Tales of Grimm is an idle RPG gacha developed by Tapplus set in the Land of Oz, where characters from fairy tales used to live in harmony. Then, a creeping darkness sets over the land, twisting some of its inhabitants into mockeries of their former selves. Those who were not changed are preyed upon by their former friends.
To resolve this, a fairy named Fay summons a Dreamer to lead the charge. You are that Dreamer, summoning copies of those characters to free Oz one step at a time. Along the way, you find allies to join your cause through the gacha and figure out where this darkness originated, strengthening your forces as you go on. Besides this, you can forge alliances with other Dreamers, or face off against the teams of others for glory.
Tales of Grimm is an idle game, so much of your time will be spent waiting for your Heroes to collect treasures before collecting them, using them accordingly to bolster your teams, and repeating the process. The game is remarkably generous in giving out rewards, and with good reason as some of the rarer Heroes require much more resources to level up. Our beginner’s guide will cover some of the basics in managing your Heroes and collecting resources, so stay with us to learn what Tales of Grimm has in store!
1. Shattered Fairytales
Starting up Tales of Grimm for the first time will set you on a tutorial, which you must follow. Being an idle game, Tales of Grimm will have you leaving your party of enchanted adventurers on their own to gather resources, returning to spend those resources on upgrades and new Heroes while taking control to progress through the main story. You start off with two Heroes, Wishing Goldfish and Toad Boss, and you get to place them in a formation to maximize their effectiveness.
You can place up to five Heroes onto the field in a formation, which determines how attacks or abilities, both yours and the enemy’s, will target the opposing field. Formations are based on a 3×3 grid and there are six formations in total, with the Arrow formation unlocked right from the start. The Arrow formation consists of one Hero up front, in the middle row, to soak up incoming damage. The remaining four Heroes stand on either side, either dealing heavy damage to the enemy or providing various buffs and debuffs.
More formations are unlocked as you progress through the game. Place your first two Heroes in the positions that the game instructs you to and continue the tutorial. As you unlock more game modes, you can create specific loadouts for certain game modes. Therefore, you do not have to worry about constantly changing things around as you jump between the story and PvP.
Combat is divided into rounds, with Heroes on both sides taking turns depending on their speed stat. All Heroes have Abilities that activate at certain rounds and take some time to recharge. Some abilities are passive and technically do not have recharge times. Battles tend to be quick, mainly because the in-game animations are quick, as the main goal is to wipe out the opposing side before they do the same to you.
You will not be able to save Oz with only two Heroes, so Fay tells you to head to the Wonder Castle and summon reinforcements via the Magic Mirror. This is where the gacha mechanics of the game reside, and there are three “tiers” of summoning. These tiers are listed below in the order that the game shows. You can use these to bolster your forces:
- The first tier is the Common Summon, which draws anywhere from 1-star to 5-star Heroes and uses Summon Gems purchased with Gold or by completing certain quests.
- The second tier is the Special Summon, which draws anywhere from 3-star to 5-star Heroes and uses Energy Gems which, despite the narrower range, are easier to find through quests and rewards for winning ranked PvP matches.
- The third tier is the Friendly Summon, which draws anywhere from 2-star to 5-star Heroes and uses Hearts earned primarily through interacting with friends and vice versa.
Summons can be performed either one at a time or in batches of 10, multiplying the resources used accordingly. Common and Special Summons use one Gem per summon, while Friendly Summons use up 100 Hearts per summon. These three forms of summoning are the first ones you can use.
You can only hold onto 150 Heroes at one time, and while this cap can be increased by spending Diamonds, the premium currency of Tales of Grimm, there are more productive ways of getting rid of duplicate Heroes from the gachas above.
