World exploration | Game mechanics Legend of Grimrock II Guide
Last update: 31 May 2016
The exploration and battle system, generally the mechanics of Legend of Grimrock II is not very typical or intuitive. At the beginning of the game, without any form of tutorial, we are thrown into the strange world finding ourselves on an island. The game has been designed in the FPP fashion, which means that we will be exploring the reality created by the developers from the perspective of our heroes' eyes. During the gameplay, we will take control over four characters, differing from each other with their Race, Class, Skills and Traits, who however make one integrity. To explain this fact better, it should be mentioned that all the locations that we will visit are divided into hexagons. This system makes us think about a well-known game called Heroes and it's a good comparison, but there are two major differences. Firstly, the fields are not marked on the ground in any way and their borders are totally conventional. Secondly, the gameplay (exploration as well as battle) doesn't base on turns. We won't see any dice rolls or deep and long thoughts over what the next move should be. All the elements of the world function in real time and live their own life without paying attention to our actions. Whether we are standing or running in a given moment, doesn't make any difference. The enemies always keep patrolling their territory and day is slowly turning into night. The essential fact that we need to understand is that all our characters are always on the same field and move together as an integral being, which means they cannot separate or face different directions. The control system may cause you a bit of trouble at the start. The basic configuration (WSAD) allows you to move the group in various directions and Q and E are responsible for turning the heroes. Running forwards is performed quite fluently, but there's no such freedom of movement like in other RPG games, when it comes to other actions. The moment in which we move from one field onto another can be quite easily noticed and besides, most of the complex actions that we will want to perform - especially in the first few minutes of playing - will fail completely. Inability to turn into a narrow tunnel or to place yourself on a good position is nothing unusual. You will get used to it.
The division into hexagons, described above, was not designed without a particular reason, as it influences a lot of important elements of the gameplay, connected to both exploration and battle. To not get lost in a lot of information, let's fist look at one element. To interact with a given object, like for example a switch or a stone plate, we have to stand in the same hexagon in which the object is located or in the one next to it. What's the difference? If we want to switch on a mechanism, we can stand on a stone plate, which will unlock a passage for us, but in the case when the plate has to be switched on all the time, we need to put some object onto the plate. We can drag for example a branch from our equipment and place it directly under our feet, or throw it from some distance by pointing the right place. No element of the game is located outside a hexagon - all actions base on fields, just like in chess.
When picking up items, our options are limited. To be able to reach an object with our mouse, we have to stand in the hexagon in which it's located, right next to it or try to approach the object from a particular side or angle, when situation requires it (placing yourself at the right angle towards the object is often required to for example be able to pull a lever). After picking up, items will appear in a cartoon-like design and we will be able to move them across the screen freely. We will have no troubles placing an object in a given place, as this part was described above, but we still have to talk about our equipment.
All our equipment is contained in two windows - standard and battle equipment. Every hero has a different inventory panel, which consists of 20 slots used for storing various items that we're not using at the time and a window that symbolizes the hero's body, where you can find slots for armor, boots, gloves, capes, jewelry (necklaces and rings) and most importantly - weapons. The last category also can be visible on a panel in the bottom right corner, which you use for fighting using the weapon you're currently equipped with. Of course every hero has two arms, which means that he can wield two weapons at the same time. However, if we do not possess the ability of fighting with for example two swords simultaneously, than, despite holding them in both hands, we won't be able to use them together. Analogically, a Two-handed Axe will take both the available weapon slots and we won't be able to wield any more weapons. The developers, keeping in mind the dynamics of the battle system and the need for changing strategy sometimes, have introduced a second gear option. You can switch between gears using the tabs marked "I" and "II". When looking at the interface, we may be surprised by some other elements that hasn't been mentioned in the chapters before, namely the XP bar and hunger bar. The three other tabs contain only current information about our Abilities, Skills and Traits, so theirs is no point in talking about them too much.
XP bar, as you can presume, indicates the number of experience points necessary for the hero to advance onto higher level and to be able to develop his Skills. All the classes (except for Farmer, who gains xp when eating food), obtain experience points from killing enemies.
Hunger bar shows the current status of a hero when it comes to food. Normally it's green. When the character starts to get a little hungry, it turns yellow, which however doesn't yet result in any penalties. When the bar turns red, health and energy regeneration will be stopped. To fill up the bar, you just have to eat the food you find (click RMB on it when it's in the equipment of one of the heroes). Minotaur race has naturally increased Food Consumption Rate, which makes him have to eat more food than his companions. Fortunately, this negative factor can be neutralized by properly selected additional abilities.
Under the slots in the equipment, you can also see a small information about the load. When exceeding the value of a given hero's Maximum Load even by a bit causes the whole team to have reduced movement speed and when the character is overloaded, the whole team is immobilized. Maximal Load can be increased by appropriate abilities and traits.