Capsule Review: Letter Quest: Grimm's Journey
A spelling game framed as a simple RPG, with obvious parallels to Bookworm Adventures. Progress through a series of combat encounters, attacking by spelling words from the available pool of fifteen letters that replenish semi-randomly as they are used. Longer words or those with less common letters deal more damage. Enemies have their own attacks which will damage your health and sometimes confer various negative effects - including to the letter grid, such as causing certain tiles to damage the player when used. Victory earns you gems that can be used to buy a wide variety of upgrades. Each level can be played multiple times with different constraints for more rewards.
The RPG mechanics are not especially deep, but they do a good job framing the spelling gameplay by providing frequent milestones. The extra optional constraints on each level change up the gameplay, sometimes just requiring you to play quickly but sometimes changing the rules in other ways, such as removing non-E vowels or requiring each word to be exactly four letters long.
I always wished PopCap would make a mobile or handheld Bookworm Adventures, but they never did. Bacon Bandit stepped up and filled that gap with a more engaging game. The varied challenges here keep the gameplay fresh, and being able to choose which upgrade to buy next with your accumulated gems means you can get the right buffs for your preferred playstyle. It still won’t be enough to win you over if you don’t enjoy spelling words, but if you do, you’ll likely have a good time with this one.
I Stopped Playing When: I finished the game.
Three Stars: Good. I liked the game enough to finish it (or just play it a bunch, for games that don't end). I recommend it to most genre fans.