History VideoGame / LegendOfGrimrock

* BilingualBonus: The name of the unique axe ''Norja'' means Norway in the Finnish language, and its FlavorText speaks of the "fjord-dwellers", fjords being a well-known landmark of the country.
** In addition, one of the locations shown on the world map found in the game extras is called ''Literature/{{Kalevala}}''.

* BossBanter: For a [[spoiler:mechanical cube]], the [[spoiler:Undying One]] is quite vocal.

* ChallengeRun: There is an ''Old School Mode,'' wherein the player doesn't have the luxury of the automap. A SoloCharacterRun is forced in [[spoiler:Toorum]] mode.

* CommonplaceRare: Justified given you're in a dungeon full of monsters where prisoners are thrown for an ImpossibleTask.

* ElaborateEqualsEffective

* FireIceLightning: [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Earth]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: You get rampant dreams with a being who is supposedly in the bottom of the dungeon. [[spoiler: The background of the dream is surrounded by cogs, which hint at its mechanical nature.]]

*** The foreshadowing starts even before then. The introduction movie at the start of the game shows much larger versions of the ominous statues standing around the entrance hole to the dungeon.

** [[spoiler: The FinalBoss of 1. The biggest difficulty of boss fight is not the boss itself, but not getting cornered by it and its flunkies and [[TotalPartyKill rolled over by it]].]]

* GlassCannon: [[SquishyWizard Mages]], which is why their place is in the back row. Watch out for ambushes or traps and spells that damage the whole group, though.

* TheLegendOfX

* NoExperiencePointsForMedic: Characters who don't damage the enemies you kill will quickly fall behind in experience, which is especially a problem for your back row characters early on. Equipping them with spears is a good idea, allowing them to attack and be useful until ranged weapons and spells become available.

* PlayerParty

* SquishyWizard: Mechanically encouraged. While there are skills available to Mages that boost their defenses, it's generally a better idea to invest those skill points into magic skills so as to unlock more and more powerful spells. Mages also have very little health compared to other classes, and the fact that they otherwise have no use for strength means they'll probably be encumbered even if they do wear heavier armor.
** The sequel averts this with the [[MagicKnight Battlemage class]], which gets some defensive bonuses and considerably more health than the Wizard.

* StockVideoGamePuzzle: Puzzles are one of key elements found in the dungeon.
** ControlRoomPuzzle
** LockAndKeyPuzzle
** [[StockVideoGamePuzzle Remote Switch Puzzle]]
** [[StockVideoGamePuzzle Timed Switch Puzzle]]
** TrickShotPuzzle
** TwoKeyedLock
** WaitingPuzzle
** [[StockVideoGamePuzzle Weighted Switch Puzzle]]

* TrapDoor: These can be found throughout the dungeon and have to be closed to be crossed over.

* SharedLifeMeter: The bosses from ''II'' always have one Life Meter, and it's the variation where each part of boss has its own, hidden life meter, so you can kill individual parts before depleting it completely.

* ChallengeRun: There is an ''Old School Mode,'' wherein the player doesn't have the luxury of the automap. The sequel goes further, giving you the option to make all save crystals single-use should you feel so inclined, or even make saving ''only possible at crystals'' (likely to encourage speedruns). All of these are difficulty "modifiers" rather than full-fledged difficulty modes, meaning you can use them on Easy mode to make them more manageable. Or you can use all of them on Hard mode for a particularly brutal self-imposed challenge.

* NintendoHard: Par for the course.

* SoloCharacterRun: Forced in [[spoiler:Toorum]] mode, but available in regular playthroughs as well.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''VideoGame/DungeonMaster'' and the old-school dungeon crawling genre in general.

* ShinySense: The various keys you'll find usually shine to make them easier to detect.

** Orb of Radiance provides constant Light effect, meaning you'll never ever need torches once you find this. It has to be in hand, but since it provides bonuses to your Mage, there's not really any reason not to have it, until you find [[InfinityPlusOneSword Zhandul's Orb at least]].
** Some low-level perks are incredibly handy and relatively easy to get (at least when compared to ultimate perks), such as cooldown reduction for weapons/magic, ability to hit enemies from back row, elimination of evasion penalty for wearing heavy armor.

** The Rope in the sequel. What it does is that it allows you to climb down through hole without injury (that is, if that floor doesn't lead to another hole). Since in this game jumping through hole has also good chance to cause an injury to a foot or a leg which can be removed only by using healing potion or a crystal, it becomes quite handy if you don't want to reload a lot.

