I think the world established in Grim Dawn is sufficient in scope to give Elder Scrolls a run for its money. GD has its own Creation Story, rivalary between gods, different beliefs on who are 'true' and 'false' gods, etc. I love this game and I'm looking forward to Crate's 3rd expansion in ~2024. Thanks for making a video about GD.
I hadn't been invested in the lore of a ARPG since Diablo 2 until I played GD. While the cult of Cthulu and expansions lore struck me as nonsense, the lore around the Grim Dawn and world building is top-notch. My single biggest problem with GD is the combat often misses the mark for button mashing. You can often activate skills in whatever order to the same effect, something Last Epoch has fixed better than any game I've played to date. Skills should set up with others for synergy combos, with each skill effect having some kind of utility. Fake Necromancer example - Bone Wave causes bleeding, Hail of Blood is an AoE that slows and causes bleeding enemies to freeze, Blood Harvest pulls bleeding enemies towards the caster healing the caster for all bled damage before pulsing the excess in a nova which causes non-elite frozen enemies below 30% health to shatter. If every skill yields a unique utility and every utility has a synergy with others it opens the door to so much more build diversity than max DPS and instead of number-go-up nodes, the passive tree can be full of unique nodes which modify synergies to open up different skill rotations. Even the top tier unique items can offer modifiers to synergies or utilities, Bramble Shield causes bleeding on block or smite, Blood Swoord has a 10% chance to cause a Blood Harvest. Now your Melee character does necro things but can't benefit from the frozen modifier unless they pick up a gear that somehow freezes enemies. Blah blah blah.
Hope you get more views! Grim Dawn is one of only a handful of games I've bought multiple times since I wanted to support these developers. Also Crate just announced a new expansion and they've been releasing balance/bug patches pretty consistently from day 1. Honestly their gameplay focus and passion reminds me of early Blizzard Studios in a lot of ways (god help us if they go down Blizzard's path). I do wish you'd discussed the mod support a bit more as Dawn of Masteries and Reign of Terror especially are huge and could probably have their own videos! Dawn of Masteries is a ton of mashed up classes from like every other ARPG giving tons of build options and loot and Reign of Terror is basically Diablo 1 + 2 rebuilt in Grim Dawn. What makes Reign of Terror even more fun is it allows you to play it using the dual-mastery system and can even let you use the Grim Dawn masteries to mix in with Diablo 2! Is it broken? Yes (there's a purist version that disables these features). Is it fun? Very much yes!
Ah, Dawn of Masteries. That was one of the modded characters I couldn't play, iirc. D2 Necro with, you guessed it, GD Necro. Honestly, I just thought that going too in-depth with the mods would detract a bit from the review itself. Dawn of Masteries does get a seal of approval regardless. Good shit.
Wait, Crate used to be Iron Lore? The Soulstorm guys? After completing multiple playthorughs of the vanilla Grim Dawn campaign (about two and two halves at present), that makes _entirely_ too much sense. This game _bleeds_ 40k, if the _cultists_ wielding _chaos_ magic as an _inquisitor_ chases them down (oh, and the inquisitor is named "Creed" of all things, because of course he is) didn't make the spiritual inspiration clear enough. The trolls are basically less funny Orks, right down to the anomalous amount of firepower. The Black Legion (not to be confused with 40k's faction of the same name) are like Cadians if they came from Nostromo. The dimapterans break up the supernatural shenanigans with some Tyranid hive-cleansing action. Kymon's Chosen are basically gender-neutral Sisters of Battle with a dash of Biel-Tan, while the Order of Death's Vigil are more Iyanden ("let the dead join our ranks, lest we join theirs"). And later on in the game, the feuding between the aetherials and the cthonians feels vaguely reminiscent to older, cooler 40k fluff of the Chaos Gods feuding with the C'tan for having equally sinister but mutually exclusive plans for humanity. And though the chaos forces ultimately monopolize both settings, it's the aetherials that seem to pose the bigger threat and were honestly more interesting. For a faction that arguably _caused_ the setting (even if it's _very_ clear Cairn wasn't exactly the happiest place on Earth before the titular Grim Dawn), the aetherial side of the fight ends on a bit of an anticlimactic fart. Waiting for the Malmouth DLC to go back on sale. I don't normally pick up all the DLC for a new game, even when it's on sale, and in this case I'm kicking myself for it. Grim Dawn is like 40k without the Space Marines. This might sound to some like Oreos without the cream filling, but the change really allows the grimdark doom of the setting feel more legit than modern 40k ever will. You can't take the Imperium's alleged peril seriously when they have super secret projects that can dispense a million super-super-soldiers without any foreshadowing whatsoever. To say nothing of where the hell a supposedly deliberately technologically regressive theocratic regime keeps getting all these new and improved STCs from every time the Imperium is due for a new codex like they were the friggin' Tau or something, but that's Novelty Creep for ya'.
