Secrets of Grindea

As advertised, an old school action RPG that pays homage to stuff like SNES-era Zelda and Secret of Mana. There's a lot of freedom to build the exact character you want and you can re-spec at any time too, which was cool. The story's not terribly complicated and sometimes a little too tongue-in-cheek and meta, but it wasn't as shallow or bad as other reviews led me to believe, and the gameplay loop is pretty fun. It's strange because to me, more than a Zelda homage, this one felt more like if you took a farming/life sim in the style of Stardew Valley or Fields of Mistria, but you dropped the farming and further developed the adventuring side. You even get to build and decorate your own home in the main city. I'm halfway through the game and my only complaint so far is that some of the loot, such as monster cards and fish, is kind of a pain in the ass to collect, but I'm not really stressing about it.

A game in development for so long I first played it back in ye olden days of Skype, before Discord existed. A charming RPG that feels very reminiscent of Zelda LttP with a simpler art style. The story is surprisingly captivating, and filled with memorable developments and twists. The dialogue constantly brings out laughter, even when re-experiencing some parts again years later. Only noteworthy flaws that come to mind are in balancing, a lot of skills and build styles just don't cut it. Arcade mode was a neat experience, I do enjoy a fun roguelike, but it just lacked some extra progression. Overall a fun time.

Silly little adventure RPG game with silly humor, it's enjoyable to grind in this game, and the wide choice of special abilities and skills is chef's kiss.
Yep. Game's Peak.

Very good so far, love the grinding and the collecting.

Expected Secret of Mana parody, got so much more. I've been playing this deceitfully compact game with my son for 22h now and we're around two thirds done. The story and secrets are surprisingly complex and deep, some bonus areas and the arena are actually really hard to complete. If that's not what you expect from a casual game, then just grinding hundreds of monsters with the genius mechanic of slowly ramping up spawn rates in satisfying combat with very diverse ways to dispose of them or fishing with a simple and easy to master minigame are probably more your cup of tea.
You get progressively more powerful by collecting cards that grant passive boni, crafting, finding and buying items, leveling up, leveling up your pet by feeding it with stuff you have to grind for (which also grants small passive boni). In general, this feels satisfying; my only gripe is that the upgrades sometimes are just *too* small and barely noticeable. For example, you can go several hours finding a few new weapons and armor without any of them being a clear and meaningful upgrade, only having more sidegrades or choices for alternative skills. Also, grinding five hours for stuff to feed your pet for one additional level so you get 2% more HP or 2% more damage is just pitiful.
Taking everything together, this game is more than worth its price, especially if you have someone to play it with, so the grind is less tedious and some puzzles and achievements get a bit easier.

This game was played on a Steam Deck.

I have a love/hate relationship with this game.
And personally I would say it‘s some kind of Dark Souls in Pixel Graphics. (And let me tell you, Dark Souls is one of the worst games you could give me, because I am so bad at them!)

Positive / Neutral / Negative

+ I love the graphics!
+ Lots of Skills and therefore tons of ways you can build your character
+ Funny characters
+ Multiplayer
o Lots of riddles
o can be kind of grindy
- Hardest Phase Shift required for True Ending (I will rant about this later)

Visuals / Audio

I love the visuals… They really put a lot of effort into all the sprites!
The characters, the background and the areas were really lovely. There were also a lot of different sprites for different reactions and actions.
The audio was totally fine! The soundtrack and the ton of sound effects fit the game perfectly!

The visuals were definitely my highlight of this game. This and Bag kept me going till the normal end.

Performance

This game performed really well on my Steam Deck!
I don‘t remember changing any of the settings and there were no noticable lags.

The only thing I can nitpick was, that during one of the boss fights my game suddenly crashed and I had to reopen it. (Sandgolem Battle)
This only happened once in my 25 hours play time though. And then I had a save directly before the boss / inside the boss room. So no big issues here.

Gameplay

I put the gameplay as my last point on purpose this time.

Let‘s start with the positive first:
The game itself is kind of an action-like RPG. You level up, get different skill points, which you can put into skills and passives. However, there is no real skill tree. Which means you can put the points into the tree however you like. This can be good and bad. Especially if you don‘t know how the skills work together with eachother. However, you can simply refund already placed skill points and get them back. So nothing is lost if you later notice, that the build you thought was cool, wasn‘t really feasible!

