Letter Quest: Grimm’s Journey Remastered review for Xbox One, PS Vita, PS4

I have a soft spot in my heart for word games. My mom got me hooked on Scrabble at a very young age, and to this day I can’t see collections of letters without automatically trying to figure out how many words I can make out of them — even if we’re only talking about a few letters on a license plate. It’s almost an addiction, and it means any time I come across a word-centric video game, I’m instantly intrigued.

In the case of Letter Quest: Grimm’s Journey Remastered, I don’t just mention this addiction because I want you to be aware that I may approach it with a slightly different mindset than most people. I mention it because, deep down, it makes me think this game may not be very good.

See, every time I play it, I find that it doesn’t take long before my attention starts to wander. As neat as the concept of an RPG built entirely around word creation sounds, in practice it gets pretty repetitive pretty quickly: spell words, kill monsters, repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

To developer Bacon Bandit’s credit, they did try and inject a little variety into the proceedings. For example, each level has four stars, and to earn each star you have to do something different. It’s a great idea, but it’s ruined by the fact that it really just means you have to play the same level three times to earn three stars, and then the fourth star is basically impossible to earn unless you’ve completely maxed out every facet of your character.

Likewise, there are some special letter effects — things like plague letters that spread if you don’t eliminate them fast enough, and spiked letters that hurt you if you use them — but unless you’re extraordinarily bad at this game, their impact will be somewhere between non-existent and negligible. The same could be said for all the different upgrades: you’ll want to build up your health bar as much as possible, but anything beyond that they all seem kind of useless.

In all of this, of course, I should emphasize that Letter Quest’s core gameplay isn’t all that bad. If you’re like me, you’ll get excessive amounts of joy out of playing a round or two and seeing all the crazy words you can come up with. It’s easy enough to figure out, and the controls are a breeze.

If you want to play more than a few rounds, though — that is, if you’re sitting on your couch playing your Xbox One or PS4 and looking for something to sink your teeth into — then Letter Quest: Grimm’s Journey Remastered will get pretty tedious pretty quickly. I can’t wait for the game to come out on the Vita in a few weeks, since it seems like the game will be perfectly suited to quick sessions here and there, but as it stands, you’re most likely better off skipping it.