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Gravity Circuit
Website: None? (Domesticated Ants Games)
Price: $16.99 USD (GOG) at time of writing. Steam and Epic.
Blurb: “Gravity Circuit is a flashy action packed 2D platformer in the spirit of console classics. Follow Kai, a lone operative war hero, who harnesses the mysterious powers of the Gravity Circuit, on an adventure in a futuristic world inhabited by sentient robots.“
Gravity Circuit is a game from 2023 made with love; no, really LÖVE. (https://love2d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=93686)
It has just hit version 1.1.1a and is officially “out of beta” and is ready to wear out your controller. Why would I say this? Well, Mega man. OK, Mega man for Zoomers, complete with visual overload. It is trying to cater to multiple generations with the retro-aesthetic and the too many moving things on the screen at once.
Installation:
I got the GOG version (the Epic version is cheaper, but I prefer no DRM that slows your machine down to mine you for your data), so installation was really straightforward. It installed, put the shortcut in the right place in my menu, and created a desktop icon. No surprise there, GOG does good work (never asked once to call home).
Music and Sound:
You can have a listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKB6_FAJxik. Though the soundtrack is reminiscent of chiptune music, it is not. If you did not know what you were listening to, you may be forgiven for thinking it was vapourware / synthwave / chillwave sort of jobbie. It is almost that 80s-type sound, yet not. The pace of the music is great, giving you a sense of urgency when playing the game. There are many tracks, so you don’t feel like you are hearing the same thing over and over, causing auditory fatigue. The key is high, as with a NES, and there is a very minimal base, sticking to the retro theme. This is also a bit sad, as I can hear the track “Tension” in a hard and loud base in my head. Though the music type is not my scene, I can imagine there are many Mega man fans that will love it. The sounds are spot-on, and bitcoins clink, and explosions are in glorious white noise. The white noise does get a bit much when there are a lot of things exploding on screen. The bitcoin counter pops onto your screen whenever you pick up bitcoins and there is a satisfying one-armed-bandit type sound as the counters spin.
Graphics:
Characters are rendered in two-tone, so you do not lose your almost all-red character against the enemy two-tone purple sprites. When you first see it, you could be forgiven for thinking it was a NES game. As the NES/Famicom was never part of my nostalgia (I did own one, long after they were popular), I am not really attached to the graphics style. I very much like the idea of the UI elements going off screen when not needed. The color palette feels sparse, with baddies being the same color as the floors and the walls. The parallax background is more of the same colors as the foreground and characters, causing heavy eye strain. Everything says Famicom, with nothing really outstanding or making me go wow. I feel this is a missed opportunity. Even the so-called cut-scenes are lacklustre. With the way the game plays, I feel there is just enough missing to put it in S-tier, maybe even A-tier (since I do not have those rose-tinted glasses. There are some nice touches though, like when you defeat a boss, news tickers flash across the screen with something like “target down”. Then you are treated to a full-screen explosion with lots of white noise.
Gameplay:
I always say, if your game is about something, make that something great. This is where the game shines. The controls are responsive and hit boxes are generous. The game plays like an absolute dream. That does not mean it is easy, not by a long shot. It has all the platforming staples, like running, jumping, sliding, shooting, wall jumping, and even an arm fired grappling hook, a la Bionic Commando. Everything feels polished, I did not end up getting stuck anywhere, so the level design is good. The pick-ups are good, it is only the weird thing where green enemies are on green platforms and purple enemies on purple platforms that hurt my eyes. I suspect you could finish the game in two days flat, but the eye strain caused by the muted colors (everything feels the same), and repetition in the background, made me put it down every thirty minutes. Though the controls are tight, the combat is rather limited in the beginning, but it gets better. You need to play past the first part to start unlocking more stuff, but then again, it is a platforming game – not a fighting game. Though many stages lean heavily on the platforming tropes, it does not feel over done. What I mean is that there are stages where you almost constantly slide, just to make it through, but it does not repeat in the next stage that has its own mechanic. The boss fights are as interesting as the bosses themselves. The first boss reminded me of Advance Wars and Metal Slug all at once, just “low-budget”, if you know what I mean.
Story:
Forgettable, I’ll be honest. Miners discover artefact, artefact spits out baddies, who take over the city. Twelve guardians battle them, one remains. Baddie army attacks city again, you are ‘that’ guardian? Lots of robots, erm, make that all robots. The story unfolds in the HQ, you enter between level one and two.
One review on GOG said the game was “perfect”. I’m *so glad we all have different tastes. The game goes out to do what it does really well; there is no denying it, but I feel it is let down by the palette and color choices and character design, being just a bit too minimal to be remember-able or remarkable.
The settings are another feather in the designers caps, as it is easy to navigate and does not overwhelm you with stuff.