There is also a story line to follow. I personally liked the story and wanted to know how it ends… Which brings me to my biggest gripe with this game.
This game has two endings. A normal ending. And a true ending.
And for **** sake, I don‘t understand why they locked the true ending behind the hardest riddle in this game!!!
Riddle doesn‘t really come close to this. Riddles can be solved by following instructions. I am not really a very fast person. I need my time to process and to properly choose my input. So riddles, that are timeboxed are a complete no-go for me. (Let‘s say I am kind of challenged with motions and fast reactions… Two left hands or so.)
I have done all the pre-requisites for this stupid ending… Except for the last two pieces of the Phase Resequencer. The 2nd one broke me and I WILL NOT GET BACK TO IT. I tried for more than half an hour and I was so close to tears because even with guides I wasn‘t able to do it!
The sad thing is, I was so close to finish it TWICE but instead of leaving north, I left north-east and had to restart again…
YES, I AM A SLOWPOKE. I know it! And I accept the fact. Hate me all you want. I will NOT understand why this is a requirement for the True Ending! And I hate the devs for this design!
Ok. I said it. Now I feel better.

Back to something positive: The NPCs.
Bag was such a mood. And I kept the little fairy from the side quest by my side until the normal end and I enjoyed the comments so much.
These two were the best companions I could wish for!

Also there are some characters inside this game, who really have gone through some character developments. I was really happy to see this. :)

Also the combat was really hard sometimes, and I really felt like this game was some sort of Dark Souls… I then switched to full defense mode at some point: Lots of summons and shields so that I can focus on dodging. This was fine most of the time, even though I had to retry a few fights. (As mentioned before… Motionally challenged. :D)

Summary

I can still recommend this game, even though I am disappointed at not being able to play the true ending myself.
It‘s still a cute RPG and it can be a bit grindy, if you‘re up for it.

such a fun game to play when i'm needing a break from work and school! its not a game where its all simple, but has some challenge to it which is what i love in games like these!

One of the best RPGs I've played. Love the pixel art, the story is great, and the gameplay is pure fun. 10/10 would grind again.

The gameplay of this title is far deeper than it looks at first glance. It is an absolute blast to play with friends, but it's also fun to sit back at home with your feet up and, err, well, grind for something while listening to a podcast.

This game started off amazing and was pretty much exactly what i wanted up until the end game. It turns into a bullet hell. I don't dislike the genre but i was not expecting the shift in game play. The game also spikes considerably in difficulty for no reason at all and the grinding in this game is insane. This game is decent up until the end game fighting Luke and the final boss is pretty ridiculous. I can't recommend this unfortunately. ( I only managed 90% completion rate)

Full screen mode and high resolution support doesnt function properly. Boss monsters have wayyyyyy too much HP. No clear indicators of quest objectives, or even room changes. Enemies just continually respawn. Cost to reset skills is too prohibitive. Skill balance and gear progression could use some work. Co-op partners kept crashing during end boss fight (which was real slog/rsi fest).

Has potential.

You know, I was surprised at how much I liked this game, despite its old school looks. It holds up well. If you're after a game with an interesting story, unique card-based mechanics, and little to no guidance from the internet, then I recommend giving it a go.

Is pretty alright - I do have some general issues with the game, but all in all - I've enjoyed a couple playthroughs.

My biggest issues with it involves the majority of the skills and passives being bland and very situational - the warp thing is very frustrating to do with sometimes having ur target off screen, so you'll really have no way of knowing when without either excessive trial and error or looking up a youtube video on it. - The bow feels really useless really quick unfortunately - and the shield also feels very redundant with how almost every monster ability breaks ur shield immidiately regardless of health with a shield break mechanic.

Oh and yea - alot of the puzzles made no sense... Like there'll be different elevations implies with drop downs and staircases, but then it's ignored when it's convinient for the puzzle - same with the math puzzles - you're implied to needing a paranthesis - but not given one - so if you put the math puzzles in a calculator - they're literally impossible with the options given to you - so yea, I hope you're either not very bright or good at throwing away critical thinking skills on the puzzle parts in favour of relying more on instincts and random mashing

Fun game! you can grind for hrs!

Not a fan of bullet hell fights
And annoying fights during puzzle solving

very entertaining.

This game is cute, great to co op. works amazing on the steam deck also.

