Grapple Dog Switch Review – The Bionic Doggo!

Grapple Dog is the first title published by the recently announced Super Rare Originals, and it is a wonderful game to start on! Developed by Medallion Games, this unique and adorable action platformer is like a blast from the past, and yet it feels like it belongs in the now. As a sucker for doggos, this title won me over by the title alone… but…

Does Grapple Dog simply win with its adorable main character? Or is this a platforming experience that everyone needs to play? There is only one way to find out, so let’s dive right in and save the world!

The story of Grapple Dog is an interesting one. Basically, the citizens of the fictional Partash were living in hunger and hardship hundreds of years ago until a genius arrived and began building wonderful devices to help the people. Unfortunately, as always is the case, a great evil became jealous of The Inventor, and so the evil went on the attack.

The Inventor used everything in their power to protect the people, and they scattered four Cosmic Gadgets across Partash where the great evil could never find. Sadly, this resulted in the disappearance of The Inventor, and since then, treasure hunters have searched far and wide for the Cosmic Devices. Our protagonist Pablo is traveling alongside some others, The Professor and Toni, in search of the devices and ends up finding himself in a dangerous predicament, and so our journey begins.

Pablo is a wonderful main character that is oozing with charm and personality. The surrounding cast, including the baddies, are amazing and add so much to the world of Grapple Dog. The ongoing dialog and little story surprises are a breath of fresh air throughout, and I cannot believe how much I enjoyed this hilariously fantastic story! And trust me, it only goes up from here.

As you can see by screenshots and the title itself, Grapple Dog is an action platformer that uses a grappling mechanic similar to that of the original NES Bionic Commando. Unlike Bionic Commando, though, Grapple Dog controls incredibly well, and grappling in a 2D platformer has never felt so good. It is fluid and intuitive, and although it takes some getting used to in the beginning, casuals and pros alike will be picking up the mechanic and swinging into the action in no time.

Since there are four Cosmic Devices, there are also four worlds in the game to explore and conquer. There are a handful of stages in each world, and stages are chock full of things to do and find. For example, each stage is littered with orange berries to collect, and collecting is important as collecting up to 250 orange berries in a stage will net you two purple gems. Purples gems are hidden within stages, but they can also be acquired in bonus stages as well! Bonus stages are unlocked by finding a blue coin in any given stage. Like I said, there is a lot to do!

Since this is an action platformer, there are also things to look out for, like enemies and environmental hazards. Thankfully there is a wonderful checkpoint system to help those who struggle, but even better than the checkpoint system is the accessibility options in the menu that allow anyone and everyone to enjoy this fantastic title their own way.

Acquiring purple gems serves another purpose, too, because you cannot clear a world (And collect the Cosmic Device) without obtaining enough purple gems to unlock the final stage, which consists of both a regular platforming stage and a boss fight. The boss fights are so much fun, and they feel like they are inspired heavily by Super Meat Boy.

One of the really cool things about the overworld, which is you riding in a boat traveling from island to island, is that it has more of a Super Mario 3D World-vibe and not like your standard platformer map. What I mean is that you can freely ride your boat ahead and look around, and if you have enough purple gems from early levels, you can skip a chunk of the world and go straight to the final stage/boss if you so please. This kind of freedom makes the experience even more fun, as you can play it at your own pace in multiple different ways.

An excellent touch is that you can enter the boat while in the overworld and interact with the Professor and Toni, which allows for some lovely interactions and character development. Not only that, but if you go into Pablo’s room, there is a “Game Boy” that contains an arcade game called Boomerang Bandit, which is basically a game within a game. So meta!

One of my favorite things about Grapple Dog is its wonderful art style and adorable characters. Pablo’s design, particularly, is top notch, and he is genuinely one of the cutest indie characters I have ever played as. It helps tremendously that he is a dog, too, and I am a sucker for doggos!

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The soundtrack is pretty damn solid, too. It has this funky pop feel that is equally amusing and pleasant to listen to, and I found that to be an interesting combination, as I normally find strange-sounding music to be grating after a while. Fortunately for Grapple Dog, the music continues to entertain throughout alongside the other areas of the game, and that is a huge compliment, as Medallion Games somehow found a near-perfect blend of gameplay, art style, story, and sound.

It pains me to even point this out, though, but the only area of the game that I experienced something negative was the performance, particularly the frame rate dipping. The good news is that it did not occur enough to be a serious problem, but the bad news is that when it does happen, it is quite noticeable. For a relatively small-sized platformer, this was a bit shocking, but again, it only occured a handful of times during my many hours of play and they were always part of dialog sequences and not during actual gameplay (EDIT: A patch has released that fixed the frame rate issue! Huzzah!)

I hate that I had to point out the performance issues, because I honestly wanted to give Grapple Dog our coveted perfect score. It honestly knocks it out of the park in just about every way, and outside those frame rate issues, this is one of the best new platformers I have played since Celeste.

Super Rare Originals picked the best title to head start their new publishing label, as Grapple Dog is not only a charming, wonderful, and fantastically fun indie game, but it also has the potential to be a new platforming series. Pablo is a lovely pup, and I hope to see him again and again in the future, whether it be in a Grapple Dog sequel or as an indie game cameo in another series.

If you are a fan of platformers and are looking for the next game to scratch that itch, then look no further. Allow Pablo, AKA Grapple Dog, to swing onto your Switch and save the day in a way only a cute doggo can.

Grapple Dog Switch Review provided by Nintendo Link
Review also found on OpenCritic
Publisher: Super Rare Originals
Developer: Medallion Games
Release Date: February 10th, 2022
Price: $14.99, £11.99, €13,29
Game Size: 458 MB