What's up, Kagehoshi? I think there is something to be said about the grimoire being a way to save the un-inquisitive (assuming you are who I think you are you are obviously more inquisitive and analytical about this stuff than 99% of gamers) the trouble of skipping the text in-game. I too love love love the books of sorrow, they take the best aspects of the year 1 grimoire and make them not so much less obtuse (which might be boring) but less incomplete in that there are no huge gaps in the running narrative ([b]I'm looking at you, Maraid[/b]) that make it seem like it never made it past an outline someone scribbled in a notepad! The storytelling is unquestionably the weakest aspect of year 1, nobody would argue that. It's in a much better place now but I agree completely that there is a way to go. That said, I do rather like the "grimoire system" of storytelling, if you will, as a way to present the really in-depth/deep portions of the lore that might be a bit more than some people care to know. In this case, I'm not reading the spoilers or checking the audio version, it's more exciting picking up fragments that way. That's one of the strengths of the grimoire, it's like collecting trophies but much better because you get more than just the object itself. Often a great deal more. IMO, [b]the grimoire has been a scapegoat, it's not the real problem, just a symptom of the overall weak storytelling. We blame the grimoire because it's all we had[/b]. Ask yourself this question: If the information presented in the "vanilla" grimoire was put in-game, as incomplete as even it was, how much better would the game have been? Yes the story would have been more "accessible" in that you didn't need the app or website to access it, but would it really have tied everything together? I've read the whole thing multiple times and I still have zero idea who the Stranger is, WTF that thing we killed in the black garden was, why the speaker even exists, etc etc. There are so many plot holes and loose ends that even cutscenes of every single card couldn't fix that mess.