Awoooo time for some interdimensional adventures! The sequel to the beloved and acclaimed Grapple Dog, Grapple Dogs Cosmic Canines aims its sights on having players jump, dash and grapple their way across various levels. The unique visuals of this game reminded me of something you might see on the Game Boy Advance, which tickled a nostalgic itch and gave me plenty of reason to try out the demo.
The story follows the interdimensional hopping canines, Pablo and Luna as they take the fight to the evil Vyr and stop his conquest of the multiverse. The demo features 4 levels in total, 2 of which act as tutorials for Pablo and Luna while the last two play out as normal levels. Pablo, who returns from the first game, is pretty straightforward. He jumps, can punch things and use his grapple gun to hook on to certain obstacles and swing across gaps. Hes pretty much the standard platformer style of play and as a result, his levels are mostly about navigation. In a lot of ways, it makes me think of the Sonic the Hedgehog meets Mario. Enemies do show up but they can either be punched or jumped on to deal with. Speaking of jumping, Pablo can also do a slam attack while midair that clears obstacles underneath him. While I’m not particularly good at using a keyboard for gameplay, I did find the control layout fairly easy to grasp and use. The demo doesn’t show much of it, but Pablo can also collect power-ups to gain access to different abilities. For example, during the level Monkey Business, Pablo gained the ability to become electricity, allowing him to zip across special boards and make for some particularly cool looking platforming.
Luna plays quite differently as she totes a gun around. Players get the option of either a keyboard only control style(in which she controls just like Pablo) or a mouse and keyboard combo. I really like the mouse and keyboard combo, it's a refreshing change of pace from the usual platforming gameplay. Here, Luna moves using keys but also uses the mouse for aiming and firing and that freedom of the movement is much nicer than the keyboard only option. Like Pablo, Luna also has a grapple which is used with a right click of the mouse. It's a lot of fun to blast through levels and shoot your way through the various enemies as Lunas levels definitely seemed more combat focused. Based on the screenshots from the games official page, it seems like Luna also gets power ups but I didn’t find any during her levels. Regardless, I enjoyed Lunas gameplay immensely.
As I said before, I liked the visuals of this game. The 2D cartoony-ness and blocky art style give this game a very unique look and the music wasn’t obtrusive, I found it pretty catchy as I played through the game and it consistently helped me feel like I was on an actual adventure to save the universe. Ultimately I had a good time with Grapple Dogs Cosmic Canines and I wouldn’t mind returning to it when it releases fully on Sep 12 later this year. If y’all want to check it out, you can find the demo on Steam now!
