Review: Grimoire Groves is a Cozy Rogue-Lite With a Few Thorns

There’s never a dull moment when you’re playing a rogue-like (or rogue-lite) dungeon crawler. At least, there shouldn’t be. The genre is filled to the brim with nonstop action experiences you can gorge on, but stand-out offers available know how to contextualize your runs into meaningful, engaging stories or settings. Hades redefined what these kinds of games could be. While many chase this new standard with similarly grim settings or serious moods, Grimoire Groves is a refreshing change. It's a solid case for delivering the promises of this genre through a much wider range of aesthetics and storytelling. However, the blooming strength of its presentation sprouts more than a few thorns that make cultivating a wholesome experience a bit of a chore.

Primrose is an upbeat and excitable witch-in-training. She has one more hurdle to cross before becoming a full-fledged sorceress: completing her apprenticeship with Lavender, an older, gentle witch who tends to her garden outside the eponymous Grimoire Groves. Upon arriving at the garden, Primrose notices its disarray. A quick trip into the forest itself reveals the Groves have been abandoned by the magical beings and special plants who used to live there. Lavender tasks Primrose with restoring the garden- and by extension the forest- to its former beauty. Bestowed with a magical watering can and a beginner level spell, Primrose must venture into the Grimoire Groves, use her plant-based magic to nurture the plant life back into the soil, and assist the residents of the forest with rebuilding their homes.

I’m a stickler for well-written, natural dialogue. When faced with a cutesy, high-energy title like Grimoire Groves, I always fear the writing is going to push it to the extreme. Situations where characters will be so impossibly sweet, or reactions intensely exaggerated, that it gives me second-hand embarrassment. I’m happy to say Grimoire Groves is remarkably even-handed in its approach. Primrose is bright and cheerful, and being easily excitable, can become equally frustrated or annoyed. Grimoire Groves is a vibrant explosion of color and adorable character designs, and balances this ambush of the senses with good comedic timing and a tinge of sarcasm. Primrose, Lavender, and the rest of the forest inhabitants had endeared me to the world I was exploring.

Despite its disarming exterior Grimoire Groves wants you to focus on the action. It only takes about 15 minutes to introduce you to its premise, some basic controls, and how to equip spells. Afterwards, it expects you to explore and discover many of its little intricacies for yourself. All runs start with choosing a biome to start your dungeon crawl in. You defeat enemies who drop important resources, encounter NPCs who might want those materials, and (maybe) fight a boss. Eventually, you return to the garden and dump everything you’ve collected into new spells, plants, and various shrines in need of repair. There’s a wonderful combination of whimsy and pride watching the garden magically spring back to life. Every new budding plant magically whisks away weeds and bramble. Every structure repaired creates a relaxing centerpiece marking your progress.

Unfortunately, that presentation and explorative freedom can get tangled up into a confusing and, at times, plodding experience. Grimoire Groves is in 2.5D, so it uses 2D objects inside of 3D space. This allows for a distinct, pop-up book look, but creates issues during combat. The plant creatures you’re “helping” into the ground have varying shapes and sizes. When fighting large groups, smaller plants can be hidden behind bigger ones, making it difficult to react to their attacks. In addition, not all enemy attacks feature the warning indicators that appear when casting your spells or entering a plant’s aggro range. Paired with the sheer amount of environmental objects on-screen and the color palettes of Grimoire Groves’ multiple biomes being similar to those of the plants, your overall visibility of what’s going on can become very poor.

Progression through Grimoire Groves’ central storyline adds a menial element to gameplay that left me a little lost on how to proceed. To unlock boss fights for each biome, you have to complete the NPC quest blocking access to its arena. This usually involves running through the forest to find specific plants, and harvesting resources from them. Finding enough materials in a single run to complete these quests isn’t necessarily a guarantee. What’s more, you can’t bring materials from previous runs into new ones. Not unless you use a specific machine that isn’t always accessible in the dungeon when you need it.

The freedom to discover things on your own makes that early-game experience a bit frustrating. For instance, I made charms to raise max health or strengthen my spells, but had no idea how to equip them. It wasn’t until I finished building my first shrine that I learned shrines serve as equipment slots. This was after several hours of confusion and many failed runs, before I coincidentally built the shrine. Had I not run out of things to upgrade, it might've taken longer for me to find out. Expanding your abilities and discovering new features on your own is deeply exciting! Not so much when it causes you to miss integral features you’re expected to use in order to make progress.

Despite this, Grimoire Groves offers an overall satisfying gameplay experience. With only three spell slots and great diversity in the way spells interact with enemies, there are a ton of playstyles to develop. Although it takes a bit longer than I’d like to understand what I need to do to progress and how to do it, the cute character dialogue and expanding garden still gives me a sense of accomplishment once I do. Much like gardening, Grimoire Groves requires a little patience. But once you get past that initial struggle, it’s incredibly rewarding.

Grimoire Groves is available now on Steam.

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