Preface: This is a mini review of Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar, I am aware of the "controversial" nature of Cleveland Blakemore...and I don't care, not one bit, it has no standing on my impression of his game nor the work he put into it. Nor my impressions of the man himself, we all have our beliefs, Good, Bad or Indifferent. I don't care, do not pm me with screenshots or things he has said in the past or recently they have no bearing here, do not bug me about them.

You will not know me, nor have met me.

But long ago in 2017 I judged your game harshly as being bad and not worth my time and thus never bought it upon its initial release. (The initial asking price was not a deterrent, its wrongly inferred quality was.)

I want to say I was wrong oh so painfully fucking wrong. Grimoire is fun, and a beautiful throwback to the classic days of wizardry (I am a new fan of wizardry as I was not exposed to the series in my youth but I only started playing them when they came out here on GOG) and I enjoy it greatly.

Kudos to you for creating it, despite some first flaws at understanding the GUI, I soon got a hold of it, I pretty much just dove in without reading the manual, though now I am reading it bit by bit.
After I bite into it more during the holidays, some time after new years I am going to give it a full and proper review on its store page.

Save often! EXPERIMENT WITH YOUR PARTIES!

But to anyone checking the forums before purchasing this game, if you are a fan of wizardry or older rpgs like Might and Magic, Lands of Lore etc, check it out. it is worth the money.

GET IT.

Your review don't really mention anything about the writing/story quality itself. As someone that never played any of the Wizardry games, but like games with good stories above else, how does the story far? Is it decent?

Graphics doesn't really look that good, looks more generic than the Spiderweb software games from screenshots. But the writing and story is the main selling point for me. Anything else is second or third.

No it doesn't largely because its a mini-review and not a full one and so far the story seems OK, I haven't had a lot time to play it recently as I have been busy with RL concerns and those are mounting, so a full review might not be likely until march maybe feb, sorry to not full answer your question.

I mean if your playing wiz likes for story and not for the madness of building a party that deletes all life i have some bad news for you, your better off going back to baldurs gate.

Ah, alright. Will try remember to poke you around that time then. :) Fair enough.

Also lol, BG's story is not that good. I personally preferred Icewind Dale's story more. :P
(inb4 angry bg fanboys come out of the woodworks with pitchforks and torches)

It's a matter of personal taste and playing style. You say that you like Icewind Dale better than Baldur's Gate, story-wise - fair enough. But why? I myself find both stories interesting, with the story of ID being somewhat less complex than that of BG. Grimoire has an interesting story, too, but you will not be able to go from one story highlight to the next easily.
It's a long and arduous journey, with a lot of fighting and solving riddles, and character development plays a major role (times 8 - you can have up to 8 characters in your party).
Perhaps you find more information in the wiki: http://grimoire.wiki.
Or you consult articles about the newer Wizardry games, especially Wizardry 7, or Wizards & Warriors - there are similarities between Grimoire and these games (if the Wizardry games appeal to you, then Grimoire very likely does too).

Grimoire isn't a story-game per se - you don't play it for the story, but for its inherent virtues: exploration, discovery, freedom. Still I find the story very interesting. It's not served on silver plates, but in short, now and then discovered pieces of information. Your exploration is rewarded by getting more information. That sporadic nature of storytelling doesn't mean the story or the prose it's told in is weak - quite on the contrary in my opinion. For me, storytelling in Grimoire (or Wiz 7) is like a haiku compared to western poetry: It's very condensed, not overflowing but very precise and carefully written and manages to evoke atmosphere very well. Every sentence in Grimoire is meaningful and well placed.