Grapple Dog [Switch]
The first of the Super Rare Originals titles to be released, Grapple Dog - developed by Medallion Games - is a 2D pixel-art platformer that sees you in the role of Pablo, a dog who just so happens to gain possession of a powerful grappling hook created by The Great Inventor. After creating four Cosmic Gadgets, and then hiding them to protect them from falling into the wrong hands, the Great Inventor vanished, but now the mysterious evil known as Nul has returned - so it’s up to Pablo and his friends to try to stop the evil overlord from finding the Cosmic Gadgets!
With 33 levels across six worlds, you’ll be running and swinging your way with ease in no time. There are purple gems to collect hidden throughout each level, and these can often be quite challenging to find, requiring you to find secret areas behind fake walls and take detours to open new zones. Movement is satisfying, with Pablo’s little jump turning him into a bouncing ball of energy akin to Sonic the Hedgehog, rebounding off of springy platforms and destroying all of the robot enemies in sight - sometimes it would feel a little difficult to actually land on enemies, resulting in you hopping back and forward over them a few times before you’d successfully get them.
Every now and then, there would be a slight judder where it would act as though the game had frozen but only for a second or two, and this seemed to happen semi-frequently both in docked and handheld mode; enough to make me notice it was happening often, but not enough to impact the gameplay, as it only seemed to happen around once per level at random - not even when things were overly busy! Thankfully though, the developer has referenced this on Twitter stating that the optimisations that released on launch should resolve this, so this shouldn’t be an issue for much longer. There are some basic accessibility toggles that enable you to add the ability for an infinite jump as well as turn off damage, and visual adjustments such as to alter the background as well as remove particles and screen shake.
As you progress through the levels and onto new worlds, things get more challenging with checkpoints further apart and more difficult segments to bypass. The further you go, the more platforming challenges you’ll come across, from circular saw blades that prove to be a hazard, to creatures that you can utilise to help you progress. Making use of Pablo’s run speeding up over longer distances will often help you to get that little bit extra length to your jumps and momentum to your swinging, however there aren’t a lot of places that this can easily be utilised due to short platform lengths. Boss battles definitely provide more challenge - even before you reach them as they require a certain number of purple gems to have been collected to unlock - and it was here that left us feeling a little frustrated due to the lack of new skills and abilities. I know it’s called Grapple Dog, but I was kinda under the assumption that the other Gadgets would have done something for me, especially to change things up as the game goes on and you’ve got more bosses to deal with.
The visuals of Grapple Dog are adorable, and very aesthetically pleasing with thick, chunky outlines and bright, joyful colours. Little flowers will waft petals into the breeze as you run past, and swinging from bright blue grapple blocks and balloons to bum-bashing wooden crates to find all of the fruits feels like a lot of nostalgia-filled fun. There are some underwater areas, and swimming around to nab collectibles and boosting to come flying out of the water feels great, too. You’ll even come across some floating water segments that totally defy gravity, and stuff like this helps to keep things interesting. Each of the worlds are well designed, with different themes and an evolving selection of hazards, robotic enemies ranging from standard robots to robo-sharks and more; as well as friendly creatures to interact with. The overworld is pretty cool looking too, with a bunch of islands to represent each level that you can sail your boat towards, with boss levels having large Nul statues with a set number of gems to unlock. Boss encounters are varied, with the first boss battle consisting of chase segments as well as shooting at specific times; and later boss fights that have you dodging projectiles and swinging around. The soundtrack, produced by Jazz Mickle, is super funky, and blends well throughout the levels.
As well as completing the main levels, there’s tonnes of replayability available for you to go back and collect any of the purple gems you missed - as I often found I was missing some, even when I thought I was being super diligent about hunting throughout the levels - as well as making sure to collect all of the fruit. After each level is completed, you’ll be able to do a time trial of the level, with medals for different finishing times - these make it super important to keep an eye out for any shortcuts as well as to up your game with the grappling hook; I for one make too many mistakes and panic, accidentally un-grappling before falling to my death.
There’s also secret bonus levels available that can be found by tracking down a hidden blue B coin in levels, and these will net you more purple gems for completing tasks such as destroying all enemies, collecting gem shards or racing to the finish within a certain time - helpful if you’ve not quite got enough to take on a boss. You can even explore Pablo’s boat to go visit his friends and play on his game console in a retro styled game called Boomerang Bandit, which is fun to go try out. The logo in the main screen is interactive too, and can be swung around on its grapple - a cute little feature that is reminiscent of Super Mario 64’s big squishy Mario head - a fun little addition that doesn’t need to be there, but we enjoy the fact that it is! Likewise, at the end of each level you can pet Pablo - no doubt a fun little nod to the popular twitter account. Available digitally for £11.99 on the Switch eShop - with the possibility of a physical release at some point in the future - Grapple Dog is a great price, and we’d highly recommend it to fans of 2D platformers.
In the end, we decided to give Grapple Dog the Collecting Asylum rating of 8.5/10.
Are you interested in Grapple Dog? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Super Rare Games for the Grapple Dog Switch review code!
