Written by Dan Gill
Peanut butter and chocolate are a winning combination. Salty and sweet flavours mingling into one delicious taste sensation are one of life’s little pleasures, yet on paper it sounds like it shouldn’t work. The adventurous may branch out into other hybrids such as cheese and jam, or chips dipped in strawberry milkshake. Flavours at two ends of the food spectrum combining in delicious harmony. Gaming enjoys a similar alchemy thanks to indie developers (for the most part). Slay the Spire’s melding of RPG and deck building mechanics comes to mind, or perhaps Brutal Legends’ combination of action-adventure and RTS (with a dash of rhythm action). So, there’s no reason to expect Grid Force’s melding of RPG with bullet hell shooters to fall short. Maybe it could work?
The game starts with Donna awakening with no memory of her
past and being dropped straight into a battle. The player can choose to go
through a tutorial or take their chances, being gradually introduced to the
mechanics of the game and additional characters. It’s a nice opening and is
interspersed with some manga-style exposition. As the game goes on, the story
segments get longer, and begin to drag on a little too long.
The game itself plays out on the eponymous grid, your
current character on one side, and enemies on the other. Using a combo of light
and hard attacks, and knowing when to dodge, reflect attacks and select the
right character for the current battle is crucial to success, as the game takes
no prisoners. It has several systems that need to be learned in order to
succeed, otherwise you’re promptly punished with a game over. There’s also a
rock-paper-scissors mechanic regarding enemy element styles in a similar vein
to Pokémon. There’s a lot to learn, and the gameplay leans more into the shoot
‘em up camp in its testing of reflexes. The RPG elements are more for the
levelling up of your team and the story.
The game plays well, even if it’s a little rough round the
edges. Enemies require a level of strategy rather than button mashing. Exploiting
enemy weaknesses, along with reflecting projectiles and dodging heavy attacks
brings a bit of weight to conflict, and the RPG-lite levelling up system allows
you to customise your squad, along with the option to equip any masks collected
along the journey. Battles are often tense affairs, and you start to feel a
little of that bullet hell energy when things get hectic.
The tactical options broaden with the expansion of your core
team through recruitable characters. Unfortunately, this is where my biggest
issue with the game lies. The characters are all a bit bland. The tutorial
briskly assembles your core team of four, breezing through introductions for
each through scattershot dialogue. First impressions count, and I was left
underwhelmed from the off. Of course, your mileage with this crew may vary, but
I was left with little desire to follow the lengthy comic panels to find out
what’s going on. Each new character bears some kind of grudge against another
for some reason or another, and things just get a bit samey and one
dimensional.
Presentation is also a mixed bag. The music’s catchy, the
comic book panels look nice, if a little inconsistent in style (which may be
deliberate due to the fractured memory of Donna), but the in-game graphics feel
like a spruced-up Flash game. It’s pretty enough, but the construction paper
style animation left me wanting for a bit more polish.
After the initial adjustment to its quirks, Grid Force
offers a fair amount of enjoyment. Its systems work together well enough, and
there’s plenty of challenge on offer. It’s let down by a lacklustre story and
lack of polish in a few areas, but those looking for something a little
different to broaden their tastes may find enough here to tuck into.
7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment