Grimoire Groves (PC) Preview

I think it has been pretty well established by the number of reviews I’ve done on Rogue-likes that I’m a big fan of the genre. However, any chance I get to cross my love of Rogue-likes with my love of cozy games is like a match made in Gaming Heaven. So, when I got the chance to play the demo of Grimoire Groves ahead of its release (and the Steam Next Fest) I jumped at the chance.

Grimoire Groves puts you in the role of Primrose, an aspiring witch who goes to visit the witch Lavender for training. However, when she arrives, she discovers that not only has Lavender’s garden withered, but Grimoire Groves itself no longer teems with the plant life it once did. So, over the course of her training (multiple runs into the grove) Primrose must collect seeds, consult the elemental spirits, learn new spells, and restore both Lavender’s garden and the Groves.

There is a lot more that seems to be involved in the plot of Grimoire Groves, including mysterious rainbow socks, which speak to me on a homosexual level. Ok, that sounded weirder than I meant it to. Anyway, Grimoire Groves folds the cozy farming elements into its progression system. As you defeat enemies for the first time, you’ll gain seeds that you can plant in Lavender’s garden.

Feeding those seeds various materials gained from your runs will help them grow, slowly restoring the garden to its former glory. You can also use materials to unlock new spells and craft other items. While the demo is fairly limited (Only covering the first few quests or so) it seems like Grimoire Groves will have a fairly robust amount of content and upgrades.

There are also characters (I found at least 6 or 7) you’ll meet in various runs that you can gift items to grow friendship levels. Right now, they all seem to be merchants to give you items that will help you last longer during runs. I’d like to see the devs give each character a more personal touch, though that might be because I’m spoiled with Hades and Hades II.

Regardless, it seems each character will have at least one quest that may take multiple runs to complete. Hopefully this hints at a larger personal story for them than the demo initially shows. The character designs are cute and overall, the game has a very pastel, soft, cozy vibe to it.

The main part of Grimoire Groves that felt a little out of place (or possibly under-tuned?) is the combat system. Primrose uses her magic watering can to fight, (cute right?) creating various spells that cause area-of-effect zones with varying effects. The goal is to allow your enemies to drink the elemental energy from your attacks, and various spells synergize to make this work.

One spell I used pulled enemies into the center of a flower-esque zone, which I could then use my main attack on to hit and feed multiple enemies at once. It’s a novel idea, mixing the farming concepts into combat. However, I noticed a weird bit of jankiness as I progressed.

Larger enemies (or rather, stronger enemies) take more hits to feed and plant. The smaller enemies will swarm you after a while, clinging to you until you dash away. This combination makes for a hectic amalgamation that works really well to add a layer of difficulty. However, some enemies damage you on contact, and some don’t. I had a difficult time figuring that out until I wound up dying in a run, going from full health to none in about 2 seconds.

This is also further complicated by the fact that Primrose can eventually use 4 elements of magic, and enemies will be color-coded to match that element. As you’d expect, enemies won’t take “damage” unless they are hit by a spell of their color. However, (as I understand it) they will also damage Primrose if she feeds them the wrong color of energy. I could be wrong on this, but Lavender mentions it the first time you fail a run.

This wouldn’t be bad, except when you start attacking an enemy, everyone in a 10-mile radius comes running to play. So, if you have enemies of two different colors on you, you’re bound to hit enemies with the wrong damage type. Since health items are scarce and difficult to acquire, I can easily see a high-difficulty spike coming at some point later in the game. I had trouble at times even in the demo.

Don’t get me wrong, a difficult Rogue-like has its place, and it has its fun value. However, if you’re trying to pull off a cozy vibe, it does send a rather surprising mixed message. The full game (set to release on March 4^th) will likely have some balance changes and other things, plus I was playing a very early part of the game, so I can’t be too hard on the developers.

For now, my general verdict is that I had a lot of fun with Grimoire Groves. However, from playing the demo it feels like some work and balancing needs to be done. The developers at Team Stardust have the vibes and art direction on point, and the gameplay definitely has promise. I just hope the final version of the game has some adjustments to make it a little more balanced or user-friendly.

A PC Preview copy of the Grimoire Groves Demo was provided by Stardust for the purposes of this review.