All the single stages of a day can be replayed at the main menu. The story is divided in chapters, each represented by a day, in which usually there's an opening dialogue, a battle and an ending dialogue dialogues are referred as "dramas".
The game is partially import-friendly: menus are in english, as well as unit data and most useful information, but story, tutorials and objectives are in japanese. Unfortunately music doesn't really follow, the first BGMs (and the CD) features rather plain musics that can be found in all games - but, at least, they are well suited for the game. Even the in-game cursor can be changed from a simple pointing hand, to a PC-esque arrow, a small magic wand or semi-deformed drawing of the main heroine - and this one is animated in many cute ways. The baroque use of colors, the attention to detail on all animations and not-so-static character portraits (they breath, open and close eyes, they are lip-synched to the dubbing and so on), backgrounds and UI sharpness truly make the game one of the most pleasent things you ever seen - where, for example, Super Paper Mario achieves a visually stunning appearance for the sheer simplicity of the graphics, Grim Grimoire achieves an incredibly high artistic profile for fully using the artists ability to bring the tiniest detail into life. But, first things first: the game is absolutely stunning. There are a lot of mechanics typical of turn-based strategic games such as four magic schools compensating each other (Glamour, Necromancy, Sorcery and Alchemy - didn't really knew that Glam was magic - I guess Helstar were wrong), units with two different body types (Astral and Corporeal - or just the game says, Substance - and probably there's more) belonging to the four magic shools, each with HP, MP and of course cost to be summoned. Unlike most japanese strategic games, Grim Grimoire is real time with a side-scrolling perspective with resource collectors, fighting units but fortunately no base to manage. Go here and to have a preview and a small explanation on how the game works.
There's an 18-track audio CD and a small postcard booklet included as bonuses (probably the booklet is a preorder bonus) and the game rests on a single DVD. This particular game was holding back Luminous Arc too, so expect some first impression on the DS title soon. With Princess Crown never reaching the western shores of the gaming world I didn't took any chances and ordered both right away. Long before I knew that this game was coming stateside, I had a pending preorder with Play Asia - just like with Odin Sphere.
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