Most people don’t get to save the world, which is probably for the best. As it turns out, if you do it the first time with style and flair, people are going to want you to do it again. Saving the world once should be enough for anyone but no, a properly successful adventure will frequently turn into the first of potentially many. Then again, if the world is in danger it’s probably best someone with experience be the one to tackle the problem, so when a dark presence appears Grapple Dog Pablo is ready to take all his finely-honed skills and platform his way to victory again. This time, though, he’s got a friend in the form of Luna, who’s got a different move-set that lets her tear through her levels in a very different way.
Someone Old, Someone New; Something Grapple, Something Shoot
Pablo is pretty much as you might remember him from the first Grapple Dog game, which was a great platformer that absolutely deserved the sequel treatment. Pablo can jump, do a punch that includes a bit of a dash move with it, hop on enemies, and of course swing with his grapple. Luna, on the other hand, may also come with a grapple but her offensive capabilities are completely different. She’s got a gun that you aim twin-stick style, meant to be used on everything from enemies to bits of level scenery, and it can be fired at any time- swinging from the grapple, mid-jump where it adds a bit of extra air-time, sliding down walls or scaling the climbable ones, etc. She’s also got a more capable dash move than Pablo’s, and what it loses in offensive capability it makes up for in distance. It can also be angled slightly up or down, and the secrets in her levels take full advantage of this.
Review: Grapple Dog
Grapple Dog is a fantastic platformer that nails just about everything it tries to do.
The Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines demo is four levels of platforming happiness, all probably taken from the early section of the game if the difficulty curve of the first Grapple Dog is any indication. While the plot isn’t all that clear yet, with a mysterious uber-baddie appearing from nowhere followed by Pablo and Luna hopping dimensions for their different levels, the demo does the important work of showing off the creativity that made the first game so much fun. In one level Pablo finds an electric gem that lets him travel over background billboards at high speed, for example, and screenshots of some non-demo levels show off a black and white noir world and Luna swapping out her gun for a flamethrower. The levels are also filled with side-paths and secrets, giving plenty of reason to explore everywhere to see what might be hidden away.
The original Grapple Dog was hugely entertaining and Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines is shaping up to be a sequel that plays to its strengths and expands on them. The demo is part of the Steam Next Fest and you canplay it now here.