Super cosy game.

One of the best games I've played.
If you like to fight never-ending rounds of monsters and pick up their parts and treasures, this is your game. I spend hours happily fighting in one room and then go find another area and repeat. If I didn't have pain in my wrists and fingers, I'd probably never stop.
I love the collecting. I love the puzzles--yes, even the math ones! I love the nods and homages to other games. The whole package is incredibly satisfying.
Did I tear up at one point in the story. Yep! Did I shout with shock at the plot twist? Heck yeah.
I can easily see how people play this game over and over, trying different builds and variations or difficulty settings.
Highly Recommend.

Whatever you could possibly expect from an isometric action rpg, this game has it

Love the game, but it was messing up my PC graphics and had sound glitches. Uninstalling to reinstall.

absurdly good rpg
love the combat, love the music, love the writing, all i wish is that there was even more to do.

great game, specially for dungeon runz

This game is what happens when a developer doesn't rush because of pressure from the community. It is fine tuned and sharpened to perfection. The humor is actually funny, which is rare, for me atleast, theres so much charm, great combat, charming slice of life, all around probably one of the best games i've played, thank you Pixel Ferrets for making this charming game! I'm not even halfway done yet with the story, and that makes me glad, it's only been uphill so far :)

Surprisingly solid game. But if you play melee, make sure to stack def, or otherwise it'll be utterly frustrating.

Undeniably a good game. Story is alright, could've been way better if it committed to either taking itself seriously or taking its sarcastic comedy all the way, but the ending was actually quite nice; which I feel is actually really rare these days, it's usually the ending that gets shafted after a long and great run towards it, but this story kind of felt the other way around. The music of the whole game is actually surprisingly pretty good, too; games like these I tend to lower the volume and listen to podcasts in the background, but the music fit the vibe of the game so well that I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I ended up being surprised by how in-depth the game's arcade mode is because I didn't even read the store page's description of it, but it is actually pretty well made. Though do note that, as it suggests even in the game itself, you really should play the story mode through before you play arcade mode. Things'll be confusing if you don't. And try to remember what enemies drop what items.

I have some issues with how restricted you are with your ability to flesh out your skill pool, and with how limiting the game is with skills. Not being able to get more level 10 skills is just a buzzkill. Sometimes it's safer to give people more freedom of choice than to put them in a small box and see how cleverly they can use the tools as their disposal, because if one tool is objectively better than the rest - even if by the tiniest margin - everyone'll swarm to it; but I digress. It's overall a pretty negligible gripe that I think is a consequence of the game being made with multiplayer in mind, and it's not such a big deal either way, would've just made it a bit more fun.

I love lore! I love the dialog! I love the art and music! I HATE THE DIFFICULTY!!!!! TO DAMN HARD!!!! Hey, cna you make Luke any faster???? The Devs but so much into this I was going to recommend this, but this is what I hated and still hate about the new zelda like games. COME ON! How fast do you think we can move our fingers??? I wonder to myself did I choose the wrong upgrades. As I move on in the game, some of the boss fights become frustrating hard. There is much of the game that is great, but I have come to a point where I see it getting too hard and I don't want to keep dying over 30x to get it. I tagged this game ad difficult. THis game would have replay value, but the fighting and the puzzles are just too much for me. What a disappointment, so close but................... uninstalling.......................NOW!

It's fun I guess...

I've followed this game since 2014ish. We shall see

I tihnk I will update this comment once I am done with the game, but so far it is marvellous. The story and characters are fun, the art is beutiful, i really enyoy the puzzles (very easy but fun) , the combat is very fun to me, you canb grind or play on pure skill or both, there are tons of secrets. Did I say the art is beutiful? well, I will say that again here. Highly reccomend this labour of love of a game. Very glad pieces like this one still are made amongst the crappy generic AAA titles that are so bland that I cannot help but wonder why some games are even made in the first place.

Secrets of Grindea is a delightful action RPG that masterfully captures the essence of classic titles like Secret of Mana and The Legend of Zelda. Its charming pixel art style and witty dialogue create an engaging experience that stands out in the indie game landscape.

The game’s visuals are a treat, with vibrant environments and meticulously designed characters and monsters. Each NPC feels unique, contributing to a world that’s both immersive and full of personality. Your companion, a sentient bag, adds a humorous touch with its sarcastic remarks, enhancing the game’s lighthearted tone.

