Grist of Flies

Hello
Grist of Flies is a game that immediately attracted me. Ok, it was some years ago, and I was not familiar with the POP! Horror City resource pack (I'm a Rm2k3 connoisseur, and that's all!), but recently I tried it and I was impressed, because behind a not so original premise lies an interesting game.

Ok so which is the premise? That the future is a dark world overrun by undeads (and others, more dangerous mutant creatures), nothing that was't already told in many other games like the Resident Evil series.
But we start the game with not one protagonist, but with an entire squad of five members: Nina, Brianna, Seth, Cameron, and Lucas are our first playable characters and will form the (first) squad of survivors. No, not a party like in those jrpgs you already played, but a squad that will act as a single individual. So how does combat work?

Ok basically each squad has two moves before the opponents attack, and you can choose whose member(s) will act. Each squad will have one character for each role, and each role has four different moves, some cost EP (energy points), others let you earn them! The Trooper is the typical attacker, while the Medic... well it's clearly the modern day healer. The Scientist is a sort of wizards, because he/she can unleash elemental attacks, the Officers can support and defend (equivalent of the MMORPG tanks, more or less), and thee Leaders have access to party buff and the important skill that recovers EP, that every character use.



Mind that each squad (no matter how many members it has) possess a single Health and EP pool, like it was a single character. Fighting monsters improve these characteristics, and during the adventure (if you want to survive a colplete the game) you have to look out for survivors to add to the teams. Each survivor can be assigned to one of the roles, BUT he/she will perform better in his chosen role, and you will notice when assigning a role from menu, that one character can be for example a A - Medic, B - Leader and C - Trooper... in this case you will probaby want to use him as a medic!

But wait, there is more! Characters are different even when they have the same role: one trooper may use a knife, another a gun, one scientist will attack with fire, the other with lightning. Guess what? Each enemy is weak or strong against particular elements or weapons, but do not worry if your memory is bad, because there is a useful bestiary that will list all the creatures encountered.

Speaking about the creatures, there is a bit of everything: from zombies of different kind, to giant flies and mutant plants, but don't forget the terrible bosses that will be much more difficult to dispatch than the normal enemies. The good thing is that you can save anywhere at any time and enemies are never random encounters, and you can automatically escape them (except boss encounters, of course). If you kill everyone, you can exit and re-enter the map to make them respawn and grind, if you want (but there is NO need to do that at all)!

Graphically the game is extremely good: I liked the resource pack used, the backrounds, the facesets (and considering that you have five members in each squad, at the end of the game you will have 15 different characters).
Mapping is also good, despite the game is a sort of modern dungeon delving, there are times in which you can exit to the surface, anyway it's a short game so don't expect a lot of variety, but I admit that the maps are well made and full of details even if sometimes you will probably not notice them since the squad(s) will visit a lot of dark places! But don't worry because Cameron's maps will be extremely useful to explore every corner of the various levels.

Besides combat and exploration there are a lot of cutscenes among the various characters, most of them are when you recruit new characters, these are short and with no interaction possible, still they are pretty well written and realized, because they flesh out the story and gives some character to a sort of basic plot.
The game is all here, and for what concern it's lenght it took me 2 hours to complete, but if I take away the failed attempts to fight some bosses (normal opponents will only be annoying after you learn how to play!) I can say that the time needed to finish the game is about one hour and a half.



It's the end of the review as we know it...
Grist of Flies is a really interesting short adventure with system that feels new without being overcomplicated (I mean, there are no items, shops or consumables) or confusing. It's also well explained in short during a brief tutorial, and I'm ok with the short length of the game, due to the simple nature of the game (besides not having equipment or consumables, the characters do not learn new skills, but you just amass a little army of people with different abilities). This is a game focused on buffs and de-buffs, status effects and exploiting weaknesses, it start simple but becomes gradually more complex.
There's a good depth of strategy, customizing the squads and selecting who does what is extremely important, and also fun!

Short game, but it feels innovative due to the original combat system. Also nice music and excellent visuals. The atmosphere? Awesome! Definitely recommended: 4.5/5!