* WizardNeedsFoodBadly: Like the Dungeon Crawlers of old, your party members need to be fed regularly. However, food isn't that scarce, and starved party members will simply stop regenerating health whilst resting.

** ''II'' keeps all of the above and adds limb injuries that have various effects (can't cast spells, can't regenerate energy, decreased carrying capacity ...) and can be only cured by a potion or Crystal, Blinded (CameraScrew that blocks your field of vision, wears off on its own) and Petrified (character is turned to stone and cannot act, can be removed by Antidote).

* ZergRush: [[http://i.imgur.com/ksjT9.jpg Scavengers]] are some of the weakest enemies in the game, but they tend to appear in such overwhelming numbers that the few times you encounter them are some of the most dangerous situations you'll find yourself in.

** [[spoiler:The sequel's Baren Desert is ''infested'' with mummies, which are some of weakest enemies of the game but 4 of them can be at single tile. They're especially vulnerable to fire, so spamming Fireburst against group of them is a great tactic.]]

** ''II'' keeps all of the above and adds limb injuries that have various effects and can be only cured by a potion or Crystal (can't cast spells, can't regenerate energy, decreased carrying capacity ...), Blinded (CameraScrew that blocks your field of vision, wears off on its own) and Petrified (character is turned to stone and cannot act, can be removed by Antidote).

** "Forcefield" spell in second game. What it does is that it surrounds the enemy in front of you by force field cage, preventing them from moving, attacking and being attacked. Doesn't sound too exciting, but in this game the biggest problem is being swarmed by enemies, something this spell helps a lot with if used tactically. While it has a complex casting sequence being second behind only "Dispel", it has otherwise low requirements, low casting cost and fast recovery, making it easy to use it continuously and in tandem with offensive spells.
** The Rope in sequel. What it does is that it allows you to climb down through hole without injury (that is, if that floor doesn't lead to another hole). Since in this game jumping through hole has also good chance to cause an injury to a foot or a leg which can be removed only by using healing potion or a crystal, it becomes quite handy if you don't want to reload a lot.

* The Rope in sequel. What it does is that it allows you to climb down through hole without injury (that is, if that floor doesn't lead to another hole). Since in this game jumping through hole has also good chance to cause an injury to a foot or a leg which can be removed only by using healing potion or a crystal, it becomes quite handy if you don't want to reload a lot.

** Various charged weapons, such as The Fire Blade. They allow to cast a spell when used (for example, Fire Blade shoots Fireball), but the number of charges is very limited and they ''cannot'' be recharged. Though even empty weapon is handy, as it occasionally causes some after-damage (Empty Fire Blade has a chance to cause Fireburst), but it's still a considerable downgrade. Best to keep this for [[BrutalBonusLevel Fighter's Challenge]]. The sequel has red crystal shards that can be used to recharge them, but those are not exactly common either.

* PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling: ''II'' has something like this. In Herder's Den, there's a boss consisting of a number of fungi [[MookMaker that spawns various Herders indefinitely until they're killed]]. If you go there when you're supposed to, before entering The Ruins of Desarune, the fight is quite hard and you'll be happy to just kill all fungi before getting overwhelmed, and you can't leave the place until you do so. If you postpone your visit here until later (nothing stops you from doing so, as there are no items required for further exploration) you can exploit infinitely respawning enemies here for level grinding. In fact, killing the leftmost fungus makes that part a good spot for resting, as it is on the side with single entrance that you can even block temporarily with force field, as long as you didn't destroy nearby branches.

* DualBoss: First boss of ''II'', Viper Roots, is this. In its DegradedBoss version, however, it will fight you alone.

* MooksButNoBosses: [[spoiler: First game has only FinalBoss and even there the most of difficulty comes from summoning other monsters and figuring out how to defeat it.]]

* SharedLifeMeter: The bosses from ''II'' always have one Life Meter, and it's the variation where each part of boss has its own, hidden life meter, so you individual parts before depleting it completely.

** The HandCannon in the second game, a massive cannon that can deal well over 200 damage in a single shot. The downside is that ''it's a massive cannon'', and even if you strip your firearms user to just the bare essentials they'll probably only be able to carry a few shots worth of cannonballs before they're over-encumbered. On top of that, the cannonballs themselves are a limited resource, with most of them being in secret areas. [[UpToEleven Even More]], to be able to even use it you have to have Firearms skill on at least 4, and Firearms is the most useless skill in the entire game.