The problem is exacerbated by limited facilities for note-taking, buried in the automap. It's sometimes overwhelming: faced with some fresh conundrum, I was never certain if the answer was under my nose or hours further into the game. Opening one stubborn door required me to untangle a cryptic riddle hidden in a library at the bottom of a distant dungeon. Now, some puzzles demand you piece together clues and objects scavenged from the far corners of the island. That extra map space has been used to up the ante. With so many novel environments, it's easy to lose track as you wander down every path and staircase. The payoff for cracking the answer was a fleeting moment of being the cleverest gamer in the world. Getting stuck made me feel anxious and alone. There's little handholding: just you, your brain and the uncaring pixels. Sometimes the solution is a distant pressure plate or secret button, sometimes it's experimenting with diverse switches and levers. The diabolical mix of logic, riddles and hidden objects that characterised the original remains intact. To see it all, you'll need to get past the puzzles that often control access to new areas. It's enough flexibility to satisfy those who enjoy optimising statistics, but it's not necessary for success. I was frustrated by the original's long skill trees, which forced me to specialise before I understood the game, but there are now more skills with fewer levels, so I felt safe experimenting without fear of spoiling my character builds. These include the disease-immune Ratling, and the Farmer, who improbably gains experience from eating instead of battle. You can run the default party, or build your own from an expanded range of character options. Instead of a dungeon, your team of four prisoners is shipwrecked on a mysterious island. The question is whether this sequel can bring fresh creativity to grid-based dungeon crawling. I remember: I was there, playing them and having an amazing time. Twenty years ago, first-person roleplaying games with real-time combat were the height of sophistication. Legend of Grimrock was the triumphant resurrection of a long-dead genre.
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