Combat in Secrets of Grindea is both challenging and rewarding. Players can choose from various playstyles, including sword and shield, two-handed weapons, bows, or magic. The flexibility to respec your character allows for experimentation, ensuring you can tailor your approach to suit your preferences. Collecting monster cards, which provide permanent passive boosts, adds an extra layer of depth and encourages thorough exploration.

The game acknowledges its grind-centric nature with a tongue-in-cheek approach, making the process feel less tedious. Side activities like fishing and housing customization offer enjoyable distractions, allowing players to decorate their in-game homes with a variety of items found, crafted, or purchased throughout their journey.

My play through was at around 60 hours for a completionist run, Secrets of Grindea offers substantial content. The game provides clear indicators of progress in each area, making it easy to track completed and remaining tasks. This feature, combined with the game’s humor and engaging mechanics, ensures that the grinding feels purposeful and satisfying.

In conclusion, Secrets of Grindea is a lovingly crafted homage to classic action RPGs, offering a rich and rewarding experience. Its blend of challenging combat, charming storytelling, and a plethora of side activities makes it a must-play for fans of the genre. Kudos to Pixel Ferrets for delivering such an enjoyable title from start to finish.

it reminds me of the old rpgs i used to play on gameboy/ds

Steam version has window / graphic settings issues. If I put it in fullscreen it'll start in the upper right corner of the screen and be unplayable until I manually edit the settings file.
The window zoom also doesn't work right... But the GOG version works just fine? Normally I'd blame my 4k monitor but given that the GOG version works fine and the steam version has issues it's clearly either an issue with steam injecting something, or the game build on steam having unique bugs.

So at the moment I'd say go GOG, or better yet go directly to the devs website and buy it there, then you get both the steam and DRM free version for the same price.

เกมสวะ จะทำให้น่ารำคาญทำไม

My siblings and I like to play games on the weekend. This one only lasted two days.

The game needs polishing, and while I can admire the hard work that went into making such a pretty game, I can also mourn the time spent playing it.

This game has a lot of soul. Everything in it feels thoughtful, like I can just feel how much love went into crafting every object in every town and dungeon. Also, for a game that starts off with a pretty carefree attitude, it gets pretty serious toward the middle and end, which was a nice surprise. Overall, 4/5 stars.

Pretty standard faire for a light old school RPG.
The skill and talent pools seem a bit lack luster, but you don't need much for a Normal playthrough.

pixel art, story, characters, humor, music, game play, all great

Not quite perfect but surprisingly fun. The tropeish jokes and character names everywhere probably hold it back from what it could be if it played it straight, but then it puts you off guard for when it actually is serious and emotional. The lost city quest line was fantastic, like a different game within the game.

I was pretty torn on whether to give this game a yes or no for recommendation.

On first blush, there's a lot of game here, and as you enter into its charming, lovingly-crafted world, there's a buffet of choices and things to do. There are dozens of skills you can pick from, each promising differing playstyles and effects, each able to be up-cast by charging to have sometimes dramatically different effects. There's dozens of sidequests, and rewards with interesting little perks attached to many pieces of gear, inviting you to further specialize your character -- to say nothing of the grind for cards, each of which is a small passive perk that can be extremely novel and helpful.

But play longer and the veneer starts to wear thin. Upgrade after upgrade reveal themselves to be some variety of "does 2% more damage." That huge spread of skills quickly becomes locked to you; for reasons I can't comprehend, the level scaling in the game is such that very rapidly, I maxed out my first skill, and then only at the very end of the game, doing literally every quest and grinding for every drop and card, had I recently maxed out my second. The perks on items and cards wind up being mostly vapor, full of potential to be meaningful, but almost all of them wind up being more of the insignificant passive bonuses.

That's the crux of my first major complaint: The game invites you to grind, but ultimately, doesn't have much worth grinding for. More skill points in skills you can't use, while the ones you desperately want to level remain at half-rank, more items temptingly silhouetted on the crafting or drops page, which wind up being just another stat upgrade, more cards which could do literally anything, but instead do literally nothing. If you DO grind for everything, you let yourself into the final, final secret boss, which is awesome...but it's literally the one thing they do not tell you that you can unlock.