Can't Say I've heard GD described as 40K sans Space Marines, but I can't say I don't understand it. As for Iron Lore, I still call them Imperial Guard because of DoW, so I've got them to thank for my regular annoyance at seeing them called literally any other way. Made up for it though. I've played Soulstorm skirmish too much to blame them for it.
Started playing this in 2016 when it came out since it looked like something the makers of TQ had made. Still playing it on regular basis and starting new characters now and then. Really looking forward to Fangs of Asterkarn later this year
"Really looking forward to Fangs of Asterkarn later this year" that didn't age well :/ I'm waiting for that expansion so much especially after seeing a Berserker class on RektbyProtoss channel with one of the game dev. It'll be a best class I think, can't wait for the DLC.
Been having lots of fun with GD, but I think the comfising layouts of some of the maps like making mazes of houses in urban areas really killed the pacing of this game.
It's well worth it. I own all the expantion games, (which are really expansion packs), extras! Murders Diablo 4. Not played D4 since a month after it came out, felt cheated! These guys made a great game for a really fair price. I am happy to support this Dev team! Plus play their great game! Baulders Gate got all the hype for being fair, these guys also did the same. Best ARPG by far.
Unfortunately, I'm in the same camp. I still generally prefer D4 over D3 (On presentation alone, honestly), but I haven't touched it since dealing with that lackluster first season. Grim Dawn, though... fantastic.
Recently I'm reentered grim Dawn, it is absolutely worth it, especially considering it's an old games, it's cheap and low demanding, I can even play it on my slim laptop
I remember playing this on my old laptop with a graphics card years out of date, modded to hell and back, and it still ran fantastic. It's great, truly.
Yeah my back log is also too big I have atleast a dozen different ARPGs I’m either playing or want to play. I also have a job and like to play every class trying lots of builds. So I’m going to need to live for another 138 years yeah that should do it.
I have both Grim Dawn, and Farthest Frontier, and I was curious so I checked I have 1900+ hours in GD, and 1400+ in FF which is way newer, and it's in early access, evidently I like both games which are quite different
"Quite different" is an understatement. Though I can't say which is better, as I haven't played FF, but I'm glad to know that Crate Entertainment are more than just a one-trick pony.
I don't think anything needs to be said about GD itself, but one recommendation: If you love Diablo 2 you should absolutely play the GD Mod "Reign of Terror". It fully rebuilds D2 in GD, just with GDs much faster and modern gameplay. It even features all the D1 levels and Quests as Act 6. Absolute blast to play, I can't go back to D2(R) now.
There is a lot of endgame (not so deep as other) where you can do skeleton keys, nemesis hunts, rings farm from the heretic dungeon and the boss of that dungeon, you can prove you build whit celestials bosses and finally you can do crucible SR (shatterd realms) and farming MIs (monters infrequent) for unique builds. So there is a endgame.
I personally couldn't get into it. It seems to have nice storytelling, but the progressions feels weird. The choice of skills is very small even with all the class combos, builds feel monotonous and unimpressive. And the graphics are poor. They lack any kind of oompf or pleasure from watching what is going on on the screen. I feel like the game in its current state could have been THE thing around 2010ish. It feels like a natural progression from titan quest and diablo 2, but I would expect more in the delivery aspect given it isn't 2010 anymore. And it is hard to defend an arpg with good worldbuilding and story if other aspects are lagging behind too much.
