Review | GrimGrimoire OnceMore - Vanillaware Flare (Copy)

GrimGrimoire OnceMore is an adventure, strategy from Vanillaware and a remastering of the 2007 cult classic GrimGrimoire. This remaster of the game has updated visuals, added an art gallery, and made small changes to the harder difficulty settings. It has also added a fast forward and the ability to at any point during battle, new skill trees that allow you to make stronger Familiars Great Magic that can be finally used in battle, and an entirely new voice cast. Having played the original GrimGrimoire back in late 2007, I was ecstatic when I heard that a remastering of this classic was going to be released in 2023. I’m glad to report that this updated version of the game has given me a burst of nostalgia similar to replaying another remastered classic title from Vanillaware, Odin Sphere. 

Much like an onion, towers have layers.

A testament to the game’s world is that I quickly released the lore that is still fresh in my mind from my days of playing it in 2007. To summarize the plot of the story, you play as Lillet Blan, a talented witch-in-training from the countryside that was selected to come to the Tower of Silver Star. A magical school with ancient roots and a long-standing reputation for being known for its powerful witches and archmages. You experience Lillet’s first five days of attending the Tower and learning different branches of magic and meeting new friends through her time. On the fifth night of her stay, she awakens to find out that the tower is under attack from some wicked spirits. You use what you’ve learned from your previous sessions while trying to survive for 20 mins. After the time has been reached, Lillet finds her companions dead by her feet. And before she gets attacked, she wakes up covered in sweat. She talks to the elf that she was assigned and realizes that she was sent back to the first day of her time at the Tower. Confused and questioning if everything was just a dream, she starts to become involved in the problems that have evolved at the Tower of Silver Star. 

The two-dimensional strategy battles you get into are presented as if you are playing chess, but like an anime fourth-dimensional chess. The combat takes place across several planes. You can summon familiars depending on the level of your crystal and the amount of mana you have collected. There are familiars that are meant for defence, a few that can go on the offence. There are familiars that have the ability to traverse the floors of the tower faster than others. Some would either climb the tower by taking the stairs. Others can fly or they’re large enough to just climb the floors as if they’re climbing a ladder. Not only do you have to strategize your familiars, Vanillaware pulls a Gwent and each familiar can have one of four different styles of magic that you can use. These fall under the schools of Glamour, Alchemy, Necromancy and Sorcery. Everyone has their own playstyle or school of magic they prefer, but to make sure you have a balanced collection, as there’s a rock-paper-scissors element to the strengths and weaknesses for each of their familiars. You will always have to keep an eye on not only the number of resources you have to summon your familiar, but you also have to make sure you don’t exceed the number of familiars allowed to be summoned during the battle. I would normally give a recommendation on what school to focus on, but that seems to be something every person should discover to better fit their playstyle. Moreover, you can choose to play on Easy and just enjoy the story and the plotlines that happen throughout the game, play Normal and face a balance of gameplay and story, or play on Hard and really put your brain through the wringer.

School would have been much more enjoyable if I got to choose which teachers I studied under.

Vanillaware again did some excellent work on updating the game’s r visuals on all fronts. From beautifully remodelled backgrounds for the art and tower, to the character models and familiar designs being lovingly updated. Seeing the attention to detail that was done for this remaster shows the love and care the studio had for the original 2007 release of the game. Seeing that we get a piece of gallery art for every completion of a chapter of the story is a nice reward and does make me yearn for the idea of an official art book. The cutscenes give you a unique glimpse of the character’s personality from their movement and gestures. Small details make these scenes as even if there are more than two characters in one scene, those that are not speaking will still blink and move slightly. This is much better than having an image of a character who’s trying to start a staring contest with a cat that’s in another dimension. 

The music and voice acting has improved by leaps and bounds too. I’m glad that Vanillaware kept the musically talented Hitoshi Sakimoto for the project and the sound difference between a PlayStation 2 and a Nintendo Switch is night and day. Seeing the studio’s continued commitment to going back and adding live orchestral mixes of these songs instead of using the same midi tracks synthesized from the PS2’s sound chip is literally music to my ears. The voice acting was also top notch with the cast brought in to play each character suiting their roles perfectly. I could feel the emotions behind each line they spoke and felt the impact of each and every scene. It almost felt like a different game yet somehow generated the same feelings of excitement from when  I played it all those years ago. Thanks to the auto-play, the conversations flow naturally without any sort of interruptions.

Heard you liked magic?

The gameplay shows some great improvements and additions that were added to the remaster, but I feel like there are still some things missing from GrimGrimoire, like an option to turn the auto-play on or off.  Besides that strange oversight, the game is still another great job by Vanillaware to bring back another classic game into the light of the public’s eye. Watching more people appreciate not only the studio’s art style, but the beautiful story this game tells is a real pleasure as a fan of the original. I know that we’ll get a new IP from Vanillaware sometime in the near future and thanks to the smart modernisation the team is making to its classics, I cannot wait for when that day comes.