I want to thank Super Rare Games for sending us a copy of this game to review.
I like platformers, it’s easily my favourite genre. I also love games with grapple hooks. Maybe this comes from watching the characters in Attack on Titan swing around the environment as they fight, or maybe it goes as far back as using the hookshot to get around in Ocarina of Time. Either way, I’ve always had fun with games that let you swing across the environment and so Grapple Dog was a title that immediately grabbed my interest. From the name alone. Platforming, grapple hooks and cute pupper. What more could I ask for? But while this might sound like the recipe for a fantastic time, I’ve played enough mediocre platformers in my day to never judge a game by its premise alone – so did Grapple Dog hook me or did it miss its shot? Let’s find out.
There are lots of types of platformers out there, series like Mario, Kirby and Sonic all play very differently from each other. Some are precision-based platformers while others are action or puzzle based. If I had to describe Grapple Dog, I would call it a momentum-based platformer. The game does involve various level puzzle like hitting switches to open doors, and has many precision elements to it like getting accurate jumps on enemies or baiting platforms to fall down so you can ride them up. But it’s clear from player just a little bit that keeping your character’s momentum through movement is the most pivotal, and most enjoyable, part of the game.
This really isn’t a surprise. By its very nature, swinging on a rope pushes or maintains forward momentum and that alone would be enough to classify this. But the game also has other techniques that Pablo, our canine hero, can perform – like a classic wall jump, dash and ground pound. That latter move though, actually acts as a drop dash, as Pablo will bounce out of it and push onwards at a high speed, like a ball bouncing. The moves great and overall the player’s arsenal is wonderful. It makes the time attack mission a real treat to playthrough.
While speedrunning through this game is an option, to advance from world to world you will need to collect the purple gems in each level. Every stage has seven in total: five hidden throughout and two for collecting a certain amount of grapes… tangerines… tomatoes… this games equivalent to Mario’s coins. Some of these you can find along the beaten path but many will require a thorough exploration of the level or solving a platforming challenge of some kind. They add some great replay ability to the game and if you die, you don’t lose them. The game just resets you back to the checkpoint.
Grapple Dog has a lot of player friendly features like this. It’s accessibility features are quite neat, letting the player become invulnerable and have infinite jump. And this can be turned on by a simple flip of a switch. I never needed it myself (#humblebrag) but the more options for players to enjoy if need be, the better.
That said, I do wish there was an option to remap the buttons. For the most part it’s fine but on the switch the default button to press in order to make menu selections and enter worlds is B and not A and I really don’t like that. A small nit-pick but one that really threw me off.
A bigger complaint I do have though is the music pacing in the game. Not the actual songs themselves as they add a lot of excitement to the title and it fits the games overall tone greatly. The problem comes from how frequent they are and how they sometimes don’t match the individual settings of the level. It doesn’t matter if I really jived to the song the first time I heard it, having to listen to it 5 levels in a row eventually caused it to wear it’s welcome, and when these stages were jumping between plains to caves to flying towns, and each one had the same backing track, they began to blend together a little.
A part of the presentation I do like though, is the aesthetics. The thick outlines and small characters give this game a Game Boy Advance feel, which I think is an aesthetic not utilised enough in the indie scene. The characters also speak in a Rareware-esque mumble and have different facial expressions to get across their mood quite well.
As for the story itself, it does a good job contextualising why all these enemies have cropped up and why it’s our heroes job to stop them, both from the personal perspective and world-ending perspective. The writing is colourfully written and consistent, and is used quite well to explain new level mechanics to the player, like flipping over crabs to make springs or boosting through water bubbles.
All in all, Grapple Dog was a highly enjoyable platformer with a lot of charm and, most importantly, felt fun to play. Exploring each world to collect the gems helped me to come to grips with the mechanics and stages, that I could then show off masterfully in the games time attack mode. Its style is good and while the music eventually got too repetitive for me, that just gave me a reason to listen to podcasts while I played without feeling guilty.
Grapple Dog is well worth its price and one that platforming fans should definitely pick up. Even if you have only a passing interest in the genre, if you are keen to try out something new or something not a part of the big platforming franchises for once, then Grapple Dog is certainly a great option.
Plus, you can pet the dog!
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