Grime

About Grime

Destroy… Absorb… Grow… GRIME is a fast and unforgiving Action-Adventure RPG in which you crush your foes with living weapons that mutate form and function, and then consume their remains with a black hole to strengthen your vessel as you break apart a world of anatomical horror and intrigue.

An unusual material collapses in on itself, the world shudders and contracts, and suddenly you are squeezed into existence.

What awaits you is a world unknown, alien in its own familiarity, and you must survive what terrors you face. Explore your surreal surroundings, absorb the many enemies you encounter, and use their own traits against them as you let yourself become far more than you once were.

GRIME lets you play to your preference, upgrading only those traits you feel most suited to your unique style. You’ll find there is more than one way to break open an enemy as you move through a variety of evocative environments, meet their inhabitants, and discover the source of their madness.

The Gameplay

If you are a Metroidvania veteran, then you are going to be familiar with the gameplay in Grime. If not, then expect a 2-D side scroller with some platforming where you have to time out your movement and manage your stamina. You’ll need some reflexes to take advantage of the absorb technique in which you absorb weak enemies to fill up your breath meter. Breathe acts as your healing agent so you’ll want to absorb often. You can also use absorb to stagger and reflect projectiles.

Combat feels good. The hitboxes seem fair. When I attack, the animations and flow feel on par with what I expect. There is no block so the use of absorb adds an additional gameplay element that staggers an enemy that cannot be absorbed. I enjoy the mechanic even if I can’t always get the timing down.

The Atmosphere

I love the atmosphere and Grime does a fantastic job at creating atmosphere. The world feels alive and dead at the same time.

The liveliness comes from the inhabitants and enemies. There is a vast amount of each. You’ll run into all sorts of NPCs throughout the journey. They all have their own personalities and traits. I enjoy interacting with them. The world itself feels like it is alive, too. It’s constantly moving and changing.

The feeling of death comes from the world. While the world feels like it is alive, it also feels like it is dying. You’ll notice this in the background of the game. You’ll see collapsing mountains and falling rocks. If you aren’t careful, you may wind up with a boulder smashing your character.

The Music

Grime has amazing music and I love it. There are two soundtracks and you can listen to them through most streaming music services.

Original Game Soundtrack

This soundtrack is composed and produced by Alex Roe. It contains all of the thematic music such as cut scenes and boss battles. If you are familiar with Dark Souls, then you may hear similarities (and that’s a good thing). The music is heavy on the orchestra and vocable chorus arrangements.

Ambiances From the Game

This soundtrack contains the music that plays when you are exploring a zone. Grime is made up of quite a few zones and each zone has its own atmosphere. The music here complements each unique atmosphere with ambient music. I you aren’t familiar with ambient music, you’ll hear synth instruments combined with unique sounds.

Base Game + DLC

As of the time that I am writing this article, the base game of Grime has been out for quite some time now and The Color of Rot DLC was recently released. My gameplay and this article are based on the base game with the Color of Rot DLC.

The Base Game

The base game rocks. The zones are laid out in a way that I never felt like I had to backtrack too often. There are quick travel options but I didn’t use them very often either. I compliment the game design for this.

All of the bosses feel unique and most of them provide a good challenge with fair encounters.

The Color of Rot

I can’t say that I am a huge fan of the DLC. The dynamic of the world changed a bit and some items were moved around for reasons I can’t understand. The Color of Rot DLC is basically a large area full of platforming and item collecting. There are a couple of new bosses but nothing too exciting.

I’m not going to complain too much because the DLC was free. However, I think the DLC could have been better implemented and not featured so much platforming. Platforming is fun but now when the entire zone is built upon it.

The Color of Rot also introduced some bugs. Prior to the DLC, I didn’t have any issues with the game. However, my latest playthrough had me falling through floors and respawning inside of walls. There are new issues and I assume that these issues will be fixed in the future.

As I See It

I love Grime. I’ve done three or four playthroughs (one with The Color of Rot) in order to play with different builds. Each run has been a blast and each build that I have played offers unique approaches to taking out enemies and bosses. I love the atmosphere, music, and gameplay. I’d like to see some of the bugs squashed by the time the new DLC arrives. I’ll update this article when the new DLC releases.