Grim Legends: The Forsaken Bride

Grim Legends: The Forsaken Bride
by Artifex Mundi - February, 2014

Series links:  Grim Legends 1: The Forsaken Bride, Grim Legends 2: The Song of the Dark Swan

Available at:

Big Fish as Collector's Edition / Standard Edition
Steam



Brought to you by Artifex Mundi, the creators of the Enigmatis and Nightmares from the Deep series.

Within the shadow of an ancient forest, on the bottom of the foggy valley, stands the lonely village of Ravenbrook. Its perimeter is protected by the villagers' charms, but beyond the legends and the magic, the gloomy forests and wailing wind, lies a chasm so deep and feared, it is known by the villagers only as The Abyss. No one knows what lies within, but when a strange visitor arrives in Ravenbrook just before a young bride is kidnapped, the villagers find justification for their superstitions…

The Collector’s Edition includes:

• Two bonus story chapters
  
• Enhanced gameplay features
  
• 30 Spirits of the Forest for your Faerie Meadow collection
  
• The Book of Elusive Objects to give life to local legends
  
• Achievements, wallpapers, soundtracks, concept art, and more!
  

For the Standard Edition

• Walkthrough
  
• Strategy Guide (Big Fish)
  

More Than Just A Name Change! ****

The beta for this game was called Grim Legends: The Abyss, and it was pretty good. With the added CE Bling! and some other changes, this is a way better game.

BASED ON DEMO

FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The intro is up close and personal, right in your face. It is melodramatic and straightaway you know this is going to be a supernatural game involving witches, demons and curses. Not to mention revenge. One thing I really liked from the beginning – lots of people and activity going on around the locations. I get tired of empty, decrepit and filthy rooms.

SIGHTS & SOUNDS
This game has an eerie, spooky atmosphere, as opposed to scary spooky. The vibrant colours and cartoony graphics look good, and are clear and detailed. The music is superb, really setting the tone of the game, and I jumped more than once. A lot of voiceover, and well done.

WHAT’S HAPPENING
A ferocious bear attacks our carriage as we head towards our sister’s wedding. And things just keep getting worse!  She introduces her fiancé, and the next thing we know is she is dragged off by the bear, and we and her fiancé must find and save her. That soon becomes a task that requires magic. We catch up with the bear and our sister Lilly, but then new dangers present themselves from an unexpected source.

It is nice having a partner on our search, as well as helpful characters and a ‘cute companion’ kitten, who is helpful but also very naughty.

MAKING PROGRESS
There are not a lot of HOPs in this one. We have both FROGs (fragmented object game) and Progressive Silhouette (find & use) HOPs. There is the option to play a challenging domino game instead of some of the HOPs. I found it challenging, anyway, compared to your average domino games. There are some interesting and fun puzzles. Nothing too hard. More a case of entertainment than challenge. This can also be said about the adventure component. It was logical without being linear, and I rarely needed any help.

There is an interactive jump map, that showed active tasks available, but it annoyed me. Seemed that every time I thought to consult it, there were no active tasks indicated – just when you actually needed it! There is also a good journal, and a directional hint.

CE BLING
There are two collectibles available, each relevant and interesting. There are 30 spirits (faeries), and 28 ‘elusive objects’ (morphing), which decode a portion of the story book in the achievements section. The spirits are also presented in a book format, and both are quite difficult to find.

There are two types of achievement as well, story achievements (13) presented in a book, and trophies (11) for performance achievements. Both continue in the bonus chapters.

Yup. It is not a typo, there really are 2 bonus chapters, on top of the 7 chapters of the main story. There are also the standard gallery items, wallpapers (16), concept art (12), music (9), and cut scenes (17). There are 14 HOPs to replay.

COMBINED IMPACT
I really enjoyed this game. The overall quality is very good, the atmosphere is both creepy and curious, and the game play is set at about intermediate level for the puzzles. Just my size!   


I recommend this game!

Thanks for a wonderful review, JustTheFacts (can I call you Justy?    )
Looks a brilliant game.

Yup, course you can call me Justie!!