2. From the Pages to the Battlefield
As stated in the intro, the Heroes of Tales of Grimm are all characters from fairy tales and fantasy stories, with abilities derived from their feats and adventures. All Heroes have an elemental affinity, which determines how much damage they can take from opposing elements. There are five elements in total and they interact as follows:
- Water Heroes (Blue) beat Fire Heroes (Red), who in turn beat Wind Heroes (Green), who beat Water Heroes; and
- Light (White) and Dark (Black) Heroes deal extra damage to each other.
Individual Heroes can be previewed by selecting the Heroes tab at the bottom of the screen and selecting the Hero you want to review. Near the bottom of their screen, Heroes usually have a short blurb dictating their role on the battlefield, such as warriors or healers, and their specializations within that role, like scoring critical hits or piling debuffs on the enemy.
Above that is a numerical quantifier of that Hero’s overall power, which is tallied up across all Heroes and displayed next to your Gold storage. All Heroes have the following tabs the player can browse through:
- Stats: Self-explanatory, this tab displays the selected Hero’s health, defenses, attack power, and speed. You can upgrade a Hero’s stats in intervals of five by spending Gold and Experience, both earned through general grinding up to certain thresholds. You then spend Gold and Promotion Stones, also available through grinding, to overcome these thresholds and repeat the cycle, until the Hero’s maximum level has been reached.
- Star Level: A more thorough means of increasing a Hero’s stats, the star level represents the Hero’s rarity in the gacha and dictates the maximum level they can reach via level-ups. You can increase a Hero’s star level by sacrificing duplicates of the Hero in question, along with Heroes of identical rarity and/or element. This allows you to boost your Hero’s stats further, though there is a limited number of times you can raise this cap.
- Skills: This lists the Hero’s abilities. Tapping on a specific ability lets you view its effects and cooldown if any, as well as the minimum level required to unlock the ability in question. Generally, the rarer the Hero, the more Skills they have.
- Gear: Here you can find four slots to equip your Hero with gear, improving your Hero’s stats. Gear is simply divided into weapons, helmets, armor, and boots, and come in their own rarities much like the Heroes who can use them. Duplicate gear can be used to boost preexisting equipment via the Star Up option when viewing individual pieces.
- Sigil: Available only after you have maxed out a Hero to their base limit, Sigils add more stat boosts and bonuses. Depending on what events are active, you might find a few Sigils well before you max out a Hero.
All Heroes have a Comments section where other players can share their opinions on the selected Hero. This can be useful in gauging how effective that Hero is in battle. Back in the main screen, you can see your collected Heroes roaming about, some of which will have speech bubbles over their heads. Some of these speech bubbles may have gifts you can collect for extra goodies. Try to catch up before they move off the screen.
Aside from the gacha, Heroes can also be obtained by fusing Shards, obtained through grinding, occasional event rewards, or by purchasing them at the Match Shop, the in-game store. Shards come in three varieties: Shards specific to a Hero, Shards specific to both a rarity and element, and Shards specific to a certain rarity.
These massively cut down the time it takes to get a certain Hero, but Hero-specific Shards are harder to find. The more specific the Shards used, the more Shards you will need to fuse in order to get the Hero you want.
Besides increasing Star Level, excess Heroes can be “retired” at the Magic Tower, located below the Wonder Castle. Retired Heroes refund all resources used into upgrading them, but also give out Soul Stones, which can be used at the Match Shop below the Tower to buy Hero-specific Shards. Though you will need a lot of Soul Stones to make the purchase, there are enough Shards in that purchase to guarantee a Hero from fusing.
3. Idle Adventures
Tales of Grimm is an idle game, so any assembled Heroes you send out will gather resources while you step away from the game. The main form of resource grinding is through Adventure, which details your efforts to save Oz. Adventures are split into locations with 40 missions each, though you will not be able to choose older locations until you beat the first one, the Dark Forest.
While in an adventure, your selected Heroes will go beat up generic enemies for resources, with the rate of production affected by your Heroes’ overall power. To facilitate the process, a person named Kitty Butler (or Meow Steward, the game is rather inconsistent with what his name is) will collect any drops your Heroes may find for up to a maximum of 12 hours.
