Gravity Oddity

Genre: Action-Platformer / 2-Stick Shooter / Roguelike

Players: 1

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Review:

Gravity Oddity, released in 2023 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, is a game that combines Action-Platformer, 2-Stick Shooter, and Roguelike elements in an adventure where players try to rescue their kidnapped roommate from an evil space corporation. To do so, players will have to jump to various parts of the galaxy, searching nearby hostile vessels for maps that can help guide them to their destination.

The main gameplay hook here comes in the form of your character’s gravity boots, which allow you to walk along the outside of any surface. In addition to this, you can jump off into space and briefly jetpack around, but you’ll mainly want to ensure you’re in range of a surface so you can use your teleport gun to zap you back to something to stand on. In the meantime, you’ll be fending off enemies with a more traditional weapon, and as you progress you’ll get randomized upgrades to improve your firepower and abilities.

I really like the core premise here – having a teleporter gun and gravity boots promises to make for some fun perspective-warping combat. Plus, some of the upgrades you find are pretty creative, and the Roguelike elements have the potential to inject a lot of variety. Unfortunately, while a lot of this works in theory, it falls apart in practice.

One issue is that the environments that you fight enemies in tend to make it difficult to get to a place where you can get off a shot without getting shot yourself. Enemies can track where you are through walls, and some of their shots have explosions that can damage you through walls too. What’s more, with each of the game’s randomized levels throwing a boss at you, it can be unclear for some bosses exactly how you’re meant to fight them.

The presentation doesn’t help much either. Gravity Oddity uses simple, cartoony 2D visuals with extremely basic-looking characters constructed out of geometric shapes. This is backed by a subdued piano and synth soundtrack that runs counter to this silly presentation.

Overall, I think Gravity Oddity had a lot of potential for fun gravity-defying combat, but poor level design and confusing boss battles take much of the fun out of this, with a presentation that can’t seem to decide what it wants to be but fails at it regardless. It’s not a horrible game, but it feels like it pales in comparison to what it could have been.

tl;dr – Gravity Oddity is a game that combines Action-Platformer, 2-Stick Shooter, and Roguelike elements with a gameplay mechanic that lets players walk on any surface and use a teleport gun to zap between surfaces. Unfortunately, poor level design, poor boss design, and an underwhelming presentation all prevent this game from fully reaching the potential of its premise.

Grade: C

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