Secrets of Grindea

Nine years, and a review section that turned the wait into a running joke

Few games on Steam have generated as consistent and specific a community in-joke as Secrets of Grindea's review section did during its Early Access years. "I got married, bought a new house, had two kids, and one is in Kindergarten, and this game is still in early access," reads one review. "I've had three kids since buying this game and it's still in Early Access. Please finish the main story," reads another, from a different reviewer, making the same joke independently. A third simply notes: "Can't wait to play this with my grandchildren when it comes out!" before editing the review once 1.0 actually shipped. The joke lands specifically because Secrets of Grindea entered Early Access on 13 July 2015 and didn't reach a full 1.0 release until 29 February 2024 — a nine-year stretch documented in the store page's own "Early Access Release Date" field, not merely a vague impression from reviewers. A small, three-person development team is the reason cited repeatedly across the review sample; several reviewers explicitly note the team declined to hire additional staff to accelerate progress, treating that as both admirable dedication and a legitimate source of frustration.

What nine years actually built

Whatever else is true about the pace, the finished game backs up the wait with real substance. The store page describes an "old-school Action RPG" built as "a tribute to and sometimes a parody of the old SNES games," and the official screenshots support that framing in detail rather than just marketing language: one shows a lush farming plot beside a fishing pond with visible fish shadows and a full HUD of skill icons; another shows a bustling town square with named NPCs, cherry blossom trees and a full dialogue system with distinct character portraits and personality-driven writing — "Hey! Don't stand in the middle of the road!" barks one NPC at the player character, a small but telling detail of the writing's comic tone. The stated feature list is genuinely broad: 300-plus characters, 30-plus boss fights, a skill system spanning 31 spells across nine categories, home customisation, fishing, crafting, pet-taming, and — separate from the main story entirely — a full roguelite "Arcade Mode" requiring players to fight to a permadeath high score while building up a town of their own. One veteran reviewer with over 44,000 minutes (roughly 735 hours) logged calls it "one of the best and most unique indie RPGs" after nearly a decade of support. Steam's own achievement data backs the broad engagement claim: a 69-achievement schema shows a real spread from 80% of tracked players collecting an early item milestone down to a fraction of a percent completing the hardest region-specific challenges, evidence of a genuinely large, sustained player base exploring deep into the game's systems rather than bouncing off early.

The 1.0 release didn't end the complaints, it just changed their shape

The most useful thing separating this review from a simple "great game, terrible wait" summary is checking what reviewers say after 1.0 actually arrived, rather than assuming the finished release answered every criticism raised during Early Access. It didn't, entirely. A March 2024 review, posted shortly after launch, states plainly: "Game turned out to be not fun in the slightest," criticising specific pacing problems once the story reaches its desert region. A January 2023 pre-1.0 review that's aged into an accurate prediction notes it had "been a year and a half since an actual update," foreshadowing exactly the kind of late-development stall that made the eventual release feel overdue rather than triumphant to some. Most tellingly, a review dated July 2026 — more than two years after 1.0, well past any argument that this is lingering Early Access frustration — describes assuming there would be "more point to grinding" and finding that "the grind investment to reward ratio started to get really steep," eventually giving up despite initially liking the game. A December 2024 review frames the same complaint more sympathetically: "It's clear a lot of love went into making this game," but ultimately can't recommend it in its current state after co-op testing with a friend surfaced the same pacing and balance issues other reviews describe independently.

None of this erases the substantial, credible praise elsewhere in the sample — a February 2024 review from a player finishing the "true ending" on hard difficulty specifically credits combat and skills that "did not change after 13 years" as still holding up, treating longevity of design as a compliment rather than a symptom of stagnation. The honest picture is a genuinely well-crafted action RPG whose late-game pacing and reward curve remain a real, recurring point of friction for a meaningful share of players, both before and after the version number finally read 1.0.

Final verdict

Secrets of Grindea earns its reputation as a lovingly made, systems-rich tribute to 16-bit action RPGs, and the strength of its co-op combat, character customisation and presentation is not in real dispute across nearly 7,000 reviews spanning a decade. What keeps this from scoring higher is that the specific complaint driving nine years of "please just finish it" jokes — a story and difficulty curve that don't fully deliver on the promise of the systems underneath them — persisted in recognisable form even after the game left Early Access for good. This is a strong recommendation for co-op action RPG fans with realistic expectations about where the late game lands, not an unqualified must-play that fully justifies the decade of waiting its most devoted fans put in.