GrimGrimoire OnceMore (2023) [PS5] review

“There is no way that this winter is *ever* going to end as long as this groundhog keeps seeing his shadow. I don’t see any other way out. He’s gotta be stopped. And I have to stop him.”
-Bill Murray, Groundhog Day (1993)

In a world where games are remastered every other day, one writer will take the challenge of reviewing every…single…one of them. That writer is me. That reader is you. And that game, today, is GrimGrimoire OnceMore, the latest in an ongoing effort to turn everything old new again. This is one of the less prominent games from Vanillaware, who are more often known for Odin Sphere, Muramasa and the like, but it’s a fascinating experience that’s worth a look nonetheless – particularly for patient players who are willing to endure its foibles.

Tell me if this sounds familiar: we follow a young student attending a wizard school, learning about magic and the occult. It turns out, though, that there’s a lot going on behind the scenes, and plenty of that is sinister stuff indeed. Today, though, rather than following the Boy Who Lived, we’re talking about Lillet Blanc, a witch-in-training who finds herself trapped in a neverending time loop. It’s got that Groundhog Day feel; sure, Lillet’s friends and teachers are murdered on the regular, but at least she gets to try again, right? As Lillet learns more about magic, she’ll have to put that knowledge to work to try and save the day.

How about GrimGrimoire OnceMore’s gameplay? Well, what we’ve got here is one of those most bizarre chimera: an RTS on a console. If that sounds like a difficult thing to get right, well, yeah, that’s completely true! There’s been multiple efforts to make this genre work without a mouse and keyboard and they’ve met with varying degrees of success; lest we forget, you could play both Command & Conquer and StarCraft on the Nintendo 64, after all. GrimGrimoire, then, is another attempt to bridge the gap between real-time strategy and controllers.

It’s…somewhat successful. GrimGrimoire’s missions primarily involve conjuring creatures from Runes placed around the battlefield, which consists of several horizontal floors that we view from the side. The player and their opponents will gather mana energy from crystals using worker units, then spend that mana on combat-capable units in an effort to destroy the other side’s runes. Runes come in several different flavors, each aligned with one of a number of factions, and over time Lillet will be able to access each of these as needed. Glamour, for instance, allows the player to conjure woodland fae like fairies and elves, which are cheap and effective en masse but weak alone, while Necromancy’s spectral creatures are a little pricier but tend to be more powerful and have an advantage against corporeal opponents. Properly assembling the right flavor and composition of force is the key to success.

Doing so, of course, is easier said than done. You’re still using a controller for this, after all, and that means there’s going to be a little bit of compromise when it comes to effectively managing your army. To its credit, GrimGrimoire does its best; you’re able to rapidly select multiple units categorically with one button press, for instance, and it’s possible to quickly queue up unit production once you’ve got the hang of how things work. There’s also a very aggressive degree of auto-pause here, so you’ll have plenty of time to make decisions and change up your tactics if need be. Still, it’s awkward, particularly before you get a handle on the unique control style this game relies on.

That can be an issue later if you don’t pick up on things quickly, because like many of Vanillaware’s games, GrimGrimoire OnceMore is no joke when it comes to difficulty. The first few tutorial battles are one thing, but later on you’ll run into puzzle-style missions that feel like they’ve really only got one “right” answer. Given that losing a map might take fifteen to twenty minutes of struggle because you didn’t land on that right answer, you might be looking at a struggle. There’s some difficulty options available, which is a nice touch, particularly given the edits made to Lillet’s skill tree based on the one you pick, but on the default difficulty and above you’re going to want to prepare for an arduous journey. Beyond that, as a remake/remaster/re-what-have you, OnceMore adds a little more to the gameplay experience than just spicing up the visuals. There’s an extensive skill tree, large-scale magic and even some new optional battles to check out. There’s no question that this is now the definitive version of this time – and that’s keeping in mind that it’s apparently a little easier as well.

So as mentioned, this is bound to be an arduous journey, but it’s an arduous journey you’ll likely enjoy looking at. Also like, well, the entirety of Vanillaware’s catalogue, GrimGrimoire OnceMore looks absolutely stupendous. It’s hard to argue with the huge, detailed sprites that define the game’s many narrative cutscenes, but even in combat there’s a lot to enjoy. You’re bound to get a kick out of your dragons crawling around on the outside of the building, for instance. It’s a fantastic aesthetic that really adds a lot to the experience. Heck, it might even be enough to keep you going after the battles start to get a little bit frustrating.

That’s really the paradox of GrimGrimoire OnceMore. It’s tough, difficult to control and confusing at times…but it’s also so darn charming that you might just be able to look past all of that and keep going. With a surprisingly dark and engaging narrative that you might not expect from Yes, We Are Also Harry Potter, it’ll be a worthwhile slog should you decide to go down that route. That, plus the gameplay and visual enhancements available in this remake, mean that GrimGrimoire OnceMore is a solid choice for players willing to put in the time.

Thank you to NIS America and Vanillaware / Nippon Ichi Software for providing us with a copy of this game for review.