Zero has met his match and his reign will soon be over. His first encounter with the Gripper should be his last.
There are many stories of taking on a malevolent cyber intelligence. In Gripper, there is still a chance to defeat the artificial monster. Employ the use of a special grappling hook to aid in your fight. Use the environment and its debris to None’s advantage. With the right aim and precision, no enemy will stand in the way of None and reuniting with his family. From Heart Core, comes a roguelite where the motorcycle itself is the main character.
It’s been five years since the young man has visited his family. And many things have happened in his absence. A gargantuan cataclysm has struck None’s world. In a chance encounter with an AI known as Zero, the biker is informed his family has been scattered to the winds. The initial encounter with Zero does not go as planned and None is left to expire. But there may yet be hope thanks to Cat-Kit, None’s childhood toy, now made living. Reality itself appears to have been fractured. But if None can push the Gripper to the brink, both his world and family may be restored.
Starting out in Gripper is an interesting endeavor. One could choose to play using a mouse/keyboard combo or a gamepad. Having experienced the difficulty of a keyboard and mouse, using a gamepad certainly removed a great deal of stress caused by the movement controls. Using an Xbox One controller seemed one of the most important abilities is the simple ‘slide.’ Executed by using the L trigger, it allowed None to do a few things. When a few enemies began to self-destruct, hitting them with a slide would send them flying away. Additionally, it provided an excellent way to dodge projectiles and heavy attacks from boss-level characters.
When a slide just didn’t cut it, the Gripper had a badass grappling hook. It did require a bit of finesse, aiming with the right thumbstick and shooting it with the R trigger. A boss enemy could be slowly ripped apart using this nifty little tool. Before going in for the sensitive bits, chipping away at the life points is the most important task at the time. There’s no greater feeling than swinging barrel after barrel of TNT straight at a giant spider robot.
Each defeated boss would grant both upgrade points and access to other abilities. The first basic one acquired is the mining ability. While it is useful for smaller enemies that swarmed, it is only effective on bosses that actually touched the battlefield. But when it works, it is a fantastic sight that is almost lucky at times. Because some enemies move with ridiculous speed, None must always keep the Gripper on the move. So being accurate with a mine is by no means easy.
Before getting a ‘special ability’ like jumping, one had to travel between pocket dimensions. None’s world is separated across the universe, connected by continuously collapsing tunnels. Various traps existed to hinder None’s journey. Speeding through each tunnel using the Gripper, one had to make it through every trap and pitfall to make it to the next boss. Unfortunately, the biker could only take a total of four hits before starting over. And thanks to the game being a roguelite in both spirit and practice, it is permadeath if None took all four hits.
There are no checkpoints on the highways between bosses. If I really wanted to get somewhere, the game ensured that goal had to be worked for. It is both a figurative and literal frustrating ride journeying through the tunnels. Despite how difficult it is getting to the next ‘world,’ finally getting there felt insanely fulfilling.
After defeating a boss, None could make the choice to go back to a previously defeated boss. Since None is slightly stronger, why not give a fight a second go? With the Gripper having been upgraded a bit, one can repeatedly go in for another round. Each subsequent fight after the first requires satisfying certain requirements. Even if a fight is a little tough the first time, there’s something empowering about going back to stomp a boss out. The additional upgrade points are the bonus in this scenario.
Visually speaking, the colors are also so captivating. With so much going on at any given moment, one wouldn’t be surprised if the color palettes are basic. But the artistic director ensured even the darkest colors shined in their own way. The characters’ design is precise and reminiscent of 90’s 3D cartoons. The world felt expansive despite each boss fight’s ‘arena layout’.
The overall graphics and the artwork for Gripper are fantastic. It’s been some time since I’ve come across such a colorful top-down roguelite title. Between levels, much of the story is told through beautifully hand-drawn 2D images. Both the color saturation and outlines of each character are done so well. Whoever is employed to draw those in-betweens has a sharp eye. Their work is deserving of its own comic book adaption.
None’s dialogues are a little cheesy. But for this title, that is not a bad thing. If anything, it added one more thing one could enjoy about the game. The AI, Zero, of course, sounded like the bid bad robot he should have been. The music is also a blast to have accompanying all the action. During each major fight, music took on the sound of techno-rock. The music for the tunnels, however, sounded a lot more like EDM. It is a great choice, adding to the overall cyberpunk feel of the game.
Gripper is a fantastic game that deserves recognition. While a great many games use grappling hooks as tools, this is the first where I’ve seen them used as the primary weapon. Bosses themselves aren’t terribly difficult, but taking on the wrong mindset can lead to frustration. Luckily, even here, there are many solutions to a single problem. And even a losing boss fight can lead to many ‘eureka’ moments.
With the ability to fight bosses repeatedly, this title is worth a few replays. The storyline is fairly easy to follow, making it easy to enjoy the story and gameplay in combination. Simple and familiar controls give the game an arcade feel. And when taking on a boss, it’s always a learning experience. If you’re itching to get back into the cyberpunk genre, mount the Gripper motorcycle and take on an AI apocalypse as None works to reunite his family. Head on over to Steam and prepare to bring the world back together.
