Grim Trials Preview
Grim Trials will remind you of Hades, and in its current state, does little to dissuade the comparison.
Grim Trials. Glory Jam / Neon Doctrine
Grim Trials, from developer Glory Jam and publisher Neon Doctrine, is a hack-and-slash roguelite in the vein of Hades and its many imitators. You battle through hex-grid arenas in the underworld, and as you’d expect from the game loop, die only to return to the hub where you can improve your stats and gear. The player is Avelin, a young woman who died and was recruited as one of Death’s Reapers. The dungeons you fight through are her trial to earn the rank of an actual Reaper, which will allow her to see her love, who is still alive.
The combat is typical for the genre. I played with a light weapon and a heavy weapon, which require different battle strategies. You also have a ranged attack and a special that charges up as you do damage. Each time you level, the game rewards you with one of three boons that will boost your power, add status effects to attacks, and so on.
Grim Trials. Glory Jam / Neon Doctrine
The combat is a little rough around the edges. The rhythms don’t feel quite right, the hit boxes were sometimes inaccurate, and at times I couldn’t seem to cancel out of an attack with a dodge. The ranged aiming controls were wonky, too. Instead of using the right joystick to aim, you hold down the left trigger, which lets you aim your shot with the left joystick, and then press the right trigger to fire. It felt unintuitive based on my expectations for a hack-and-slash like this, and was unnecessarily cumbersome. It’s clear to me that the fighting gameplay needs more tuning.
Grim Trials differentiates itself from some of its peers with its crafting system. You can upgrade raw materials you find in the dungeons into crafting materials or brew consumables with them. The refined materials serve to make weapons and gear for one of several slots—helmet, boots, cape, and more. The consumables are one-time use, and you take them with you on your next run. I think being able to start from above zero—besides the roguelite stat upgrades—is nice.
The writing in the game was poor enough that I quickly began skipping all of it, even if it contained tutorial information. The writers don’t trust the audience to interpret the dialogue, adding the characters’ tone in brackets in front of their lines, for example, “[confused]” or “[dramatic].” Writers, don’t do this. If the plan is to add character portraits with different emotions, great, but in its current state, it’s cringy.
The game’s 2D, hand-drawn graphics are attractive, anchored by the memorable character and enemy designs. Avelin’s fighting animations are a highlight because of how well they convey the force of her attacks. The heavy blows feel weighty and substantial. The game’s battle environments are convincingly littered with debris that feels like it belongs, which somehow makes crushing the rocks and slicing tall grass a treat.
Grim Trials. Glory Jam / Neon Doctrine
While Grim Trials isn’t yet as good as some of its competition in its genre, the game shows a lot of promise in this preview. You can try the demo on Steam now.
Played on: Steam Deck
