First of all, in my opinion, the first Grime is a very underrated gem, which deserves much more attention. But the second chapter went further and added a lot of interesting mechanics, design ideas, cool enemies and bosses. Of course I need to finish the game to tell my final thoughts, but now the game is very satisfying so far.

Grime 1 is one of the most unique and beautiful (and to me best) metroidvanias of all time. This game seems to be very much its Silk Song. Atmosphere, art direction, mood, movement, and music are all stellar. Very excited to keep going. If you liked Grime, you'll almost certainly love this. If you haven't played Grime, try it now, now, NOW

A video review can be watched here: https://youtu.be/sumanrwtW1k

For those who do not want to watch the video:

Completion: 97% (All bosses defeated)

Pros:

- The game’s narrative is incredibly poignant, nuanced and moving, touching upon themes of artistic integrity, creativity, censorship, obsession and the feeling of nothing ever being enough, with these topics being explored through interactions with the world’s numerous residents as well as observation of the environments themselves.

- Fantastic musical score, whose soundscapes do wonders in accompanying the various places that you will visit by adding an extra layer of thematic nuance to the mix.

- The world is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, one of the most impressively creative settings I’ve ever had the pleasure of exploring. Each area is a visual marvel of grotesque appendages, odd architecture and eldritch colors, with the environmental detail present not only adding to the rich tapestry that is the game’s world but also providing insight into the elusive beings behind its conception.

- The map is completely packed with secrets for you to find and obtain, all of which are quite useful, making it worthwhile to venture off the beaten path.

- The map overview does a fantastic job of accurately portraying the world’s structural details, making it incredibly easy to orient yourself, which is a good thing, since the setting is massive. It also automatically marks down your location, save points, quest givers, merchants, main objectives as well as the last place you perished. Finally, it offers you a total of a hundred manual markers to place wherever you want, so make sure you start doing that immediately (see cons). Also, fog of war is on point.

- Moving across the map is made simple by the inclusion of a nice fast travel system that allows you to quickly warp between save points, also known as surrogates. The caveat here is that, before you’re able to use the fast travel system of each biome, you first need to find and unlock two seals, the first of which reveals the map while the second opens up the warping mechanic. Finding said seals is not that hard since there are visual cues pointing you in the right direction.

- In terms of platforming, I had an absolute blast conquering every single acrobatic gauntlet I came across, with all of them being a pleasure to overcome, some frustratingly so, courtesy of the numerous traversal abilities you end up acquiring, which completely open up movement in a way that makes you feel like a master ninja.

- Combat-wise, it is my absolute pleasure to say that the game’s battle-systems are incredibly fun and do its soulslike inspirations justice!

Grime 2 allows you to engage with enemies in, both, melee as well as ranged fashion. The game boasts more than thirty weapons that make up your battle repertoire, ranging from swords, axes and maces all the way to throwing daggers and bows, with each arm’s damage efficiency being connected to a diverse number of your overall five attributes.

Destroying enemies yields experience that leads to leveling up which, in turn, provides ability points that you can then spend at a save location in order to increase your stats and scale the destructive power of the relevant weapons. Allocated statistics can be reset by the use of a certain item, so don’t be afraid to experiment. Weapon efficiency is further boosted by your force power, which takes the form of a green bar that adds damage to them when above a certain point. Said bar depletes if you perform an attack or dash before gradually replenishing on its own, meaning you’ll have to manage it during fights if you want to get the most out of your arsenal.

Your character upgrades also include Pigments, an item you acquire by hunting down special enemies, which you can spend in order to acquire passive abilities that make you even deadlier in combat, such as the opportunity to hurt an enemy when performing a perfect dodge. The battles themselves are deliberate and tactical, with each enemy plaguing the setting having a wealth of deadly, but appropriately telegraphed, attacks, effectively rewarding keen observation as well as snappy reflexes while never feeling unfair. Said enemies are also where the molds, which constitute one of the game’s most notable systems, come into play.

More specifically, certain adversaries can be briefly stunned and then hit with a dash attack in order to steal their mold, which is an equipable ability that can be used at the cost of paint, the title’s equivalent to mana, in order to perform a special attack based on each specific foe the mold came from. There are also some non-enemy molds that you can find across the world, which contain, both, offensive as well as defensive capabilities.

You can have a total of three persistent molds equipped at any given moment, and will need to gather a certain number of each mold type in order to make them permanent, otherwise they are consumed after a few uses and replenish at save points. Your defensive maneuvers correspond to a parry system, which I rarely used, though it, at times, kind of felt unavoidable, as well as a dash dodge, which I loved and used all the time, especially after I upgraded it to cause damage.

You also get a wealth of armor sets, each one comprised of three pieces, namely torso, leggings and gauntlets, all of which can be upgraded.

Healing is carried out via the use of Breath charges, which you recharge either by defeating enemies or resting at a surrogate.

Death is not only incredibly lenient but also rewarding. Dying doesn’t result in any kind of loss, neither of currency nor equipment. Instead, the enemy that managed to take you down is now marked on the map for vengeance. If you come across that foe again and manage to perform a very specific counter, you smash your previous death out of them in the form of a levitating replica of yourself and, if you absorb that, it heals a good chunk of your health.

- There wasn’t a single boss that felt redundant or boring, with each one of the villains I got to duke it out with here functioning as tactical puzzles that I had to solve and, once I’d gotten them figured out, victory over them felt like a true achievement. The vast majority of them made me feel true despair when going up against them for the first time, but each defeat led to more knowledge of their move-sets until, eventually, I could nearly go hitless by the time I finally defeated them.

- Two difficulty options, namely, standard, which is the default difficulty and the one I played in, as well as story, which allows you to modify damage to your tastes, thus making this appealing to, both, hardcore and casual gamers.

- Rebind-able controls for, both, controller as well as keyboard and mouse.

Cons:

- I couldn’t find a way for collectibles to get automatically marked on the map, which can be quite problematic if you’re trying to go for 100% completion since, even though you have the manual markers, it can be easy to overlook things from time to time and, thus, not mark them.

- Platforming-wise, I have two complaints. The first has to do with a couple of instances where I felt like the hitboxes of some spikes were a bit off. It only happened twice, and was related to a very specific hazard that had me dashing through a breakable shard while trying to avoid some thorns at its fringes, with the hits I received there feeling somewhat inconsistent. My second and last issue here is related to a traversal ability that allows you to slide across vertical surfaces and ceilings, and is connected to the process of sliding down walls, which I found to be somewhat awkward to perform since it requires dashing against said walls while at the same time directing yourself downward, a combination whose exact timing I sometimes missed.

- A few mildly annoying runbacks here and there if you happened to die far away from a save point.

Final Grade 9.5/10