16th Game Completed in 2023

Y'know, I was about to come in here and say, "Great game, but it's brutally hard." Then guess what happened? Credits rolled, and I get two trophies for beating the game whilst not collecting any health or ammo upgrades. So fuck me then, eh? I brute forced two extremely rare trophies without even meaning to. 🤷

Right, so Gravity Circuit is excellent. As I'll get into later, I have some really specific nitpicks with it, but I don't think any of them really marr the overall experience. At its core, Gravity Circuit is a tribute to the Mega Man X and Mega Man Zero games, but it far transcends the label of "clone" in a way other copycats haven't been able to. The presentation values are excellent, the soundtrack fuckin slaps, and it's just a friggin boatload of fun to play.

Much like the Mega Man games, you do your intro level before having a selection of 8 robot fellas to exterminate and steal shit from. But things are quite different here - instead of shooting, your primarily method of attack is melee. Instead of air-dashing, you get a grappling hook. You still have your wall climbing and your sprint-jumping, and that stuff will never not be awesome, but the devs here decided to take ideas that worked in the X and Zero games and go in their own direction, rather than just be a pale imitation. And I think that works for its favour. The grappling hook here is very similar to the grapple beam in Super Metroid, and you'll be using it a lot for traversal. However, it has a fantastic secondary use to grab projectiles and defeated enemies off the screen and lob them around to do damage. It all works very organically - in fact, the game doesn't feature a single word of tutorial text. And yet, I found myself rapidly mastering the controls and mechanics by the time the boss wheel was through. Another way the core gameplay diverges from Mega Man is the upgrade system - instead of collecting a boss weapon, you unlock techniques that can be purchased from an ally at your base (the base being lifted straight from the Zero series, let's be real). In addition to these techniques, you can purchase other passive upgrades with cash, progressively unlocked as you rescue stranded allies in the main 8 stages... If you've played X6 or Zero, you will immediately recognize the inspiration from rescues and cyber-elves in those games.

And there's a lot more to the mechanics too, but here's the thing... It takes more to explain these mechanics than to understand them in the game. Gravity Circuit very proudly has a "learn by doing" philosophy that AAA gaming is critically in need of remembering, because everything just immediately makes sense. If you've already played games with these mechanics, you may already have muscle memory for how they ought to work. And they just work. Admittedly, I had to change the button mapping around to suit my play style, but the game has full button mapping. You can change it. (And I honestly recommend you do, the default controls rely way too heavily on shoulder buttons IMHO).

Staying in the menu, there's a few things to note here, too. The game has a pixel-accurate display option that changes the aspect ratio to ensure clean, square pixels on your display. That fucking rocks, and should be a default inclusion for any sprite-based game. The game looks fantastic. The sense of style and presentation here is delightfully energetic, and it genuinely amps you up to get out and kick some ass. If I had to make a criticism though, as much as the limited colour palette was likely an aesthetic choice, or perhaps even a budgetary one, I'm not sure I'm 100% on board with it. My primary issue in actual gameplay was moments where I could not discern background elements from actual platforms at a rapid glance, because everything was more or less the same colour.

Music is another standout here too. Like I mentioned in the intro, the soundtrack here is a friggin bop. It sounds kinda like Mega Man X music, but there's also very clear inspiration from Konami's SNES titles and more modern vapourwave influence. Cribbing the stanky bass from Sigma 1 in Mega Man X and applying it to Ark 1 in this game was a really friggin cool leitmotif that makes a guy like me snap his fingers and point at the TV. Love it. But I will say - the default sound balancing in this game has the sound effects way too high, so I definitely recommend turning those down so you can let the music narrate the stages for you.

Much like the Mega Man games it's inspired by, there's a story here that drives the game forward while not getting in its way. It doesn't really make its point until the very end, but I respect that, and I think that was a great choice for what may be the first entry in a future series. My criticism here is the writing. It's very... Newgrounds. It's full of that smartass "nerd" humour where everything's a dumb joke to everyone, and it honestly undercuts what could be a pretty gripping narrative. I think the character designs are overall great, but I'm really kind of tired of seeing "indie game writing" in indie games, you know what I mean? The ending does really stick the landing though, so I feel like the scenario writing is great... The dialogue writing, a bit too goofy for the story it's trying to tell.

