2D, Console, single player.....RTS!

These words would fit to describe a good deal of games until you get to the RTS part. Generally RTS titles tend to flail and then fall flat when transferred onto a console. Although to be honest, this is mostly due to having read descriptions or reviews of said games. I haven't actually played any, I just couldn't imagine what it would be like without a mouse...UNTIL NOW! I have given it a try because the lovely people at Vanillaware made it, and their crazy high-res sprites that make their games look like drawings-come-to-life and it's too charming to pass up. Yes Grim Grimoire, you are quite the exception to the rule of RTS titles on console and I am sad that it took me this long to finally get to playing the game (it has been sitting there since release and I finally popped it in this past week).

Lets start with the basics, the story is about a girl Lillet Blan that gets accepted to a special school for magicians with great potential. Her first 5 days start out with simple introductions and tutorials and quickly end with disaster striking, people dying and finally she is brought back in time to the first day she arrived. The story then consists of you replaying these 5 days until finally fixing the looping while also preventing bad things from happening. Think Harry Potter with more time travel and anime-ified. I must admit, I actually found myself interested the whole way through to see the resolution. Despite it being the same 5 days looped, each cycle plays out quite differently and they did a good job of character development based on the situations the cast finds themselves in. The cast is pretty small, aside from Lillet there are 12 other main characters who are all portrayed very well by their English voice actors. There is the option to turn the voice acting to Japanese, but I found the English to be quite enjoyable and believable. Funny to note that each of the character names are based on various alcoholic drinks.

Now the gameplay mechanics, this is where the real magic happens in terms of actually making this odd creation of a game work. Lillet is the commander of her familiars she commands in battle. The battles take place in variously sized 2D cross sections of the tower, floors connected by staircases and though the background doesn't change much you don't really notice. Instead you're more focused on the changing layout of a level, some sections there are no floors, thus only flying units can pass across these voids. There are breakable walls that units large enough such as chimeras and dragons can break down. There are 4 different schools of magic, read 4 different unit trees and each has an appropriate other tree that it is weak to or strong against. The rather unique button layout is what really makes the experience so enjoyable. Once gotten used to it is rather intuitive and actually easy to command your troops in the most hectic of battles. X and O are confirm and cancel respectively as it tends to be here in the west. Triangle is a shortcut to building the Runes, or "buildings" which produce units or are upgrade centers. Square allows the player to select a familiar, and once that unit is selected you can drag the cursor over any other units and only similar units to the first are grouped. Also you can select a single unit and then press up on the directional pad to select all other similar units on the screen. Pressing left or right on the pad cycles through familiars on screen, the left analog stick moves the cursor and the right moves the screen. On top of this L2 and R2 zoom and open the mini-map respectively and the R1/L1 buttons cycle through each unit's available actions. There are some smaller details, and this is rather a lot to swallow but the tempo of battles escalates as the missions go on at just the right pace to allow this to become second nature. After hearing all of this one might be wondering "there is still the deal with having to move rapidly with only using analog sticks around the map which could feel awkward." The primary way to handle rapid encounters when you need to bark orders to your multiple grimalkins or homunculi to sleep and psychic storm the various oncoming hordes is that the game pauses whenever you select a unit or when you select a new action on a given unit (R1/L1). This allows you to give one person an order, then rapidly press R1 to pause the game to select the next unit you need to give a command to. This may sound convoluted now but you definitely get the hang of it after playing.

As previously stated the game is done in Vannillaware and their rather unique art style lends itself well to the atmosphere. Whether it is the phantoms, morning stars, fairies, homunculi, or the dragons they look fantastic. You really do get a sense of utter doom the first time the screen starts shaking and you notice pieces of wall are being destroyed in a line towards your base, next thing you know a dragon is slowly advancing out of the fog of war. The music is a pretty standard, sadly nothing really stands out. It was done by Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata whose pinnacle i believe was FF:Tactics soundtrack, I haven't really heard anything that has come close to the epic sound of that game that they've done since.

In closing I was honestly surprised this did not get more of a fanfare, Odin Sphere seems to have stolen a lot of it. I find this peculiar since this title is definitely more surprising and in my opinion the better of the two titles. Tiny details like the subtle breathing the characters do during the cut-scenes and the ridiculous shaking the screen does when a dragon or chimera is on the move (If you don't have a dragon or chimera, and the screen starts shaking, start building those grimalkins!"). I beat the main story in just under 15 hours, but there are various difficulty settings available, I did my run on normal. On top of that there are 25 bonus maps that offer different mission objectives and challenges for the player to attempt. Overall a very awesome game experience and proof that RTS can be done right on the console. A bonus is that it is broken down into a cut-scene battle cut-scene system for each day so it is easy to take a break or pick up whenever.

Now back to playing Legend of Legaia, ahh games from childhood wheee.
MOAR RAMMSTEIN & DnB!!