Grim Trials

Training to become Death, one trial at a time

Grim Trials' hook is its setting: rather than an established god of the underworld, you're a student at an academy training aspiring Grim Reapers, befriending mentors and fellow trainees between excursions into procedurally structured combat trials while working toward uncovering the truth behind your own life, love and death. Several reviewers describe that framing as an immediate draw specifically because of the theme — one writes that as "a fan of the roguelite genre, on top of the underworld theme settings with grim reaper and scythe as a weapon, this game really resonates with me" — and the game leans into that identity with named, illustrated mentor and reaper characters rather than treating its cast as disposable narrative dressing around the combat.

The comparison every review reaches for, made openly

Grim Trials doesn't hide its influences, and neither do its reviewers: Hades and Cult of the Lamb come up constantly and specifically, both as praise and as a yardstick for criticism. One reviewer straightforwardly calls it "really fun... reminds me a bit of Hades," while another, more measured review frames the whole game as "a neat little roguelite that puts a bit more emphasis on crafting while also pulling back on the mid-exploration progression," aimed at players "who like the chaotic action elements on roguelites but aren't a big fan of RNG determining their runs too much." That's a clear-eyed, accurate self-assessment of where the game sits relative to its most obvious inspiration, rather than reviewers pretending it's doing something wholly unprecedented.

A crafting system reviewers say genuinely earns its place

The system reviewers single out most consistently as distinctive is gear crafting, built around a QTE minigame rather than a passive currency spend. One detailed early review calls it "fresh, but can be improved," while others are more unreserved, praising both the crafting loop itself and the fact that generous monster drop rates keep failing the QTE from feeling punishing or grindy. That combination — new mechanical texture layered onto a familiar core loop, calibrated so a missed input doesn't wreck a run — is exactly the kind of addition that can give a genre-adjacent roguelite its own identity, and reviewers credit it as doing real work in that direction here.

Where the run-to-run loop runs thin

The most substantive and specific criticism in the review base concerns build variety across a longer play session. One detailed review, written after clearing the game's second boss, lays out the problem precisely: after roughly ten runs, they'd "basically seen every iteration of the skill that we can get from the game," with "no OP skill, no legendary tier, no game-changing buff" left to chase — a direct critique of the exact "dopamine hit" mechanism that drives replayability in genre leaders like Hades. A second reviewer raises a related but distinct point, criticising the overall blessing or upgrade list as "boring/terrible" compared to the game's otherwise solid foundation, arguing that when the moment-to- moment upgrade choices are the least interesting part of a roguelite, something has gone wrong with the core loop's long-term design regardless of how good the base combat feels.

Combat feel: fluid, with real telegraphing complaints

Reviewers broadly praise the feel of combat itself — fluid, varied by weapon choice, with the returning Reaper Crossbow singled out by name for how satisfyingly it interrupts enemy attacks — but several raise a specific and recurring complaint about how enemies signal their attacks. One reviewer, self-described as coming in with Hades muscle memory, writes that "some enemies don't have clear intent or telegraphing, so it's hard to dodge," specifically citing enemies that change direction mid-telegraph in a way that undercuts the read-and-react rhythm the genre depends on. A separate reviewer reports the more mundane but still real problem of getting stuck in terrain geometry accompanied by stuttering, a technical issue worth flagging for a game this early into its post-launch patch cycle.

What the achievement data suggests about the wider systems

Global achievement data, spanning 29 tracked milestones, corroborates the review base's account of a substantial relationship or social system running alongside the combat: seven achievements are named for classical virtues — diligence, charity, temperance, patience, chastity, kindness and humility — sitting across a wide 12-48% completion spread, consistent with a mentor-and-reaper relationship system deep enough that different players are pursuing different characters and paths through it. Further down the list, an achievement plausibly tied to reaching a true ending sits at 8.6%, and the rarest tracked milestone sits at just 5%, suggesting a meaningful minority of players are pushing well past the point most reviews were written from, even if the critical account of a thinning upgrade pool holds for the average run somewhere in between.

Final verdict

Grim Trials wears its Hades influence openly and mostly earns the comparison, building a fluid, well-scored action roguelite around a genuinely fresh crafting system and a reaper-academy cast that reviewers have taken a real liking to. Its most serious weakness, by its most detailed critics' own account, is exactly where the genre's best entries do their heaviest lifting: a run-to-run upgrade pool that stops surprising experienced players well before the genre's high bar would suggest is acceptable. At NZ$27.99, that's not a dealbreaker for players newer to the genre or specifically drawn to its setting and crafting hook, but roguelite veterans chasing the exact kind of escalating build chaos Hades made a genre standard should temper their expectations accordingly.