Grapple Dog is a bright and breezy live letter to the platformers of yesteryear. The canine homunculus of Donkey Kong Country, Yoshi’s Island, Bionic Commando, and much more besides.
But, you know, cute.
Players take on the role of Pablo, the titular Grapple Dog. While on an expedition to uncover the secrets of four long lost artefacts created by the mythical great inventor, Pablo is tricked into releasing an ancient evil skull (called null) and his evil robot army.
It’s then up to Pablo to recover the four ‘cosmic artefacts before Null can release their full power and unmake the universe.
Grapple Dog’s presentation is incredibly slick, with a catchy soundtrack that pulls influences from numerous sources including Grant Kirkhope and Hideki Naganuma. While the game’s anthropomorphic cast is brought to life with Banjo Kazooie-Esque chirps and barks.
Meanwhile, the graphics are bright and cheerful, and the world is brimming with life, thanks to hundreds of subtle touches like the swing of a chandelier when exploring a boat, tiny birds that scatter as Pablo barrels onto a platform, or the layers of parallax scrolling that give each of the game’s maze-like levels a sense of depth.
All of this comes together to evoke the mood of dozens of 16-bit classics, yet refined with modern hardware.
This would all be for nought if the core platforming fell short, but for the best part, it’s the dog’s bollocks. Precise, flowing, ye,t challenging, with well thought, precise controls that give you all the tools you need to almost effortlessly swing, jump, and but smash your way over and under a vast array of nefarious pitfalls and traps.
Each of the main levels does an absolutely stellar job of introducing new mechanics while ramping up the difficulty at a steady, but manageable pace.
They’re also packed with collectables; hidden away in all sorts of hidden spots and at the end of numerous optional challenges. Though getting through each level is a fairly straightforward affair – getting everything requires much more skill. (and you can only pat Pablo on the head if he collects all the gems)
What more reason do you need to engage the part of your id that feels compelled to swipe everything that isn’t nailed down. Do it for the dog man, he is such a good boy!
The gems also open up the final stage of each of Grapple Dog’s six world’s, WHich contain a series of superb boss battles that not only test all the skills you’ve learned up to that point but are incredibly fun to boot. I don’t care what you say, fighting a T Rex is always entertaining, firing yourself out of cannon into a robotic one, doubly so.
As much as I adore Grapple Dog, there are a couple of things that reminded me of the time I caught my beloved pooch tearing up my trading cards.
Firstly the green bumpers can go to hell. Found throughout the game these buggers are activated by slamming your arse into them using the but stomp ability, and they require a level of precision to successfully bounce off that the move simply doesn’t afford. The number of times I was either slightly too late or found Poor Pablo go arse first into a spike pit are too many to mention and set you right back to the last stable platform you stood on.
The other thing is the Bonus levels, unlocked by finding B gems hidden in the main stages, these challenging timed levels swiftly become an exercise in controller snapping tedium.
Compared to the main levels they represent a significant difficulty spike. However, the endless expanses of spikes, lava pits and spinning blades that are strewn across them telegraph their intentions loud and clear. One false move, or missed Green bumper and you’re thrown back often times right back to the beginning of a stage, with zero chance of getting to the end. To be fair they are meticulously designed – to make you utter profanities so loud and perverse they would make the Pope blush in the Vatican.
Thankfully you don’t need to complete them all to get through Grapple Dog, just to get 100 per cent completion.
Overall though these are minor gripes, based mainly on my own inadequacies, If you are in the market for a game with some of the slickest, and most enjoyable platforming gameplay outside of a Nintendo game, Grapple Dog has you covered.
He is a good boy. A very good boy.