"best in the genre" is entirely subjective. I think PoE is one of the worst in the genre, it's overly complicated, the builds are homogeneous (i.e. Your base class means VERY little), and the seasons gimmick forces you to recreate characters every few months (though I blame D3 for this). PoE is effectively "D3 with a different skin" and everyone hates what D3 did to the genre. The fact that PoE is free to play is the only reason I feel it's as popular as it is. But fans of the game will completely disagree with me because they love the systems in PoE that I hate. Hence, it's subjective.
@@scipocelah6677 the statement that poe is d3 skin is wild and greatly untrue. It s very complicated and complex and to its list of faults id add extreme work-like grind, but it is one of the most polished games in this genre. Games suchbas LE need half a decade to reaxh poes level of content
I mean, shameless plug: I did a PoE review a hot minute ago. I enjoyed it, but I'm not gonna fault anyone for not liking it. It can be complicated at times, and the feature creep doesn't help much there. Also, unlike everything else in that list, I didn't buy PoE (Though I did buy one of the packs way back when mostly for the soundtrack).
I think the world established in Grim Dawn is sufficient in scope to give Elder Scrolls a run for its money. GD has its own Creation Story, rivalary between gods, different beliefs on who are 'true' and 'false' gods, etc. I love this game and I'm looking forward to Crate's 3rd expansion in ~2024. Thanks for making a video about GD.
There is sso much lore in the game. I love reading the lore notes found in the game
I hadn't been invested in the lore of a ARPG since Diablo 2 until I played GD. While the cult of Cthulu and expansions lore struck me as nonsense, the lore around the Grim Dawn and world building is top-notch. My single biggest problem with GD is the combat often misses the mark for button mashing. You can often activate skills in whatever order to the same effect, something Last Epoch has fixed better than any game I've played to date. Skills should set up with others for synergy combos, with each skill effect having some kind of utility. Fake Necromancer example - Bone Wave causes bleeding, Hail of Blood is an AoE that slows and causes bleeding enemies to freeze, Blood Harvest pulls bleeding enemies towards the caster healing the caster for all bled damage before pulsing the excess in a nova which causes non-elite frozen enemies below 30% health to shatter. If every skill yields a unique utility and every utility has a synergy with others it opens the door to so much more build diversity than max DPS and instead of number-go-up nodes, the passive tree can be full of unique nodes which modify synergies to open up different skill rotations. Even the top tier unique items can offer modifiers to synergies or utilities, Bramble Shield causes bleeding on block or smite, Blood Swoord has a 10% chance to cause a Blood Harvest. Now your Melee character does necro things but can't benefit from the frozen modifier unless they pick up a gear that somehow freezes enemies. Blah blah blah.
Hope you get more views! Grim Dawn is one of only a handful of games I've bought multiple times since I wanted to support these developers. Also Crate just announced a new expansion and they've been releasing balance/bug patches pretty consistently from day 1. Honestly their gameplay focus and passion reminds me of early Blizzard Studios in a lot of ways (god help us if they go down Blizzard's path).
I do wish you'd discussed the mod support a bit more as Dawn of Masteries and Reign of Terror especially are huge and could probably have their own videos! Dawn of Masteries is a ton of mashed up classes from like every other ARPG giving tons of build options and loot and Reign of Terror is basically Diablo 1 + 2 rebuilt in Grim Dawn. What makes Reign of Terror even more fun is it allows you to play it using the dual-mastery system and can even let you use the Grim Dawn masteries to mix in with Diablo 2! Is it broken? Yes (there's a purist version that disables these features). Is it fun? Very much yes!
Ah, Dawn of Masteries. That was one of the modded characters I couldn't play, iirc. D2 Necro with, you guessed it, GD Necro.
Honestly, I just thought that going too in-depth with the mods would detract a bit from the review itself.
Dawn of Masteries does get a seal of approval regardless. Good shit.
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: hell yeah!
