They say the devil makes work for idle hands, but there’s actually a whole idle genre in gaming to keep those hands of yours semi-occupied. Games of such ilk like Clicker Heroes, Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms, and DPS Idle, have all presented free-to-play offerings to varying success. And now the spotlight is on Grim Idle, which although free, is vying for your precious time to be spent on it.
Can Grim Idle manage to hook you in with an addictive loop, or will those hands of yours soon begin to wander?
Having launched on PC under the guise of Grim Clicker earlier in 2024, the idle RPG has transitioned to Xbox with a new name. Grim Idle, as it’s known here, is inspired by old-school dark fantasy RPGs such as Dark Souls and Diablo. Promising complex character developments, a raft of unique items, and a plethora of potential playstyles, one might expect a rather engaging experience exploring ruined worlds and defeating enemies.
You have to remember that this is an idle game though, so prepare to reign in those expectations.
Essentially, you’re a bystander, watching an unnamed protagonist fighting every enemy upon his side-scrolling path. Given that the hero is immortal and invincible, those who stand in his way are destined to be slain as their attacks are futile. He’ll attack automatically and once every foe is downed, be warped into the next zone with increasingly tougher enemies. There are mini-bosses in each zone and proper tough bosses every ten levels, which are subject to a time limit.
Along the way, defeating the baddies earns you XP for the hero as well as Rubies and candles, depending on the size of the beast. Your role is mostly limited to investing skill points garnered and spending Rubies on increasing the level of weapons to improve their damage exponentially. If you’re feeling like you want to be more hands-on, you could mash the A button to speed up the autonomous action a tad, but once the energy meter runs out, it’ll all come to a halt and so there’s little benefit.
There’s a crafting element to proceedings too, however the rate at which you’ll acquire weapons and materials to enhance them with, makes it almost pointless. That’s because such items come from chests and these either take a long time to earn, or you have to spend the rare Shard currency on. Quite frankly, Shards are better saved up and spent on boosts that affect the game long-term.
The skill tree is vast, with many options to unlock across three main categories – Strength, Dexterity and Wisdom. Increasing the aforementioned attributes will see a rise in the overall power, energy, and mana. In concurrency with these upgrades, a whole host of skills and spells become available to unlock. Conjure up a blizzard, instigate numerous clicks occurring per second to quicken the pace, or even call forth a giant fiery sword with a mind of its own. Unfortunately, until you have enough points in a particular category to gain access to a certain skill, you can’t even see what the skill does. I’ve lost count of how many times I have piled points in, only to uncover the skill and realise it’s rubbish for my playstyle.
At some point, no matter the chosen build, progression through the zones will slow down and it’ll seem as though you’ve hit a dead end. That’s where a Ritual must be performed, which resets everything and converts candles into black wax. The wax allows you to buy upgrades that can enhance XP earned, the value of Rubies, the base damage, and such. And that’s the loop of Grim Idle in a nutshell.
It’s a real grind in the early stages, especially as you’re trying to figure out what’s best for success. It doesn’t help that there’s very little in regards to instructions and so you’re winging it upon the introduction of each new feature you stumble across. There are also a fair few notations referencing PC commands to use for certain actions, which is clearly an oversight. Everything is quite clunky when navigating through the menus too. Nevertheless, when you get the hang of it, a run through becomes relatively painless and after maybe thirty rituals, you’ll overcome the fortieth zone.
Whether or not you’ve had fun until this point is crucial, because you’re about to traverse to another part of the galaxy to do it all again, and then again, and if you didn’t enjoy what’s gone before, there’s nothing that’s going to change that. Whilst you can keep the few weapons you might have received via the rarely acquired chests and some boss souls, the wax investments are gone. So, aside from a boost to the amount of candles you obtain through rituals, it’s back to square one with even tougher opposition.
Sure, the massive amount of content is impressive and you could keep going for months, but it becomes repetitive through a lack of new and interesting things to keep you going. The overall aesthetic gets tiresome too, with uninspiring enemies and backdrops that are simply drab. Pushing on isn’t even necessary to unlock the Xbox achievements either, as a whopping 2000 Gamerscore is easily wrapped up in under an hour. Hence, it’s hard to find a genuine reason to stick it out past the first world, at best.
Ultimately, Grim Idle is free and so there’s value in the sense that you can earn a huge chunk of Gamerscore and have a little fun experimenting with the skill tree, without exerting much brain power. Beyond that, it doesn’t offer enough enticement to carry on and venture across the rest of the galaxy.
Grim Idle is not the best idle title on the market, nor is it the worst, it just kind of serves a purpose and might occupy you for a little while.
Grim Idle: A Free Dark Fantasy Idle RPG Summons Players on Xbox – https://www.thexboxhub.com/grim-idle-a-free-dark-fantasy-idle-rpg-summons-players-on-xbox/
Buy Grim Idle on Xbox Series X|S – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/grim-idle/9NP04HRWRNB8
Or buy the Xbox One version – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/grim-idle-xbox-one/9PP5K1FTFHJR
