GrimGrimoire starts with a beautiful opening scene. The entire game is done in 2d, and the sprites look amazing. Vanillaware has done a fantastic job with the way the sprites move, and look. After the opening , Lillet is then thrown into her first class, which explains how to play the game.

Lillet begins her first lesson in the Glamour school, one of the four schools of magic that also include Alchemy, Necromancy, and Sorcery. GrimGrimoire is a real time strategy (RTS) style game only instead of looking down from on top of the battlefield, players view the field from the side, giving a very unique perspective to an RTS game. Since the entire game takes place in the school, the backgrounds are always generally the same but the maps are a little different. For example, stairs are in different spots, certain walls can be broken with certain troops, etc. All of the aspects of an RTS are here such as the ability to gather resources, build an army and defenses and finally, attack the other player.

Now since this is an RTS on a console, there is no mouse, so the game could get extremely frustrating if the controls were bad. Thankfully the developers have thought of that and the controls are very intuitive. When a unit or ability is selected, the game is paused until the move spot or target for the special ability is selected. Players can also select all of the same units type of units on the screen with a simple press on the D-Pad. But what if I have five different units stacked on top of each other? Simple, select one of the units, and then press right or left on the D-Pad. This allows a player to scroll through the different units on the screen, when the correct unit is selected, just select what to do with that unit.

Each school of magic has its strengths and weaknesses - Glamour beats Necromancy, which beats Sorcery, which beats Alchemy. Remember this order and the game should go pretty smoothly and be a lot of fun for players. Just like any other RTS there are different structures that can and need to be built. First are the runes or your troop producers. When a rune is placed, units can be created from them by spending money. All of the runes can be upgraded and need to be in order to obtain all of the abilities of the different schools. Each of the sides get five different units, and then when runes are upgraded they provide certain upgrades and abilities to different units or the battle overall.

As an added bonus, whenever a player beats a stage, a bonus level becomes available which is completely apart from the main story. Some of the bonus stages can be extremely difficult. But make for a fun challenge.

The music and sound effects in GrimGrimoire are great. All of the music is composed well and fits with the feel of the game greatly. The voice acting can be listened to in both English and Japanese, and amazingly both are well done also. As mentioned earlier, the sprites look incredible, which is to be expected from the creators of Odin Sphere, possible the best looking 2d game ever. The game play is smooth and easy to get used to. With multiple difficulty levels and bonus stages players will be occupied for hours. The only real problem in the game is the camera stays in too close, and even when it is set to its farthest distance, the camera is still to close.

Almost all the way around, GrimGrimoire is a great game. Anyone who is a fan of RTS games should pick this up or at least give it a try. Hours will be spent on playing through the story and bonus missions and almost every detail is carefully considered, from the graphics and sounds to the balancing of the different enemy forces. The game is just plain worth it.