Absolutely! Grim Dawn slaps so hard. It's so good.
LOVE this game! Top 5 all time ARPG!
Wait, Crate used to be Iron Lore? The Soulstorm guys? After completing multiple playthorughs of the vanilla Grim Dawn campaign (about two and two halves at present), that makes _entirely_ too much sense. This game _bleeds_ 40k, if the _cultists_ wielding _chaos_ magic as an _inquisitor_ chases them down (oh, and the inquisitor is named "Creed" of all things, because of course he is) didn't make the spiritual inspiration clear enough.
The trolls are basically less funny Orks, right down to the anomalous amount of firepower. The Black Legion (not to be confused with 40k's faction of the same name) are like Cadians if they came from Nostromo. The dimapterans break up the supernatural shenanigans with some Tyranid hive-cleansing action. Kymon's Chosen are basically gender-neutral Sisters of Battle with a dash of Biel-Tan, while the Order of Death's Vigil are more Iyanden ("let the dead join our ranks, lest we join theirs"). And later on in the game, the feuding between the aetherials and the cthonians feels vaguely reminiscent to older, cooler 40k fluff of the Chaos Gods feuding with the C'tan for having equally sinister but mutually exclusive plans for humanity. And though the chaos forces ultimately monopolize both settings, it's the aetherials that seem to pose the bigger threat and were honestly more interesting. For a faction that arguably _caused_ the setting (even if it's _very_ clear Cairn wasn't exactly the happiest place on Earth before the titular Grim Dawn), the aetherial side of the fight ends on a bit of an anticlimactic fart. Waiting for the Malmouth DLC to go back on sale. I don't normally pick up all the DLC for a new game, even when it's on sale, and in this case I'm kicking myself for it.
Grim Dawn is like 40k without the Space Marines. This might sound to some like Oreos without the cream filling, but the change really allows the grimdark doom of the setting feel more legit than modern 40k ever will. You can't take the Imperium's alleged peril seriously when they have super secret projects that can dispense a million super-super-soldiers without any foreshadowing whatsoever. To say nothing of where the hell a supposedly deliberately technologically regressive theocratic regime keeps getting all these new and improved STCs from every time the Imperium is due for a new codex like they were the friggin' Tau or something, but that's Novelty Creep for ya'.
Can't Say I've heard GD described as 40K sans Space Marines, but I can't say I don't understand it. As for Iron Lore, I still call them Imperial Guard because of DoW, so I've got them to thank for my regular annoyance at seeing them called literally any other way. Made up for it though. I've played Soulstorm skirmish too much to blame them for it.
I mean, 40k is basically Dune lol.
Whoa! Those are some interesting observations
Started playing this in 2016 when it came out since it looked like something the makers of TQ had made. Still playing it on regular basis and starting new characters now and then. Really looking forward to Fangs of Asterkarn later this year
Right there with you, Fangs is already on my "Instant-Buy" list the moment I've got the funds and it goes live.
"Really looking forward to Fangs of Asterkarn later this year" that didn't age well :/
I'm waiting for that expansion so much especially after seeing a Berserker class on RektbyProtoss channel with one of the game dev. It'll be a best class I think, can't wait for the DLC.
Been having lots of fun with GD, but I think the comfising layouts of some of the maps like making mazes of houses in urban areas really killed the pacing of this game.
It's well worth it. I own all the expantion games, (which are really expansion packs), extras! Murders Diablo 4. Not played D4 since a month after it came out, felt cheated! These guys made a great game for a really fair price. I am happy to support this Dev team! Plus play their great game! Baulders Gate got all the hype for being fair, these guys also did the same. Best ARPG by far.
Unfortunately, I'm in the same camp. I still generally prefer D4 over D3 (On presentation alone, honestly), but I haven't touched it since dealing with that lackluster first season.
Grim Dawn, though... fantastic.
Recently I'm reentered grim Dawn, it is absolutely worth it, especially considering it's an old games, it's cheap and low demanding, I can even play it on my slim laptop
I remember playing this on my old laptop with a graphics card years out of date, modded to hell and back, and it still ran fantastic. It's great, truly.
