Letter’s Quest: Grimm’s Journey – What We Think
When you’re already skin and bones, a craving for pizza cannot be ignored. When you’re the Grim Reaper, you don’t even have skin, so a trek to the pizza shop needs to happen pronto, regardless of the danger it may entail.
Grimm’s fateful hunger will lead him through all sorts of dark and spooky places populated with undead bunnies. These furballs may be frightening, but they’re none too bright; big words scare the pellets out of them. Piece together the longest words you can, and send them packing.
Featuring slick new enemy animations, soundtrack and an endless mode, Grimm returns in Letter Quest: Grimm’s Journey Remastered to make a flashier dash for his ‘za. How many toppings do these new features amount to?
Don’t You Want Some Bunny to Club?
As the title suggests, dev team Bacon Bandit isn’t looking to reinvent their original game. In fact, the core game is largely unchanged. Each stage pits the titular character against foes who must be defeated to clear a stage. Combat is performed by spelling words from the random jumble of letters that appear at the bottom of the screen. The longer the word, and the rarer the letters used, the more damage it will do to your target. Once all the baddies have been thumped, a end of round gem bonus is collected.
RPG-style perks and debuffs keep the action interesting: spell a word that includes a letter encased in a crystal to gain a temporary bonus to your next few rounds. Some enemies will also launch an assault that can negatively affect the tiles. Poisoned, plagued and cracked tiles can still be used, but can do additional damage to Grimm, or keep the letters from counting as part of the score. Stone tiles can’t be used at all until a round timer runs down.
Words with Fiends
Optional level goals and story paths will lead to tougher foes and minibosses that have specific damage conditions. Some can only be hurt by four letter words, while others will take double the injury from words with more than one vowel. It adds an extra level of challenge for gamers who are confident in their ability to pull words out of a jumble.
With the exception of the Time Attack level options, you are afforded as much time as you need to look over your pool of letters. As there are hundreds of thousands of words and definitions in the in-game dictionary, you’re unlikely to come up with legit words (including slang terms) that the game doesn’t know.
As levels are cleared, helpful items become available for purchase. Permanent upgrades, ancient tomes that net additional bonus conditions, and consumable potions all help to keep Grimm on his bony toes longer against tougher foes.
Scythe, Scythe, Everywhere a Scythe
In fact, there are so many ways to upgrade Grimm that it may be hard to choose at first. With gems being a limited commodity, I was initially cautious about locking in my winnings for fear I might have made the wrong choice. Fortunately, with each stage featuring four stars to earn (each of which will net a sum of gems) and challenges to complete for wealth rewards, there are plenty of ways to make sure that the next upgrade isn’t far down the path.
Did Somebody Order a Hot Slice?
While there isn’t a great deal of new substance added in the remastered version, it does tighten up what was already a really solid word game/RPG experience while making the game available on new platforms. The endless mode will add a layer of depth to those dying (yeah, I went there) to see how long they can maintain their mastery of the English language. If you already own a copy of the original Grimm’s Journey, the good news is that you already have the updated version of the game!
If you think the only thing keeping you from playing Scrabble more often is a lack of immortal combat, Grimm’s Journey Remastered has you covered.
Get Letter Quest: Grimm’s Journey Remastered on Steam
[xrr rating =”4/5″]
Watch the official trailer for Letter Quest: Grimm’s Journey Remastered below:
