite attacks, as well as the broken flinch, which, when I tried, hit 100% of the time. However, resilience, which was supposed to boost my defense for the rest of the battle, never landed, and after about 8 tries, I gave up on that, so I’d make that the lowest priority, as a hint. Haste, on the other hand, made a noticeable difference.
But you can’t use them at the start of battle. Instead, Lavender has special attack points she must build up at the start of battle. With each basic attack, it increases by 15. Most skills use up around 8 to 15, so light attention to basic and special attack balance helps a lot. In other words, it boils down to a loose rhythm of building SP through basic attacks and then spending it on skills when available, with occasional buffs or debuffs, usually at the start.
On the technical side, my Xbox controller did not work, so I had to use my keyboard. Not ideal as far as my preference, but not the biggest deal. You can also save anywhere, which is a huge bonus.
Being such a short game, the story and gameplay progression flow well, and I was fully engaged for the duration. I think the developer of this game has some talent and, with some improvements, it looks like they have the potential to make a solid, respectable Indie RPG. I’d recommend this for a weekend game, likely in a day.