It’s not often that you come across an anime-based RPG title that is simplified to the roots of the anime itself and it is still an entertaining game. Yet Rooster Teeth Games has developed RWBY: Grimm Eclipse and shown that simplicity can work when done right. Giving players semi-lengthy missions, the ability to play with friends, and a roster featuring all of your favorites from the show, this game simply worked at being entertaining. That isn’t to say that it was without flaw though.

Gameplay

Playing through the game on the Switch gave me the benefit of having multiple costumes to choose from right away, but players that play on other platforms can get this through DLC as well. I always recommend playing the game single-player first so you can get the hang of the controls and see what the game has to offer without the interruption of players who have already had this experience.

That said, you start off by picking which chapter you want to play and then choose which of the eight characters you want to play as and choosing their costume by pressing up or down on the d-pad. Once the character has been selected, which for me was Pyrrha, you can start the mission. Mind that the difficulty will default to Normal, but that is actually the lowest difficulty option.

A single-player, with knowledge of how to use their character properly, can manage as far up as Legendary difficulty, but I would save Eclipse for multiplayer sessions. The difficulty option only really changes the number of enemies there are in the chapter and now how hard they are to defeat. I tried completing Eclipse solo myself but found the sections where you have to protect a device from being destroyed becomes too difficult because you can’t fend off the Grimm’s fast enough.

Controlling your character is actually really smooth and the combat options are mixed with combinations between your light and heavy attacks. For instance, by pressing light twice and then a heavy, Pyrrha does a multi-jab attack that hurts the enemy I am attacking, but by pressing light three times and then a heavy, she pulls off a spin attack that hurts multiple enemies near me. Knowing these differences and being able to pull them off at proper timing will help with handling crowds of Grimms. Plus, you have a special meter that fills up, and once full you can release a special attack with R1+L1. I kept saving this for bigger enemies, but really, as long as you have enough enemies left to attack after you use it, you can fill it up rather quickly.

As you defeat enemies, your character will also level up. When this happens you get a stat point that can be used to increase your character in a variety of ways. Don’t be shy about using these either because if you don’t like the setup you made, you can always take them back in the menu screen and re-use the points in a different way. The highest level a character can get is level 10, so don’t expect to be able to max out a character's stats either.

Visuals / Audio

I am really glad that they didn’t go with the visual quality that you find in the anime series and instead opted for a more standard approach. It is more visually appealing and really brings the environment to light. Not to mention the characters all look a lot cleaner with the style they chose for the game.

Sound quality was pretty good too when it comes to the sound effects, voice acting, and music choice. Everything was fitting without being distracting, which is good considering how easy it is to get a Grimm crowd around you.

Replayability

Thanks to having so many characters to level up, horde modes to fight through, and multiple difficulties to make all missions more difficult, I would say that this game has plenty of replayability. That doesn’t even go into the factors of multiplayer options being both online and local.

What Could Be Better

While I enjoyed that the missions were a form of step-by-step moments, I didn’t care for the fact that Grimm’s didn’t randomly show up. It was always in the form of waves at a key checkpoint in a mission or in a full body of enemies that await in the next section of the level. Random spawn enemies make for a more challenging and entertaining game.

When speaking on difficulty, I also found it a bit upsetting that playing on Eclipse verse playing on Normal was only a difference in enemy volume. Sure, I expected to have more enemies around, but I also expected them to be harder to defeat. The fact that it took the same amount of hits on both difficulties was a bit of a letdown. I never played the game with four people while reviewing it, but I would imagine that this game would be incredibly easy for a full team to handle, even on the Eclipse difficulty - especially since I can practically do it myself if it wasn’t for the protect sections of a mission (just can’t defeat enough of them fast enough).

Conclusion

RWBY: Grimm Eclipse proves that simplicity can be entertaining as well! Too many games try to go all out and put too much into a game that it can end up ruining it, but these developers just gave us what we wanted from an RWBY video game: A roster full of our favorite characters, similar and new areas to explore, and easy-to-use combat that isn’t excessively repetitive. Definitely recommend this title to fans of hack-and-slash games, even if you aren’t a big fan of the RWBY series.