Come for the dog, stay for the grapple! Grabbed your attention? Great – because this is the review for Grapple Dog, an exhilarating 2D pixel art platformer. Time to steal the grappling hook of our good friend Link and use it to clear tricky challenges as Pablo, the Grapple Dog!
Published by Super Rare Games as an original Super Rare game, Grapple Dog combines platforming action and speedrunning free-running. Time to start Jumping! Swinging! Collecting gems! Dogs! Grapples! Driving a little boat around! And most exciting of all, dog petting! And I was not expecting this when I picked the title up for a review.
Go, go, Grapple Dog!
A lighthearted adventure with tons of fun characters, you play as Pablo, the Grapple Dog! Sail with your merry band of fearless adventurers on your quest to stop the robotic overlord Nul from destroying the world. Pablo felt like India Jones mixed with Indy’s little less adventurous brother, which would lead to something like Raiders of the Robotized Arc. With less melting Nazis but more evil robot overlords.
If someone asked me to summarize Grapple Dog, I would describe it as an actual love letter to GBA-era mascot platformers, and it’s fantastic. The controls are snappy, the sound effects and music are amazing, and the pixel art is bright and gorgeous. The game has some surprising challenges too! The game features six colorful worlds, which can be accessed while sailing across the map. With a total of 33 levels filled with hidden collectibles to find, secret areas to investigate, spectacular boss battles to overcome, and bonus levels to master, Grapple Dog offers something for everyone.
Speedrun Doggo
And I mean that since Super Rare offers a speedrun price to anyone that beats the game in a certain way. More details can be found here. It asks you to record a run of World 1 (Merry Mountains), which must be submitted before the end of February 28th. A run starts from the moment you select ‘Play Stage’ on levels 1-1 and ends when the “continue” button appears on the results screen appears at the end of 1-B REX. Well, I tried, but I couldn’t stand against the times already submitted on the speedrun website… So try and do better than me, oke?
And it is precisely this accessibility that helps build the game as it is. You can choose to hone your grapple skills with optional collectibles and a testing speedrun Time Trial mode or utilize the many in-built accessibility options to play without restrictions – have fun however you see fit. Combine this with a bold, colorful art style from a pixel art veteran, and it makes Grapple Dog pop from start to finish, with a funky fresh soundtrack that’s sure to stick in your head.
Conclusion
With the news of the 3DS and Wii U eshop shutting down, Grapple Dog helped me relive some of the excellent platformers the GBA/DS era had to offer. Maybe we should see Grapple Dog like a mixture between Mario and Shovel Knight, with a bit of hint of the Legend of Zelda (?). It offers challenging gameplay, a low-key pressure to perform better than you did last time, and combines this with a total package that screams nostalgia. So what else do you need? Best picked up if you like hardcore platformers with a soft touch and dogs. Pick it up if you want to pet dogs.