Regular check-ups will be necessary to keep production as efficient as possible. Aside from improving power, you can beat the current “boss” of the mission to boost resource production. The boss fight is where your Heroes will use their abilities, and square off against enemies. Every five missions completed, a fairy will give you additional rewards such as Hero-specific Shards or better Gear.
Later on, you can send reserve Heroes on Exploration Quests, which basically consist of doing small errands around the place while your main group is off cracking skulls. These Quests take time to complete, typically having both a rarity and elemental requirement in order to complete. There is generally around seven Exploration Quests to complete each day, which can be refreshed for free once per day in case the current set of Quests have been exhausted or are simply not to your liking.
Exploration Quests consume a separate pool of energy that naturally regenerates, though your main group of Heroes can gather energy while they are out fighting for future collection. However, excess energy can only be stored until the next time you collect your treasures.
Back at base, you gradually unlock more activities to do outside of the main quest. Among these is the Wonder Stalk, where players climb a familiar beanstalk to see how far they can get. Climbing the beanstalk requires you to battle the enemies on each floor, earning some rewards as you go.
You can “blitz” previous floors a couple of times for free for extra goods, but additional blitzes will require Diamonds to perform. Progress is recorded in each server, earning special rewards for players who reach certain floors first. Luckily, everyone else benefits and can collect Promotion Stones for every milestone those players reach.
4. Head-to-Head, or Hand-in-Hand
Outside of the story, you can have your collection of fairy tale characters butt heads with the teams of other Dreamers. You can pit your Heroes at the Titan’s Arena where you face off against the Heroes of other players in different arenas. The first arena you can access is the Ranked Battle, where you climb up the tournament ladder and earn rewards when the current season is up.
The game typically gives you three opponents to choose from, typically matching your overall power ranking. Your account in turn is a potential opponent for someone else. Your rank goes up and down depending on how well your PvP loadout faces off against both defending enemies and incoming attackers.
Meanwhile, you can join or create Guilds to collaborate with other Dreamers. Guild members can request for a donation once a day but can answer multiple donations as many times as they like. Guilds can get into competitions with other Guilds in the arena or square off against a raid boss. Guilds have a unique currency earned by helping around the Guild in question, and this currency can be spent on extra equipment if the player desires.
Based on their descriptions, some Guilds may have lax requirements for joining them, while others are more competitive and may require strict power requirements. Guilds can only have 17 members at maximum.
5. A Happy Ending for Every Battle
Now that we covered the basics of Tales of Grimm, we can start sharing tips to make your liberation of Oz an easier affair:
- First off, remember to empty out Kitty Butler’s coffers regularly. He can only hold up to 12 hours’ worth of loot, so time your visits accordingly. In the event that he reaches his capacity at an inopportune time, consider emptying his collections early so that you can reap your rewards at a more convenient moment.
- When it comes to duplicate Heroes or Equipment, remember that they can be used as fuel to power up preexisting copies. Weaker equipment can be sacrificed to power up stronger gear, and chances are you will have several stacks of low-rarity equipment just through your Heroes’ adventures. Excess Heroes in turn can be recycled for Soul Stones, though you should keep a bare minimum of copies for increasing the Star Level of your strongest Heroes.
- Once you unlock it, Hero loadouts are unique to whatever mission you send them in, so consider rearranging your formations for maximum performance. This is good if you want to send out your best team during PvP matches but want to mix things up in the campaign out of curiosity. Do not be afraid to try out alternative formations while you are at it as well.
- While your main force is out grinding for resources and battling the current boss of the mission, consider regularly sending out reserve Heroes to do Exploration Quests. They are a decent source of Diamonds and other resources that can be used for later. Just keep in mind that you can only refresh Exploration Quests at no cost once a day.
And that concludes our guide to Tales of Grimm. We hope you have fun liberating Oz from the corrupting forces that inhabit the lands. If you have any tips you would like to share with us, please let us know!