Gravity Circuit

Genre: Action-Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Gravity Circuit is an Action-Platformer released in 2023 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. In this game, players take the role of a heroic robot fighting against of an uprising of robots infected by a mysterious virus, with some of the most prominent enemies in the army you’re up against being former allies, who each await your challenge at the end of a themed stage.

If that premise sounds a lot like the Mega Man games to you, then you’re definitely getting the right idea, as this game was clearly inspired by the Mega Man franchise, specifically the Mega Man X series, along with a sprinkling of Bionic Commando and a little Shovel Knight for good measure. Unlike Mega Man, this game’s protagonist, Kai, doesn’t fight with a hand cannon, but with punches and kicks, as well as a grappling hook he can use to swing on the underside of ceilings, or grapple on to defeated enemies to toss them at other enemies.

The presentation here makes use of some nice, detailed 2D pixel art visuals with good animation that are lent an extra layer of retro flair due to every graphical element only containing four colors, imitating what would have theoretically been possible on the original Nintendo Entertainment System. I feel like this may be an unnecessary step that limits the visuals, resulting in characters that are different shades of all one color, which can be a tad distracting.

These visuals are backed by a great synthesized soundtrack very reminiscent of the excellent tunes of the classic Mega Man X games, with some noteworthy tracks including Theme of Cable (Power Circuit) and Theme of Medley (Wave Circuit). Suffice it to say, despite a few minor issues, overall I think fans of the Mega Man franchise will be thrilled with the presentation in this game.

The core gameplay here is superb, copying some of the best parts of Mega Man X’s gameplay and adding some more to boot, with the grappling hook giving you some added mobility, and customizable super moves that charge as you collect pickups give players even more options to work with.

Back at your home base in-between missions, players can spend currencies earned in the levels to purchase new special moves, or install passive abilities to empower them. This adds a nice bit of customizability to your character, though the game limits the number of these that the player can have installed at any given time, meaning you have to make some hard choices.

This leads to some complaints I have about the game. First and foremost, the challenge level here is pretty high, and while each of the game’s levels does have Shovel Knight-style checkpoints (using it costs you in-game currency, making for a risk-reward situation), you will frequently have to use these checkpoints again and again as you repeatedly die in the game’s levels.

Another issue I have here is how pathetic and underpowered your character’s signature ability, the grappling hook, actually is. As a weapon, it does an underwhelming amount of damage (that can only be mitigated somewhat by a passive buff), but is far slower than Mega Man’s hand cannon. This is particularly frustrating as enemies still damage on contact and have plenty of projectile attacks as if this were still a Mega Man game and you had a good way to answer in kind without having to close the distance and melee. The grappling hook isn’t particularly great as a grappling hook either, being unintuitive to use.

Despite these flaws, I still think Gravity Circuit is a great Action-Platformer and a wonderful tribute to the Mega Man franchise. There are definitely areas that could use improvement, and in particular the challenge level feels overly-high, but overall this is a great entry in the genre well worth a look.

tl;dr – Gravity Circuit is an Action-Platformer where players fight enemies as a heroic robot with gameplay heavily inspired by the Mega Man X series, with some Bionic Commando as well. The presentation and gameplay here are both excellent, giving us something similar to the Mega Man games while adding in plenty of unique elements of its own. There are a few frustrations I have with this game, and in particular I think the challenge level is too high, but overall this is a great Action-Platformer that genre fans should definitely check out.

Grade: B

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Action Game

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