Legend of Grimrock (NSP, XCI) ROM

Legend of Grimrock is a 2012 action role-playing game video game developed and published by Almost Human. The title is a 3D grid-based, real-time dungeon crawler based on the 1987 game Dungeon Master. It was released for Windows in April 2012, OS X and Linux in December 2012, iOS in May 2015, and Nintendo Switch on 15 January 2024. Legend of Grimrock was the debut game of Almost Human, a four-man Finnish indie development team formed in February 2011, which self-financed the title’s development. A sequel, Legend of Grimrock II, was released in 2014. This game is a contemporary rendition of a classic dungeon-crawling role-playing game, blending an old-school essence with modern execution.

Condemned to almost certain death, a disparate group of prisoners faces exile to the secluded Mount Grimrock for crimes, whether proven or not. To regain their freedom and witness daylight once more, they must unite, forming a team to descend through the mountain’s levels. This game reintroduces old-school difficulty through tactical real-time combat, grid-based movement, cunningly concealed switches, secrets, treacherous traps, and monstrous foes. Emphasizing puzzles and exploration, Legend of Grimrock places greater importance on the player’s wits and perception than on the keenest of swords. Are you prepared to embark on the journey and unravel the enigmas of Mount Grimrock?

GAMEPLAY

Legend of Grimrock is a first-person action role-playing game with tile-based movement and real-time game mechanics. Players control a party of one to four characters which they move through a 3D rendered grid-based dungeon, a style of gameplay popular in RPG games from the 1990s such as Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder, from which Legend of Grimrock draws heavy inspiration.

The gameplay consists of a combination of puzzle-solving and combat. Characters within the party gain experience for slaying creatures and beasts within the dungeon, allowing them to increase in level and progress skills which enhance combat abilities and allow the casting of new spells, and equipment is obtained through exploration and solving of puzzles throughout the dungeon.

Many of the harder puzzles throughout the game are designed as bonuses, being optional to the progression through the dungeon but granting superior items and equipment for solving them. About its classic roots, the player has the option to switch on “old-school mode” when beginning a new game.

In this mode the game’s map system is deactivated, leaving navigation through the dungeon’s grid down to the player alone; this references the 1990s games on which Grimrock is based, which left remembering routes and paths through the dungeon completely down to the player. The game’s digital manual contains a printable grid sheet that encourages players to chart their course through the game to this end.

PLOT

On top of Mount Grimrock, an airship carries a group of prisoners escorted by armed knights. The prisoners have been sentenced to be thrown into the pit of Mount Grimrock for crimes against the King, after which point they will be absolved. However, no prisoner pardoned in this manner has ever returned. On being sealed within the mountain, the prisoners make their way downwards through the levels of Grimrock Dungeon, guided by a disembodied voice that comes to them in their sleep promising that a way of escape for both it and the party awaits at the bottom of the dungeon.

The party also occasionally finds notes from a previous wanderer of the dungeon named Toorum, who aside from offering clues to certain puzzles and hidden stashes of equipment, talks about his experiences of the dungeon’s periodic tremors and the dungeon’s design seemingly meant to be “traversed from the top down”. Eventually, the party reaches the bottom level, signposted as “Prison”. Inside, the source of the voice guides the player to reconstruct a broken machine which will activate a portal out of the dungeon.

However, upon assembling the parts and repairing them, the voice is revealed to be the machine itself, which manifests as a giant mechanical clockwork cube that attempts to crush the party. Escaping through a portal, the party locates the tomb of the creators of Grimrock Dungeon, who left behind scrolls explaining the dungeon’s purpose of containing the machine, which they refer to as “the Undying One”, until “the gears of time finally come to rest”. The tomb also contains a weapon designed to be used in the event of the Undying One’s escape from confinement.

Using the weapon, which temporarily stuns the machine, the party disassembles the parts that they used to repair the Undying One and deals a fatal blow to it using spells of lightning. The Undying One eventually explodes and falls apart, triggering another tremor that shakes the dungeon apart. The last scenes show the party running down a stone hallway of the dungeon, before a beam of pale blue light explodes from Mount Grimrock, ascending to the sky. A gigantic crater is shown to be all that remains of Mount Grimrock, the final fate of the prisoners seemingly unknown.

KEY FEATURES

• Traverse an extensive network of ancient tunnels, unravel secrets, and navigate the hazardous dungeons of Mount Grimrock to survive.
• Employ runes for spellcasting, concoct potions using herbs, and combat deadly monsters with an array of weaponry.
• Assemble a party of four characters, customizing them with various races, classes, skills, and traits.
• A true dungeon crawling experience featuring grid-based movement across thousands of squares filled with concealed switches, pressure plates, sliding walls, floating crystals, forgotten altars, trapdoors, and more.