Pay to win title despite developers claiming otherwise – Grim Soul: Survival Magic RPG Review

There are games out there that win off of skins and other cosmetics that do not affect the balance of the game. Sadly this is not one of them. The pay-to-win mechanism is sadly prevalent in many survival themed games and this game’s developers seem to have reached for the limit here! Imagine you are fighting an enemy and once exposed, other enemies nearby (even those not within the minimal display) rush to you quickly forming a mob. You have your trusted weapon and armor, right? Well those last about 15 hits exactly. Yeah. 15 hits with the sword and it breaks. Oh and you can’t repair it; once it breaks it disappears. Same with the armor; 15 hits from an enemy and armor goes bye-bye. Make new armor and weapons? Well the problem then is two-fold: 1. collecting resources without attracting enemy attention; 2. Weapons you make are half durability, unless of course if you pay… based on how much you pay, you get more durability. Payments are not a one time done deal either. Recurring payments… so if you do not pay, you are gonna run around naked trying to collect sticks and stones from the ground to make basic weak weapons and basic clothing as armor. Oh and they are not going to last either so it is gonna get boring and turn into a grind fest with not much progress in the way of game play. But yeah, as the developer says “you can play without paying”. That much is true, you can run around trying not to die, that’s survival, right? Oh, but wait. There’s more… you can’t run around that much because you need to eat once every 60 seconds or so if you are a free player. So, you need to fill your inventory with food and eat every 60 seconds or so, while running around trying to fill the space emptied up by the food with sticks and stones from the ground. Oh but to fill your inventory with food, you need to scavenge for food items: leek seeds drop from npcs (can’t get to to those because we don’t have armor or weapons, remember); meat drops from npcs, of which only deer are non-aggro but they run off; leaving us with berries from bushes. So if you are lucky enough to not get sorted while picking berries, great! But beware because one of the berries makes you vomit if you eat too much of it… If you pay, however, food drain is less, so you need to eat less often. Same goes with drinking. Let’s be honest, if you do not play, you cannot advance in this game. I have yet to see one player that has advanced in this game and finished the main quest line even, without paying a single dime. Maybe someone who has 24 hours to play can do it. So yeah, if you want to play a game where you run away from enemies trying to collect sticks and stones all the whole chucking berries down your throat, this game is for you. Otherwise, you have to pay. Ignore the devs responding otherwise. Developer: if you want to respond honestly and truthfully saying that the game can be played (key word here is play) without paying, post a video on your social media or YouTube account with a brand new account, zero payment benefits, zero modifiers, playing the game as a free player, entering areas and gathering resources, fighting and/or even just finishing the main questline. Please, prove all these people saying that this game is pay-to-win wrong, myself included. I’ll tip my hat respectfully.
Review by NovaBahar on Grim Soul: Survival Magic RPG.