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Grindea’s world is one that stays true to its namesake. In this high fantasy setting, the most prominent figures of society are Collectors, people who, as the name implies, collect Cards and Artifacts: physical items dropped by monsters or found in dangerous dungeons that grant great powers. Soon enough, as a family tradition, you become a Collector as well. The entire world itself relies on game-related mechanics such as drops, statistics and crafting materials; it’s a functional transposition, integrated into a living society. It does sound a bit cringe at first, but the way characters and their background are written is interesting and consistent, and the locations have plentiful lore and solid attention to detail.

What might seem like an all-cheerful setting, hides more than a few shadows and more mature themes in its history and in some plot events. It’s not that the writing shies away from the grimness of reality; it rather uses that sparingly and wisely to make it contrast even more so. There are some quests, documents and interactions that hide sinister implications if you read into them enough. It’s not a masterpiece of narrative by any means, but for this genre, it definitely passes the bar. Markedly distinct in layout, palettes and geography, each of Grindea’s regions or dungeons feel unique and interesting, and are visually appealing despite their retro graphics. Overall, the worldbuilding holds up very well, and is reminiscent of old Legend of Zelda games in many ways.

The absence of mounts and sparse fast travel waypoints comes as no surprise, given the modest size of Grindea’s world. What it doesn’t have in width, however, makes up for in density and verticality; there are a whole lot of secrets, chests, hidden NPCs and interactions crammed in these relatively small packages. Most areas will be locked initially for one story reason or the other, or simply because you don’t yet have the gear required to cross over to them. The absence of more detailed local maps isn’t a big issue, given the constant presence of unique landmarks and quirks in the environment that make each zone easy to remember; Grindea’s exploration component is satisfying and rewarding, since the best items are often behind side areas, optional puzzles or hidden bosses.

Grindea’s combat system is clearly inspired by retro top-down ARPGs; however, it also has several mechanics that make it stand up to modern standards. In all fights, you’ll always be put against overwhelming numbers or foes far stronger than you, a truth especially evident if you play on the harder settings, which are seriously challenging. The straightforward system of general and weapon-specific abilities is quickly accessible, while most skill cooldowns are on the short side of things. Overall, the pacing of fights is fast, with plenty of skill-based mechanics, such as perfect parries, delayed charging times on many skills or consumables, long cooldowns for healing that don’t allow potion spamming, and limits in place for ranged ability spam to prevent perma-kiting. Mostly, fights focus on avoiding damage and waiting for the right opening, something especially true with boss fights that are all about learning patterns and blindspots. The animations, responsiveness of controls and impact feel all hit the right spots: it never feels clunky at any point. If you intend to collect all cards, which grant powerful passive bonuses, or the rarest unique items, you’ll have to mow down hundreds of enemies, given their ridiculously low drop rate — hence the name “Grindea”, I suppose.

Speaking of difficulty, I played on the Hard setting and that felt adequately challenging at all times, with no issues such as overleveling standing out at any point, even if I cleared all side quests each time before venturing forth into the main story. Some bosses gave me quite a lot of trouble, too. With the constant influx of skill points, abilities that evolve once you upgrade them enough, a wide variety of talents and many weapons or gear with unique properties, combat never gets boring. On top of that, all enemies have markedly different movesets, with their elite versions changing completely from the standard ones, and often proving much more formidable. The only blemish to all of this would be the bosses’ HP scaling in late-game; some of them simply have mountains of health regardless of your build, at least on Hard, and feel like a chore to chip down while avoiding the barrage of AoE and bullets they constantly spam.

You’ll acquire Skill and Talent points at each level up, determined by XP gained from quests and killing monsters. Some quests may even grant Talent Points directly, and you’ll be able to convert Skill to Talent points later on if you feel like focusing on a single skill while putting all the rest on passives. There’s unlimited respec for everything at the cost of gold, so if you don’t like your build, you can change that quite easily. Many of the best items are crafted, if not found, too. In order to craft something, which can be done anywhere, anytime, you’ll often have to grind enormous amounts of low-drop resources from enemies, but that’s well worth the effort, since without better gear you won’t go a long way, even with the best personal skill.

Grindea wears it's inspirations on it's sleeve. Clearly wanting to emulate Zelda/Secret of Mana and I'd argue it does so rather well. It has a decent size world with secrets to find, quirky characters to talk to, and monsters to be slain. It has a pretty robust skill system with plenty of options to choose from, as well as a sizable amount of gear to use as well. The aesthetic is charming, the music and presentation solid, there's a lot to love here. However where I feel the game falls into a "hit/miss" is with it's boss fights and a couple of minor side quests. Gaining gold is weird in this game. There will be times where the game will want you to just cough up copious amounts of it but you won't have any idea how you're supposed to get said gold. It's not a deal breaker but it can be frustrating.

As for boss fights they are fantastic for the most part but some of them suffer from some minor design flaws. Firstly the bullet hell elements seem strangely out of place in this game. Your character's hit box isn't really designed for it and the level of precision needed to duck and weave past things doesn't seem to be present. I get the feeling I was really supposed to be perfect blocking/reflecting projectiles more than I was but that's on me and not the game. Secondly while I'm no stranger to challenge I feel like a lot of the later boss fights just drag due to HP bloat. The final boss in particular is this bonkers 20+ min affair that just feels like too much despite the clear stakes of the game. Who knows maybe my build was just bad or something? Either way these flaws aren't enough for me not to recommend the game. If you're looking for some top down action/adventure goodness Grindea delivers.

Fun game

I initially picked up Secret of Grindea because of the obvious references to Secret of Mana and Zelda, thinking I'd primarily be enjoying a nostalgia trip with a heavy dose of RPG cliches. I was surprised when the game subverted those expectations and turned out to be incredibly fleshed out in all aspects. It has a well thought out combat system allowing for multiple character builds, numerous unique characters that grow with you, challenging and fun puzzles, and a very engaging story. The developers understand the cliches and, in every case, sidestepped or intentionally poked fun at them. This culminates in a new classic that pays homage, but does not ride the success, of it's predecessors. I highly recommend this game for anyone who loved the old SNES ARPGs but would still recommend even if you have no idea what came before.