Pepper Grinder Review (PS5)
Summary: Pepper Grinder is a 2D action-platformer with a unique twist…literally. Drill through your opponents and environment on a revenge filled quest to take back what is rightfully yours.
3.5
Worth One's Salt
Spice it up and drill it in on this 2D quest to reclaim your stolen treasure! Pepper Grinder is an action-platformer developed by Ahr Ech, published by Devolver Digital, released on March 28th of 2024 for Windows and Switch, and has now been released on PlayStation and Xbox platforms as of August 6th of 2024. The game is oriented around using a drill weapon to traverse an abundance of terrain as well as using it to defeat enemies. The game has some puzzle and timing elements that really test your skills in how you maneuver throughout your environment. Spin through the colorful world and shatter all of the critters that stand in your path.
You play as the adventurous Pepper, a strong-willed girl who has been shipwrecked against a coast of a beach. The heinous Emperor Naro has sent his underlings, the Narlings, to begin collecting Pepper’s jettisoned riches while she is unconscious. Pepper wakes up just in time to catch them in the act and chases them after they run away. The pursuit doesn’t last long as she mistakenly falls into a pit where she finds Grinder, a super-powered drilling device. Now with this new versatile weapon equipped, Pepper plows up ground and hurtles helter-skelter across her foreign province.
Gameplay is exciting and involved. As Pepper, you can run around and jump, but you need the help of Grinder to move around fluently and make it to the flagpole to complete a stage. You hold down the R2 button to rev up and start Grinder. There are patches of the world where you can easily dig into and basically swim through the world’s surface by constantly drilling through it. The difficulty ramps up in later levels with the layout of the land becoming more complex to traverse adeptly.
The controls are nice and tight and need to be if you want to master these levels. There are platforms that can be switched back and forth, areas that you dig through that can disappear, and smoldering hot lava that you need to bound over. Pressing the X button while drilling within a drillable area will give you a boost which is useful for platforming to certain places, dashing into secret areas, or to dodge the different bosses’ relentless attacks. Pepper can perform more actions to reach her much desired lost valuables like grabbing on to grappling hooks to swing across the air and using the drill to take hold of some of the enemies vehicles and weapons.
When you are drilling through things, you can’t stop moving so sometimes you have to fully commit to your actions. You move faster and more freely while drilling, but that means you have to be more careful. Oftentimes you will be platforming over perilous pits so one false move can get you sent back to a checkpoint. Burrowing feels great thanks to the vibration feedback of the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller. It helps you feel the movement a lot better tactilely.
The Narlings are gnarly little creatures that possess just as much attitude as Pepper. The cute jellybean narwhal beasts can get really nasty, provide plenty of damage, and pulverize Pepper into a pulp. They usually require a spin or two of your drill to be vanquished, but with the quick nature of the game, it’s easy to misinterpret their movement and needlessly lose some health from a simple encounter. Trying to defeat them can be a challenge within itself as they come in many different variants and sometimes you may have to juggle between platforming and getting up underneath one to take it down. You can also use your drill to destroy things in the environment like vases or enemy skulls to gain some nifty jewels.
Besides the tricky enemies and challenging platforming, Pepper Grinder has some other features you can sink some time into. There is a shop where you can use your hard earned coin to gain some health, obtain alternate color styles for Pepper, or buy some stickers for your sticker book. You can place stickers in the book and create some funny scenes to share with your friends. Each level has five well hidden skull coins and after scouring the world to find them you can use them at the shop or use them to unlock bonus levels with their own demanding design. A time attack mode is also present which makes the already toiling experience even more intense and heart pounding.
The game looks great graphically with its cute, bubbly, and rock and roll aesthetic. The levels are vibrant with colors that burst out of the screen and the game has a surprising amount of depth within the worlds. The music immediately hits hard and never lets up with its beat and follows the tempo of the gameplay radically. The style of the game is carried by its music and it gives everything a particular rhythm that flows throughout this entire tiny pirate campaign.
Final Thoughts?
Pepper Grinder’s design is naturally intuitive and that’s what makes it incredibly fun. There’s nothing really ambitious or new here, but everything is done well in an immaculate way. Enemy and world design is detailed, interesting, and smart. The game runs well and is a pleasure to play with tight controls and vibrations. The rambunctious soundtrack fits the game’s vibe and overall essence in a way that perfectly reflects its identity in this gaming space of today. If you are in the need for a rocking escapade into strange lands with a quirky ruffian by your side, then burrow into this fleeting, but fun trek with drill in hand and eyes on the loot!
About the Author
Nay Clark Gaming holds a special place in my heart and I never stop talking about video games. I really love all types of games and have an interest in games that have complicated stories and lore because I enjoy untangling the mystery of it all. When I'm not gaming, I unsuccessfully try to control three amazing and incredibly bright kids.
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