Yeah my back log is also too big I have atleast a dozen different ARPGs I’m either playing or want to play. I also have a job and like to play every class trying lots of builds. So I’m going to need to live for another 138 years yeah that should do it.
God do I know that feeling. I need to stop buying games, but there's just so many interesting titles out there. I can't stop.
I have both Grim Dawn, and Farthest Frontier, and I was curious so I checked
I have 1900+ hours in GD, and 1400+ in FF which is way newer, and it's in early access, evidently I like both games which are quite different
"Quite different" is an understatement. Though I can't say which is better, as I haven't played FF, but I'm glad to know that Crate Entertainment are more than just a one-trick pony.
I don't think anything needs to be said about GD itself, but one recommendation:
If you love Diablo 2 you should absolutely play the GD Mod "Reign of Terror". It fully rebuilds D2 in GD, just with GDs much faster and modern gameplay. It even features all the D1 levels and Quests as Act 6. Absolute blast to play, I can't go back to D2(R) now.
1st rpg game where the enemy attacks each other.
I was about to respond with "But DOOM infighting", but you said "RPG". I don't know if ti's true, but I know that I would've been wrong.
Thanks to reviews like this I tried it. Hell yeah is the answer!!!!!!!!
It's a *time* for sure
Easily in my top 5 with diablo 2 and DD1 and I've only played through veteran and 1/4 of FG.
thank you
100%
Don't expect the endgame of Diablo/POE, but the grind to 100 is always fun.
There is a lot of endgame (not so deep as other) where you can do skeleton keys, nemesis hunts, rings farm from the heretic dungeon and the boss of that dungeon, you can prove you build whit celestials bosses and finally you can do crucible SR (shatterd realms) and farming MIs (monters infrequent) for unique builds. So there is a endgame.
I have 3k hours in... there's an endgame lol.
@@shastamcnasty2159 Yes, but is the the same style of endgame as Diablo? No. Not even remotely.
I personally couldn't get into it. It seems to have nice storytelling, but the progressions feels weird. The choice of skills is very small even with all the class combos, builds feel monotonous and unimpressive. And the graphics are poor. They lack any kind of oompf or pleasure from watching what is going on on the screen.
I feel like the game in its current state could have been THE thing around 2010ish. It feels like a natural progression from titan quest and diablo 2, but I would expect more in the delivery aspect given it isn't 2010 anymore. And it is hard to defend an arpg with good worldbuilding and story if other aspects are lagging behind too much.
it is totally worth it, fun , a great twist on Diablo
Yes it is.
Sure It is .
FUCK YEAH
Succinct. Agreed.
0:37 no mention of the best in the genre: path of exile. Nice.
"best in the genre" is entirely subjective. I think PoE is one of the worst in the genre, it's overly complicated, the builds are homogeneous (i.e. Your base class means VERY little), and the seasons gimmick forces you to recreate characters every few months (though I blame D3 for this). PoE is effectively "D3 with a different skin" and everyone hates what D3 did to the genre. The fact that PoE is free to play is the only reason I feel it's as popular as it is.
But fans of the game will completely disagree with me because they love the systems in PoE that I hate. Hence, it's subjective.
@@scipocelah6677 the statement that poe is d3 skin is wild and greatly untrue. It s very complicated and complex and to its list of faults id add extreme work-like grind, but it is one of the most polished games in this genre. Games suchbas LE need half a decade to reaxh poes level of content
PoE gets a shitload of coverage. I've seen "from D4 to PoE guides" recently. Go peddle your bias elsewhere. Dreeg is watching you.
"best in the genre"
Weird way to spell "boring" but to each their own. I'd rather play a game than follow a spreadsheet.
I mean, shameless plug: I did a PoE review a hot minute ago. I enjoyed it, but I'm not gonna fault anyone for not liking it. It can be complicated at times, and the feature creep doesn't help much there.
Also, unlike everything else in that list, I didn't buy PoE (Though I did buy one of the packs way back when mostly for the soundtrack).
Yes... it's worth it.