Geekscape Games First Impressions: ‘Grim Dawn’
The folks over at Blizzard have become masters of time. When the Reaper of Souls expansion was released for Diablo 3 back in March, there was an abundance of time that just dissipated into thin air. Every waking moment was put into what felt like the Diablo 3 players wanted in the first place. Now that some of us have a stronger grip on our time that Blizzard usurped months ago, someone else is trying to control those precious ticks on the clock: Grim Dawn.
Being developed by Crate Entertainment and in early access on Steam, Grim Dawn has players doing the same clickity-clicks looking for that next great item drop, which is typical to most isometric action role-playing games. Though, in this world, everything seems more grimy and rundown with a lack of a broader color palette. The story is also not something I found too intriguing beyond the quests certain townsfolk were all to eager to encourage me to do. I was more than happy to oblige and take on the fools errands just to explore every crevice of the world. I was cackling with anticipated delight to uncover tasty loot cowering away in some dusty old crate or shelf.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that I would be the one cowering, not the loot. Unlike some action role-playing games, combat is a bit more challenging. Enemies will swarm you in hopes of barricading all exits as precious health ticks away from your character. Simply trying to click-to-win won’t cut it with mobs. Crucial use of skills, items and gear as well as spacial awareness is required to survive. What could be somewhat of a deal breaker for most is the way health is handled in Grim Dawn. When out of combat for more than five seconds, health rapidly refills until the meter is full again. This makes for a lot of hit-and-run style of combat that could last more than a handful of minutes each encounter. The challenge is still there even with this health system in place, though not as challenging as it was made to seem at first.
Although there are different classes to suit multiple play styles, none of them seemed to feel diverse enough from one another in the beginning. Soldier is your standard sword and shield class, Demolitionist excels in range attacks and explosions, the Occultist wields magic and bringing up the rear is the Nightblade class as the sneaky rogue. That lack of diversity is offset when reaching level ten, which unlocks the dual class specialty. Being able to mix and match two different classes gives birth to a whole plethora of possibilities. With two classes and their skill sets available to cherry pick from, mixing and matching skills ended up being a lot of fun. Resetting skills at next-to-nothing prices greatly enhances experimentation when testing what works and what fails horribly.
Adding to the experimentation aspect of Grim Dawn is the loot, specifically the properties of said loot. Usually, stat boosts are attached to some items and gear found in the world. Having spells or skills alongside the stat boosts something new to me. From elemental spells to physical skills, having even more options besides what is set for each classes skill trees is almost overwhelming. There’s also crafting that was just added in the latest update that sadly doesn’t seem to be beneficial to players, yet.
What keeps me coming back for more in Grim Dawn is still a mystery to me after eight hours of playing. Could it be that the power of finding a brand new shiny item allures me to keep pressing on? Maybe it’s the experimentation of skills to find some sort of combination that brings the pain to all who oppose me. Whatever Grim Dawn has over me, I’m excited for its future. With new classes, more quests, more acts in the main story and bug fixes/tweaks, El Diablo will have to look upon the dawn coming with grim chances of surviving.
