Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan

Genre: Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

Grim Legends 2 is a Graphic Adventure released on PC in 2015, ported to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 2017, then Nintendo Switch in 2020. This game puts players in the role of a healer summoned to assist a queen who is unable to speak, only to find herself at the center of mysterious events unfolding, with the queen’s son apparently kidnapped via some sort of magical means.

I think the story here is generally more interesting than the one in the first Grim Legends, though it often seems to clash with the gameplay. For one early example, the King seems to have summoned your character from a great distance likely at great expense, but the workspace you’ve been given is in a shoddy, messy state as if no one thought it was important to tidy up for work that the king deemed of utmost importance, a discrepancy that no one, including your character, comments on. But having a messy workstation gives players a hidden object puzzle to solve as you search for pieces of an elaborate magnifying glass device amidst the debris and refuse.

Unfortunately, the lack of logic here spills over into the gameplay at times. Not long after this, you’ll need to mix together a potion, but your character will refuse to bring water over from the basin in the room using only her glass. To do so, you need to go into the queen’s waiting chamber where you’ll find a pitcher that no one thinks twice about your character pocketing. The need to get an implement you’re expected to use by stealing it from another room is just bizarre, and if players hadn’t snooped around the queen’s waiting chamber and spotted it, they might never think to look there for an item that is necessary to progress the game.

Also, like the first Grim Legends, this game is still missing a few features. There’s no hotspot indicator to show what can be interacted with, and there are no touchscreen controls in handheld mode. I think the standard gamepad controls work well enough here, but it would have been nice to have the option.

When it comes to the presentation, this game once again uses detailed 2D visuals that pop with color, and look really lovely. However, once again the ugly character designs seem to have an uncanny valley thing going on, which is only made worse by the unnatural paper doll animation style.

Overall, I think Grim Legends 2 improves on the first game in some ways (such as the story), but is worse in others (such as the nonsensical puzzle design), while failing to address many issues the original game had. Overall, that leaves this game as yet another mediocre Graphic Adventure, not worth bothering with when you have so many better options on Nintendo Switch

tl;dr – Grim Legends 2 is a Graphic Adventure where players investigate mysterious events surrounding a mute queen and a kidnapped baby prince. This game improves on some elements of the first Grim Legends (namely, the story), makes some worse (terrible puzzle design), and ultimately lands in about the same place, being a mediocre Graphic Adventure on a platform filled with great ones. As such, I don’t recommend this game.

Grade: C

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