The 3DS version has been patched and doesn't crash anymore, that's something, right?

This review is for Grinsia’s port on the 3DS.

At launch, Grinsia’s 3DS port was an absolute disaster that crashed every 5-15 minutes, with only the autosave enabling any kind of progress. Grinsia has since been patched to fix the crashes, and plays quite smoothly.

There was one glaring bug… the two optional playable characters had their menu portraits switched in battle. I don’t know if this depends on what order they are recruited. This bug had no effect on gameplay; it was just visually jarring.

Grinsia is JRPG comfort food. Anyone accustomed to traditional Japanese RPGs with turn-based combat will find Grinsia very easy to pick up and play. Grinsia is also fairly easy to beat; only a couple of bosses are challenging enough to require careful strategy and/or mild level grinding. There are no in-game purchases on the 3DS version.

Like comfort food, Grinsia has very little nutrition. The story is very by-the-numbers, and nearly all the characters are two-dimensional with zero character growth. The hero can only respond “Yes” or “No” to every choice.

Grinsia does not have multiple story paths, making the hero’s Yes/No choices unimportant. One notable story feature is that different party members (other than the hero) will say different things during story cutscenes, so the player’s choice of who to put in the party does have a slight effect.

Grinsia ultimately felt quite bland and uninspired. It’s a throwback to the 16-bit era meant to invoke nostalgia, but its gameplay is routine, and its few, mildly interesting story developments were too little, and came too late.