My second criticism is a lot more damning. Almost at all times, I felt like the game didn't give me the tools to succeed. You get, early on, a potion that increases drop chance by 20% while it's up, and as far as getting drops, that's it. There aren't even rooms that are better for grinding specific enemies, really -- just mosh pits where every mob in the zone spawns relentlessly. Build diversity is pick a skill you like and maybe a couple of buffs. And some of the bosses and attack patterns are HARD, unreasonably so in the last couple of fights, weaving through literal bullet hells with a character that's got a fat, inobvious hitbox, and no good precision movement options.

It felt so often that they had taken systems from other, better games, and implemented them without knowing what made them work. Over and over again as I plumbed these systems, I found myself battling against them and not being the tools I wanted to engage with offered challenges. Ultimately, my experience was one of frustration rather than joy.

Now. That all said, I still think there's a lot of excellent game here. It's well-polished, well-written, and engaging. It has a surprising amount to say about the grind and chase of perfection, and it does so well. It's got characters and a world I love, and it lets me engage with them enough to see their stories through in a satisfying way. It's a game that serves you a dream, and so when you find yourself disillusioned as you pull back the layers, there's still a solid game underneath.

It just hurt a little because I just wanted it to be a little bit better.

Thank you so much for Pixel Ferret for making this game.

No worry bro, I already bought it. And I enjoy it a lot. currently still doing main quest at the ancient temple.

this game is mild and pretty simple but fun! and I love your trivial humours!

recommended, buy this game guys.

Feels good to play, excellent tribute to and parody of old SNES RPGs that only gets funnier as it goes on. Also great for co-op play. Hard to find anything to complain about, it's just really great.

tl;dr good, BUT.

In many ways, this is a game I was looking for for a long time - a single-player loot fest that works well on steam deck (so not diablo 3), is 2D (so not borderlands), and I can pause (so not diablo 4). HOWEVER. This game's dev seems to have a _real_ hardon for puzzles with _very_ tight timing requirements that are complex. Every time I encounter one, I prepare myself to stop having fun for a while. They're absolutely jarring for a game that's otherwise a reasonable balance between difficulty and casuality.

Outlandishly good. Excellent. Secrets of Grindea stands as a titan of indie design alongside such titles as Terraria and Stardew Valley, and shares with them the quality of being outrageously underpriced.

You can expect a good combat and character development system. Genuinely good, but not great. And that system will carry you into a world of divinity. Everything else is a masterwork.
The art - models, animations, portraits - is fantastic and utterly baffling in its quantity.
The programming - no holds are barred. If the designers had a fun idea, they did it. And they clearly had fun ideas *constantly*. It's a wonder this was ever completed.
You get what you expect from the title with a world of collecting that is extensive, enjoyable, and grueling, yet fair.
The boss fights are nigh uncountable and marvelously creative. The mimic in particular has ousted the last boss of Elden Ring as my favorite boss fight.

And the writing. My god, the writing. How can such perfection exist? How can a world with SO MANY storylines, so many characters and conversations, not seem to have a single hole, a single disappointing moment, a single thread out of place? Every time I've been this invested in characters before, I've been left wanting in some way, because when I'm that invested and there are issues with the story, I'm looking for them, and I see them. But this time, I'm walking away utterly satisfied. Elated, even - I can't believe how many times I *screeched* with joy at new developments.

I was open-mouthed when I first realized what the premise of the story was turning out to be, how clever and unique it is. And as it expanded upon itself, fitting in countless extra pieces to weave depth into the moral and create a truly masterful story, I swear that my mind, too, expanded. I have a lot to think about.

I'd like to personally congratulate PIxel Ferrets on their mastery of grammar; my personal specialty; and thank them for what they've done here.

Not a bad game. Despite the name the grinds are not too bad.

One of the best games I've played.

Fun.

I meant to write a review a while ago after I had 100%ed the game but never got around to it. So you get this excellent review. I finished the main story twice. It's great.

think of cuphead, mixed with undertale- with a rpg combat system, which is a dream come true

A very pleasant surprise. I didn't really have high expectations for it when I got it, but the variety of builds and the boss fights are awesome, plus the pixel art is fantastic. The dialogue portraits look a little rough though.

Terrible controls, bad character customisation just not a fun experience even within the first part of the game.

It's fun except the bullet hell. Too much thing on the screen at the same time for my old mans eyes.
If you can stand that it's good. But I can't stand it so its a down vote.