Grotesque Tactics 2 – Dungeons and Donuts

My honest reaction after sitting with Grotesque Tactics 2 long enough to form a real opinion: this is a game that made a deliberate design bet, went all-in on it, and mostly lost. The bet was that sharp, Monkey Island-style comedy would carry a party-based tactical RPG through its weaknesses. It doesn't, and the weaknesses are considerable. That said, understanding what the game actually is saves you from the wrong kind of disappointment. The structure is a real-time exploration layer that snaps into turn-based grid combat whenever protagonist Drake or one of his five party members spots an enemy. On paper that is a reasonable hybrid, but the transition is jarring because it strips away any ability to set a starting formation before a fight begins. Combat itself runs on an action-point system across hexagonal tiles, characters can choose between a free basic attack or one of up to four mana-costing special abilities, and positioning genuinely matters because flanking and circling enemies grants bonus damage. Potion use does not consume a turn, which is a small but welcome decision that keeps skirmishes from turning into pure attrition. The returning cast includes Drake the sarcastic emo hero, Candy the bow-wielding maiden, and the healer Angelina, among others. Character progression runs through small talent trees that unlock those special attacks as you invest points, but the trees are poorly documented and a nasty crash bug that triggers when you push a single skill beyond three points has plagued the game since launch, directly capping builds in the worst way possible. The faction and quest system, which splits the underground Sanctuary between mercenaries, high elves, and the eccentric Holy Avatar's maiden brigade, sounds more interesting than it plays. Running between faction hubs to curry favour earns quests, and occasionally those factions want contradictory things, which has small effects on the ending. But the quest log is functionally broken: it rarely updates with waypoints, lists completed objectives as active, and sends you into areas locked behind other quests without flagging the dependency. The result is a lot of blind wandering in repetitive dungeon maps. The cooking system, which presumably explains the donuts in the title, amounts to fetch quests dressed as crafting. Here is the problem that divides players cleanly in two: if the humour clicks for you, none of the above is catastrophic. The game leans hard into pop-culture gags, fantasy trope skewering, and self-aware dialogue where Drake himself mocks the idiocy of the world around him. Some of that lands. The voice acting is generally competent and the German development team clearly had genuine passion for their creation. If the jokes fall flat, or worse, if the edgier humour around the game's female character designs reads as more offensive than parodic, there is almost nothing else left to hold the experience together. Steam user reviews sit at a mixed 52 percent positive, and that split maps almost perfectly onto the comedy divide. For strategy players specifically: do not walk in expecting meaningful tactical decisions. Back attacks, positioning, and mana management are the ceiling, not the floor. There are no build synergies worth planning around, no AI worth respecting, and no mod ecosystem to patch the gaps. The tutorial does the bare minimum, and the interface actively resists newcomers, with camera controls that drift wildly and translation gaps that were never fully resolved in English localisation. This one is for the fan of the first Grotesque Tactics who wants more of the same humour in darker dungeon corridors, not for the tactics enthusiast looking for depth.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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