When you play only one wizard college sport this 12 months…

Since I first performed Muramasa: The Demon Blade on the Nintendo Wii, I’ve made it a private mission of mine to play each Vanillaware title I can on as many platforms as I can. That’s how I ended up proudly owning three copies of Dragon’s Crown, and two copies every of Muramasa, 13 Sentinels, and Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir. I simply can’t get sufficient of their video games. With persistently excellent visuals and glorious gameplay, I’ve but to be dissatisfied by a Vanillaware title. The truth is, after taking part in by GrimGrimoire OnceMore, I’m undecided this developer is able to making a sport I received’t like.

GrimGrimoire OnceMore (PS4, PS5, Swap [reviewed])
Developer: Vanillaware
Writer: NIS America
Launched: April 4, 2023
MSRP: $49.99

Set in a world that’s undoubtedly not Harry Potter but additionally not not Harry Potter, GrimGrimoire OnceMore follows the exploits of Lillet Blan, a brand new pupil at Silver Star Tower. It’s the previous dwelling of the Archmage, who a few years in the past was defeated by…sigh…Gammel Dore, who turned the tower right into a magic academy. Lillet is there to be taught from the good magicians housed inside, however her arrival coincides with a secret plot that seeks to wreak havoc on the college and its lecturers. On her fifth day of classes, tragedy strikes, and Lillet is thrown right into a time loop that has her reliving her first 5 days on the college, giving her an opportunity to unravel this murderous thriller.

To maintain her lecturers and fellow college students from assembly an early grave, Lillet will usually must defeat them on the battlefield. In every of GrimGrimoire OnceMore’s chapters, you’ll try to steer Lillet to victory in 2D real-time technique battles. When you’re coming to this straight from 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, know that the RTS battles right here pattern nearer to what you’d discover in conventional entries within the style. In battle, Lillet doesn’t do any of the combating herself. As a substitute, she makes use of the assorted grimoires she’s earned to provide runes from which she’ll summon familiars that do her combating and useful resource harvesting. Familiars is the final time period for any creature you possibly can summon in battle, together with fire-breathing dragons, numerous kinds of magical turrets, cats armed with sleep spells, and probably the most disturbing chimera I believe I’ve ever seen.

Grimoires, runes, and familiars fall into 4 magical classes (Glamour, Necromancy, Sorcery, Alchemy) which can be sure to a rock-paper-scissors energy dynamic. It didn’t take me too lengthy to get a great understanding of what beats what, however remembering the names of the totally different familiars you possibly can summon and their particular talents was one thing of a wrestle. Within the early chapters, when the kinds of familiars have been restricted, I may energy my means by each problem. At round Lillet’s third journey by the loop, that was now not working for me, and I had decelerate and actually take into consideration I’d go about defeating my enemies.

It has been far too lengthy since I’ve performed a correct RTS. It’s in all probability one thing I shouldn’t admit, however the final time I earnestly pursued the style was greater than 20 years in the past once I received hooked on Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds on my eMac. My obsession with that sport was triggered by my nostalgic recollections of taking part in Command & Conquer: Pink Alert with my pals in center college. This style used to devour numerous my after-school time, so I used to be considerably shocked at how rusty I used to be going into GrimGrimoire OnceMore.

The obvious signal of that is how usually I used the brand new fast-forward characteristic to hurry by every battle. Because the fight sequences can go on for fairly a while, it’s a godsend of a characteristic. Nevertheless it made me fairly careless in these opening hours, and I needed to management my use of it if I needed to see this sport by to the top.

One other characteristic new on this remaster is the talent tree. Every of the totally different grimoires Lillet learns has its personal tree. As you proceed by the story and full non-obligatory side-missions, you earn cash you possibly can spend on these timber to enhance your models or give your self a bonus in battle. In a really player-friendly resolution, OnceMore permits you to respec these talent timber at any time, so for those who stroll right into a problem that’s heavy on enemy Alchemy familiars, you possibly can redistribute your cash to the Sorcery talent timber to get the higher hand. Some abilities on the timber are locked to the sport’s simple and exhausting modes, the latter of which NIS claims has been tweaked to offer a higher problem than within the authentic launch.

A much less helpful new characteristic, for many of the narrative a minimum of, is Grand Magic. That is—relying in your issue—a one-time-use-per-battle piece of magic that may deal a implausible quantity of injury to your enemies or heal your injured familiars. There are 4 totally different Grand Magic talents, however it was uncommon for me to make use of something aside from Mana Burst (an enormous flaming assault) on the few events I pulled the set off on this skill. As soon as I began taking the sport severely and received again into the ebb and movement of the RTS style, I had little use for this get-out-of-jail-free card.

Arguably, the characteristic most returning gamers might be inquisitive about right here is the HD visuals. GrimGrimoire OnceMore is a shocking sport with beautiful character artwork, lovely hand-drawn story segments, and splendidly artistic creature design. Like virtually each different Vanillaware title, it’s a wonderful piece of artwork. If there may be one space the place the visuals do disappoint, it’s within the backgrounds of the battle sequences. Each battle takes place within the hallways of Silver Star Tower, and it simply will get sort of uninteresting after some time seeing the identical setting repeatedly. Every battle map is constructed otherwise, however they stunning a lot mix into each other, even when you possibly can see noticeable variations within the surroundings.

That’s doubtless my solely criticism about this sport. As a result of it’s breathtaking in any other case—significantly on my Swap OLED display—it controls tremendously, and the narrative is well-written, avoiding the expository pitfalls of the time-loop style. Positive, many of the characters listed below are off-brand Hogwarts college members, however Vanillaware injected sufficient of its model into these caricatures to make them greater than some dollar-store Wizarding World weirdos. The voice forged does a decent job bringing these characters to life, although some sound much more gifted with the spoken phrase than others. That, or I simply have a factor for actors who chew up the surroundings.

The unique GrimGrimoire was envisioned as the primary in a franchise earlier than poor gross sales put the kibosh on that concept. I don’t know if Vanillaware and NIS America might be extra profitable this time round with GrimGrimoire OnceMore, however I hope they’re as a result of this sport is a high to backside delight and I’d like to see what lies past the halls of Silver Star Tower.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}