As a Rooster Teeth and RWBY fan, I was both excited and hesitant going into RWBY: Grimm Eclipse. For those who don’t know, RWBY is an animated web series from Rooster Teeth Productions. It follows the story of four young women and their friends who train to become Huntsmen and Huntresses in order to defend their world from monsters known as Grimm. While the series itself has a wonderful, engaging story, the game lacks any originality in that regard.
The game’s campaign takes you through ten chapters, starting in the Emerald Forest and eventually making your way to the Island of Dr. Merlot, named after the antagonist in Grimm Eclipse. Team RWBY is initially sent out on a mission to fix a broken security network. This eventually leads them to discover a more sinister plot by Merlot Industries, who have been performing experiments on Grimm. The entire plot isn’t really noteworthy, especially in comparison to the show which is currently airing its fourth volume.
RWBY: Grimm Eclipse relies on melee and ranged attacks for each of the characters, and while they all have different attacks by name, they serve the same purpose. No matter who I chose to play as, I primarily used the same strategies every time. Pressing the right trigger to execute a ranged attack allowed me to safely get in closer in order to use a heavy melee attack. After I discovered this useful tactic, it was very much rinse-and-repeat for the rest of the game. I would only get overwhelmed if enemies were coming at me from all angles, in which case I would run around the battlefield to herd them into a group. Because of this, the gameplay is extremely repetitive.
My first experience with multiplayer didn’t make a good impression. Every time I attempted to access the game’s Horde mode, I would eventually be disconnected due to inactivity after waiting over five minutes. Thankfully, I had better luck getting into a game of multiplayer in the campaign. I was thrown into a match already in session and it played out exactly like the single-player campaign, albeit with much more enemies. This was admittedly more fun as I could execute team attacks and rely on my teammates to revive me should I die. It is evident that Grimm Eclipse is meant to be played in multiplayer, as even Ruby will make quips such as “Good Job team!” or “Go Team RWBY!” after clearing an area in single player. If you choose to play in single player, the other members of Team RWBY do not show up as AI companions, so these lines sounded awkward given the situation.
All members of Team RWBY are available to play in any chapter, with Team JNPR available as DLC for $5. Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang all have unique abilities called Utimates and attacks similar to the show, however they do not make a huge difference when playing. All of them have access to normal, long range, and heavy attacks which effectively do the same thing. It’s nice that none of them are over or underpowered compared to the others, but they also aren’t different enough to make it really matter who you choose to play as.
A few of the levels, notably Forever Fall, look beautiful in certain areas, however most of them are uninspired and incredibly linear. Being primarily a hack and slash game, it’s understandable that the level design doesn’t have much depth, but it’s still disappointing seeing such barren areas. It mirrors the show artistically well enough, but it has the disadvantage of being a game. The show can set up shots precisely how the creators want them, however in Grimm Eclipse, it’s all too easy to explore and wind up looking at unappealing environments.
One of the worst things about Grimm Eclipse is its camera angles. If I was pushed up against a wall or cornered in any way, it almost became impossible to see what I was doing as the camera would zoom in on my character’s back. This made fighting Grimm difficult at times, but it was more annoying than game-breaking. There is also an odd glitch where after performing a heavy attack, a Grimm would randomly levitate above my character, unable to attack me for a few seconds.
Summary
If you’re a fan of the show, you can definitely find some enjoyment in Grimm Eclipse, however for casual fans, there are much better games you can buy for $20. The most appropriate word I can use to describe most aspects of the game is just decent, with some being good at best. The combat isn’t stellar, the levels themselves leave a lot to be desired, and the story is honestly forgettable. It’s a shame that what makes the RWBY animated series so great could not be translated into its first proper video game. Still, the campaign offers around 5-6 hours of playtime and it’s a competent, and even at times fun, hack and slash game that I recommend you play with a group of friends.
Jennifer is a games journalist, former games journalist and PR Manager at Gearbox. They contributed 234 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: went on to write for Windows Central and later managed PR for Gearbox Software.