Grim Legends 3: The Dark City

A return to Artifex Mundi had seemed well overdue and now there are another four titles available from a series I had cleaned up. It was time to get back into the point and click adventure mode and find some hidden objects.

Grim Legends III has the same story arc as most of the other games in the series. There is a guy who you think is against you, but it turns out he’s not against you after all and then you work together to stop the evil monster, all while listening to some bad voice acting and finding hundreds of objects you don’t need.

The main aspect of these games isn’t really the story, it’s very much the casual puzzle game play and while Grim Legends III doesn’t offer much new, it is a case of don’t fix what isn’t broken. With one exception. Get rid of the story boards. They aren’t puzzles and they are bad storytelling devices.

The music was forgettable but a note on the artwork; a lot of effort goes in to the design of these games where everything is hand designed and it looks great. A major plus with these types of games is that you can’t get stuck on any scenery as it simply won’t allow it. They are almost glitch proof too as if you can’t progress, it’s highly likely you’ve just missed something.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 29 Achievements

As with more of the modern games, there is a high percentage of story related achievements and Grim Legends III has 10 of them. 11 if you include playing through on Expert although playing on Expert means ‘playing the game’ where as casual means ‘watching someone else play the game.’ Okay, so maybe it’s not that bad but Expert requires you to figure out where to go and explore, whereas Casual will just tell you.

The best part about the remaining 19 achievements is that they are all missable. You get your standard Artifex Mundi ones for not skipping any puzzles or games (so playing the game) as well as the collectibles and these are the only real issue.

The game has such small points of no return that it’s difficult to get all of the collectibles on one run. Thankfully I only missed one very early on when doing a sweep up.

Outside of these, there are rune battles that need to be won without making any mistakes and memory mirrors that need to be solved within a certain amount of time. The Rune Battles weren’t too bad, but the memory mirrors were a nightmare. They are essentially a sequence of puzzles that aren’t a problem by themselves, but the time limit is the killer, especially on the final one. I had to replay most of the game after failing to get this one in the 3-minute time limit given to you.

Downloadable Content – N/A

Grim Legends III was still a relatively quick completion despite the need to replay most of the game. It’s not the best Artifex Mundi game but certainly not the worst and if you don’t mess up and use a guide for the puzzles, it can be completed in less than 5 hours.