YMMV / Grime

• Best Boss Ever:
  • Despite her difficulty(see That One Boss below), Shapely Fidus is an absolutely incredible bout, with Fidus herself pulling out all the stops in a relentless attempt to stop you. It reeks of an all out duel with an immensely powerful demigod, and it makes the process of overcoming her as satisfying as it is grueling.
  • Thought Amalgam was too easy? Misbegotten Amalgam would like a word. Featuring a slew of new attacks, the ability to change the arena to sink you into noxious gas, and a brutally low amount of downtime between attacks, it’s easy to make comparisons with Champion Gundyr in terms of the difference in difficulty and design.
  • The fourth mandatory boss of the game, Vulture, is quite possibly the most visually impressive of the early game bosses; a massive hulking beast of fur and bone, capable of spewing acidic bile spheres, sending shockwaves across the ground, and even unleashing a concentrated beam of acidic bile that can only be blocked by pulling a broken beacon out of the ground. And then it enters phase 2 and goes utterly BERSERK.
• Demonic Spiders: The Yrs, a race of fallen Precursors turned feral, with large muscled bodies and goblin shark-like heads. All Yrs, from the weakest Fledgling to the strongest Sword Warrior have hundreds of health and hit like a truck.
• Player Punch: Done in a particularly hard-hitting way with Lithic. You first enter the area and see it a colorful, lively community with Stoneborn happily working, making art, and protecting the place. The lore reveals that the Stoneborn take turns between these roles and freeing their siblings from the surrounding rocks via mining, and that they were freed, nurtured, and protected by the Mothers. And then you stumble upon the Mothers as you progress, and kill them because they stand in the way of reaching the Worldpillar. After killing them, you quickly use the elevator to the Worldpillar and probably won't notice until later on when you revisit Lithic...and the place is now a mostly-dead ghosttown. The Stoneborn half-stuck in the walls beg for someone to finish freeing them, the scenes of joyful art and working are completely gone, and some of the survivors weep for the now-dead Mothers. Then the game twists the knife further by repeatedly showing you how horribly you have screwed over the Stoneborn with this act, with them ending up harvested by the Carven for building materials or Servants (if they're lucky), ending up infected by the Child's flower parasites that gradually warp and control them until they die, and every single survivor you find weeps for the Mothers and the horror of their predicament, in terror and despair. The worst part is that by the point you encounter the Mothers in the story, you really couldn't possibly know what the situation was or the consequences of your actions, or that you doomed the happiest and friendliest place left in the world so early on at a stroke. And you can't avoid killing them, either, as they block the only path of progression. Thus, by the time Shidra presents the choice to you of becoming a Carven of Levalum and giving up your future as a god, the world is mostly dead already.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: The Broken Yr Sword/Otherworld Phlox armor set is for people who love a challenge. The Broken Yr Sword is a Joke Item that even at maximum upgrade level will never be able to do anything more than Scratch Damage and is weaker than the unupgraded Twin Fangs found in the Weeping Cavity. The Otherworld Phlox armor makes you take 50% more damage in a game that's already Nintendo Hard.
• That One Attack: The Grieving Rockgiant will sometimes lunge towards you in an attempt to crush you with his massive body. If it hits, it can easily kill you in one hit. He's also able to combo one of his stomps with the lunge.
• That One Boss: The Rockgiants of Lithic. Most of their attacks are unblockable and can quickly smash you to pieces if you're not used to dodging.
  • Shapely Fidus, the main boss of the Carven Palace. The leader of the Carven and a fearsome opponent in battle. Their unpredictable moves and their flaming Shapely Greatsword will wreak havoc across the boss arena. They, unlike any other boss in the game, also have three phases. Once they enter their second phase, their sword is set permanently ablaze, making most of their attacks unblockable and deadlier than before. If you finally deplete their health and think it's finally over, they'll detach their hand-shaped torso from the rest of their body and unleash a final Desperation Attack. During it, Fidus will fire blasts of lava from their stump, leave explosive globs of fiery Flesh in their path and jump and try to crush you from time to time. They're also completely invulnerable, but their health drains over time. This makes the final phase a race against time to outlast Fidus before they smash you. They also explode when they finally run out of health.

---