When comparing Vanishing Realms vs Grim Dawn, the Slant community recommends Grim Dawn for most people. In the question“What are the best adventure games on Steam?” Grim Dawn is ranked 22nd while Vanishing Realms is ranked 30th. The most important reason people chose Grim Dawn is:
Basically you choose 1 class and select skills as you level up. At level 10 you can select a second class, which already gives you 5x5=25 character type possibilities. Each character has dozens of skills, plus you have this additional passive skill tree that you unlock through cleansing shrines. Then there is item customization with crafted "modifiers", adding additional unique stats and skills that you can use, all this adds literally to thousands / millions of character possibilities. Do you want to use a double weapon shooting lightning bolts? You can do that. Do you want to summon your creatures and support them with fireballs? You can do that as well, you can push it wherever you want.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Highly immersive and polished VR gameplay
The whole game has been designed from the ground up to be played with motion controls that allow for immersive movements, making it one of the best Vive games currently available. You can swing your hand to swing a sword, raise your arm to block with a shield, move to hide behind a column when having arrows fired at you. Everything feels natural and intuitive.
Benefit being, it allows for the player to instinctively react through movement while playing, which makes for an experience not many have had with a video game to date.
Pro Works great with room scale
While no one will have enough room in order to completely traverse the game in full, once the player is in an area they want to explore, the immediate surroundings are easily navigated by walking or running around. It works quite well and feels natural, which adds to the immersive experience of the game.
Pro Challenging but not hard
I really love this play.
Pro Intuitive inventory system that is fun to use
Storing and using ones inventory is pretty simple to grasp as there is a virtual tool belt like area when you look down. From this items can be placed to be stored for later use, or equipped at that moment for use. This works through the use of the triggers on the controllers and placement of ones hands, while it may be tricky at first, once the player gets accustomed to the 3D spacing of where their actual hands should be, it all comes very naturally and is a great solution on how to handle items and inventory in a VR game.
Pro Graphically a AAA experience
A good way to describe the looks would be, kid friendly with a cartoonish oriented design that has a clear and professional look. It offers a good amount of detail with good lighting effects, shadows as well as clean textures making it one of the best looking VR games. While not based in any sense of realism, they allow for a comforting and inviting experience that can appeal to anyone while still having enough detail and polish in order to present a game that easily fits in with any AAA title to date.
Pro Complex leveling system with thousands of possible builds
Basically you choose 1 class and select skills as you level up. At level 10 you can select a second class, which already gives you 5x5=25 character type possibilities.
Each character has dozens of skills, plus you have this additional passive skill tree that you unlock through cleansing shrines. Then there is item customization with crafted "modifiers", adding additional unique stats and skills that you can use, all this adds literally to thousands / millions of character possibilities.
Do you want to use a double weapon shooting lightning bolts? You can do that. Do you want to summon your creatures and support them with fireballs? You can do that as well, you can push it wherever you want.
Pro Great homage to old school ARPGs
This game is very dark, and grim. It harkens back to games like Diablo 2 or Titans Quest. While other ARPGs have come out since then, none have hit all the marks of what fans of the genre have been asking for. For those that wish for an updated version of Diablo 2, Grim Dawn is the game for them.
Pro Exploration
Pro Highly modifiable
Relevant in modern gaming because the community can keep products like this fresh and varied, even if the developers eventually decide to slow down their updates (which they have not!). The possibilities are great with modding, while the experiences in Diablo 3 and Path of exile are a lot more static.
Pro Drop-in co-op (online and local)
Co-op is pretty convenient as players can drop in and out of your gaming session at any time. This way there is no wasted time jumping out of ones game in order to find players to play with.
Cons
Con Not finished yet
The game is in early access with only two levels available for play so far. While this does give a good sense of what will be available when finished, there is always the risk that the game will get abandoned or release with many bugs. There is never a guarantee with early access, which means the buyer should beware.
Con The less room in ones house, the more restricting the game can feel
This game requires a certain amount of free space when playing, and has been set up in that there is a way to maneuver in game, even when having little space in ones house. This of course comes with the caveat that the game itself will feel restricted in that movement will not feel natural. There is a work around for this of course called the blink system, where players point to where they want to move in a level, to the teleport there, but this does not feel as natural as actually moving there by walking.
Con Only some builds are fun
There is a definite meta, with superefficient vs non-viable builds.
It's easy to mess up a build, and attribute and spec-bar points are non-respeccable (you can use a cheat editor, but devs want you to reroll a new char).
Con Difficult to move when fighting, especially when you are ranged
Con Static pre-rendered levels
This may cut down on replayability a bit as all the levels in the game are pre-rendered, meaning that each playthrough will have the exact same layout, making for something that can get tiring and too familiar. Similar games have gone with randomized levels, which can keep the game fresh. While Grim Dawn is meant to be a throwback to earlier games in the genre, some newer features found in more recent released would have been welcome.
Con Lots of trips to town
The majority of loot in the game can be useless, with odd stat restrictions or repeats of vendor items. This means the user will need to make many trips into town to sell it all off in order to have room for even more loot they will not necessarily need.