Straight away, I appreciated many aspects of Grime Definitive Edition. The art style of this Soulslike action platformer is dingy, but detailed, and almost slick in its appearance. The action is heavy, but controllable. The characters areâŠunique. I mean, you play as a rock creature whose head can turn into a black hole to suck in enemies.
Before I explain that, I should point out that Grime was originally released for Windows in 2021. Ports to various consoles followed in 2022, with the Switch version arriving in January of this year. Itâs good that Switch owners finally get to play this unique game, but itâs not the best place to do so. Iâll explain why in a bit. First, letâs consider the setup.
Grime begins with a somewhat unsettling scene of a stone giant breathing life into another. We then cut to the player character coming to life in a cave, by which I mean it assembles itself into an anthropomorphic rock. Enemies immediately appear, too, but youâre not given any weapons with which to fight them offâat least not right away. Instead, youâre taught how to parry their attacks by turning your head into the aforementioned black hole to suck them in. This destroys the early, weaker enemies, but can simply damage the tougher ones to come.
By focusing on parrying attacks, Grime changes up the way you usually play games of this type. Combat has to be close, and you have to put yourself in harmâs way, not avoid it. Even better, crushing your enemies in your black-hole-head stores up Breath, which you can release to replenish your health points. From the very beginning, youâre preparing yourself for whatâs ahead.
You will eventually receive weapons from helpful NPCs you meet along the way, but to rely on them and their mutations would be a mistake, especially against the numerous bosses youâll face. The key to victory here is to master the enemiesâ attack patterns, learn when to parry and dodge, and discover their weaknesses. This takes time, meaning it also takes retries.
Thankfully, Grime isnât as mean as it could be. When you lose a fight and youâre kicked back to your last save point (Surrogates, in this case), you get to restart with the items youâve acquired at the level youâve reached. Add in the upgrades you obtain on the way back, and youâre a bit more prepared for the rematch. Your knowledge of the enemy is what will ultimately help you pass the boss fights, but if you die against lesser enemies, retaining your items and levels can help you quickly push past themâuseful for preventing rage quits.
I highlight that because Grime is set in a world thatâs fascinating to explore. As mentioned at the onset, the visuals and lore are quite compelling. This world of mud and rock somehow also feels very lively and organic, albeit quite dark and oppressive. The enemiesâ designs and attack methods continued to surprise me throughout, and the whole world grew effectively throughout the campaign, both visually and narratively; the plot elements are almost as fun to uncover as the gameâs many secret areas.
Oh, and regarding that, the level design does often serve up its own frustrations. Progressing sometimes requires you to find hidden areas, and the map is purposefully not as helpful as Iâd like. The environment also works against you at times, and not just via difficult jumps; aimless wandering became as much of an issue for me as the numerous restarts.
Unfortunately, I canât score Grime Definitive Edition as high as Iâd like to due to performance issues that interfere with overall experience. Load times become long in the weirdest places, and frame-rate drops make combatâand even just platformingâmore difficult than it should be. That happens less in handheld mode, oddly enough, but I still preferred playing while docked because everything was easier to decipher on the big screen.
There also seems to be some input lag. At first, I thought this might be purposeful. Slow attacks felt right for a guy made of rock. But as the fights became more intense and the action started flowing more quickly, the maneuvering delays became more of an issue. You can still get used to it, I think, but there were numerous times when I felt the Switch port was betraying me.
Thatâs really what this review comes down to. Grime Definitive Edition gives action-platformer fans a markedly different experience thatâs bound to stick with them, but the Switch port makes it hard to stick with the game. In addition to solving the performance issues, I wonder if Grime would also look quite a bit cooler on other systems. At least this definitive edition gives players immediate access to all available DLC, and it comes at a price thatâs more than fair for the time youâll spend playing it through to completion, if you do.