I had some technical problems with this one too, but I am not sure if it's the game or the PS5 itself. In my first hour of play, it crashed 3 times, including a hard crash. After that hard crash though... It was fine. Never had another issue. It was almost like the system firmware shit itself and needed a power cycle. Never had a single issue with stability after that, ran smooth as butter. Inputs are another problem though. Some of them are definitely problems with game mechanics - sometimes not being able to change direction when standing against certain objects, being locked in position if your character is in the middle of a punch animation, sliding (normally down+jump) when your character is coming up from a crouch animation and your finger is not on the down button... Stuff like that. Then there's problem that are obviously the controller - the Dualsense REALLY struggles with diagonals, which can make grappling in mid-air a fucking nightmare. But then there's weird shit like the time the left button just... Stopped working for a few seconds during a boss fight. Or how a bunch of button inputs in quick succession seem like they get stuck in an input buffer, and fail to execute for a few frames before going ballistic and dumping them all at once. That, I don't know where the problem lies. But it pissed me right off. I take really good care of my gaming stuff, I'm not a fat slob getting beer and cheetos in his controllers. But MAN I hate dropped inputs, and in a game this fast, it's infuriating.

I was originally going to complain about how bosses have really poor telegraphing and it sometimes feels like you're relying on good RNG... But yeah, turns out I SIGNIFICANTLY handicapped my own difficulty level by missing upgrades completely. XD And that's on me, that shit was a Mega Man staple, and I never even thought to look up a guide. Stuff moves really fast in this game, but knowing when to get in, mash attack and out-DPS the enemy, and get back out is a legitimate strategy. Things is though, even with my obliviously-imposed barrier, I never felt like these bosses were unfair. It took me 90 minutes to beat the final boss, but by the time I finally kicked its ass, I was coming closer and closer with every go. I got to a point where I could beat the first phases without taking damage. And that's honestly a hallmark of great game design. By and large, despite how much I shouted at the TV and asked the gods for forgiveness, I really enjoyed the boss fights!

The moment to moment gameplay is excellent too. I have a few very, very specific gripes - the weird timing on the missiles in the highway stage, the stupid breakable spikes in the final stage that you have to punch through but are also killed by touching (fuuuuuck these things), the wonky physics whenever wind is involved... But otherwise, it's just a blast to blow through these levels and keep pushing. Unlike the X and Zero games, which sometimes relied way too hard on pits and spikes for instant deaths in lieu of fair difficulty, experiencing these hazards in Gravity Circuit merely cuts around 20% of your health and sets you back to the last solid platform you touched.

PHEW, so that was a lot of writing about mechanics and the nitty gritty, but you know what? I had a ton to say about this one. It really speaks volumes about the silent complexity of the mechanics that I can talk about them so in-depth. This shit was a joy to experience and pick apart.

Gravity Circuit is a true indie game. It's made by a small team of like... Around 10 people. When I had those crashes, I had a solid dialogue with the dev on Twitter, and they genuinely care about the details of any and every bug to make sure their players get the best experience possible. And that rules. This is a year where we got games like Jedi Survivor, Redfall and Gollum that released for $90CDN in a broken and miserable state, where we have companies going on damage control apologizing for and denying technical problem, Domesticated Ant gives a shit. And it SHOWS. Everything in this game shows a clear care and love for their craft, and I can't help but love it.

Check this game out. It's on all the digital storefronts, you can import a physical copy from Japan for like $30, and it's getting a western physical release in March. It's got some little issues, but it's worth your time. It's excellent.

I can scarcely remember liking a game as much as I did Gravity Circuit. This is a game that is just so fun to play, and has so much personality. Even though there's no voice acting, the changes in artwork during interactions convey a surprising amount about the characters. Despite not having faces, the Rebel Circuits end up being very memorable, my favorite probably being Hash the Cipher Circuit. In his level, when you die sometimes, he'll appear briefly to snicker at your failure. Very fun.

This game feels like it was made for speed running. Kai moves swiftly and elegantly through the levels, but the grappling is a sticking point, unless you turn on the option that lets you automatically fire the grapple at a diagonal, then it flows just as well as the other platforming. This comes into the boss fights, too. Some of them throw in some speed/platforming challenges to avoid their attacks, and that leads into just how well designed the bosses are. They each have a different attack style, and learning it can be really helpful. I got an achievement for avoiding a pile-driver attack from a boss. I noticed he raised his hands before trying to grab me. I felt smart. Every level, and every boss is fun in this game.

Now the story. Very simple and Saturday morning cartoon. There are obvious twists executed with a lot of delightful melodrama, which the great sprite art does a good job of selling. The characters have so much personality that I kind of felt bad when Kernel turned evil. I think it's the perfect tone for this game.

If you bounced off of it before, turn that option on to make the grappling easier. Then I think you might find one of the funnest games of the decade.