Grifford Academy is a turn-based RPG where you take the role of Erika, the party lead and caring sister of Ernest, who, after reading a book, finds herself transported into a magical world called Caldria. Throughout your journey, you are joined by two of your school mates, Viva and Cap, whose unique abilities will help Erika in locating the now-missing Ernest.
Throughout the game, both the players and the playable characters are thrown into a new world, uncovering the rules of how magic and Caldria work, meeting helpful townsfolk and not-so-helpful cultists whose plans are to ‘destroy the resistance’.
Lovely Narrative, Not-So-Perfect Execution
The game’s premise, when boiled down, isn’t anything that we haven’t seen before. A bunch of students are suddenly transported into a world where they have magical powers, and have to fight the big bad villain to save someone they love. It’s not a bad premise by any means- many RPG players love the idea of how our teenagehood would be different if we could be transported into a magical world.
However, the execution in terms of the dialogue within this game feels a bit unrefined. Characters jump from excitement about this new world to worrying about Erika’s missing brother. Certain dialogue lines feel out of place or unnatural, and certain actions the other characters carry out can feel just a bit too uncharacteristic for who I thought they would be.
Simplified, Fun Combat With a Difficult Curve for Mastery
The game’s combat feels very reminiscent of old-school Final Fantasy, with its action bar that regenerates based on the characters’ and monsters’ speed, and their turns only taking place once their action bar is filled. You’ve got 4 weapons slots to use, plus weapons that can grant buffs to the team or debuffs to enemies, as well as consumables, which help to give a more cozy and relaxing battle experience to players who might just want to focus on the story of the game.
During my playthrough, I was playing on the ‘Strategy’ difficulty, which promised more challenging fights with the monsters – and boy, were they serious about challenging fights. At the start of each battle, each character’s action bar starts at different points depending on their Speed stat, which adds a slight element of chance that occasionally feels a little unfair. Still, I had fun planning what weapons to use, or what buffs or debuffs to keep in hand, as I got to learn what each monster does, and felt encouraged to try again with my newly equipped weapon and meta-knowledge of the monster.
There are some quirks with the combat that I can’t ignore, though. At the moment, combat controls still feel a little clunky; for example, having to use the mouse instead of the keyboard to select an enemy, or how pressing AD on the keyboard shifts your weapon, even if your weapon has been bound to a number key. Since this is an Early Access title, hopefully the later chapters or future updates can help to address these concerns.
Conclusion
During the start of my playthrough, I found it a bit hard to play through the whole chapter in one or two sittings, as the mismatched dialogue, odd character traits and quirky combat made it difficult for me to become invested in both the story and the characters. But after powering through the first 2 hours of the game, I found myself more forgiving of these issues as I became more immersed into its overall story and the mystery of this new magical world.
The game has an amazing concept as a cozy RPG game with it’s main focus being the coming-of-age story of all the characters, and I do see this game becoming a beautiful title upon its full release.
This article was contributed by Darren Barker, your sleepy coffee-drinking game design student and co-founder of The Cham Drinkers. Follow him on X/Twitter where he posts and retweets about the ASEAN Game Dev scene and cats.
Try out the Grifford Academy demo on Steam, and top up your Steam Wallet on Codashop to earn bonus rewards.
