Gaming in 2024 is off to a hot start in so many ways, especially with the amount of huge games we’ve gotten on the AAA side with games like Persona 3 Reload, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Dragon’s Dogma 2. Huge might even be understating it as it’s not outside the realm of possibility that players will be spending over 80 hours on each of these games. With that, palette cleansers are all the more essential. That’s where Pepper Grinder comes in.
I won’t spend too much time talking about the story, because it’s nonsense. You play as Pepper, a treasure-loving girl who gets shipwrecked on an island inhabited by weird goblins that apparently took her gold and jewels and somehow spread them neatly around the island. Upset, she comes across a drill named Grinder that she uses as more than just a weapon to get her booty back, while also realizing that there’s more to this island than meets the eye.
Again, not much to talk about with the story here. The game has quite the clever title, and the fact that the drill has a name is cute, but I’ll be honest: I found out the drill had a name via the press release. I didn’t actually know that even after beating it, because that’s how meaningful this information is.
The longer you drill, the faster you get. Just be careful not to kill yourself.
What matters is Pepper Grinder is a short and sweet 2D action platformer that’ll provide players with a nice challenge and a bunch of surprising set piece-style moments. As you can imagine, the drill that Pepper has equipped is quite the weapon, but it’s way more than that. It also doubles as your primary method of traversal when you aren’t running and jumping, and both of which purposely feel slow and clunky. You’ll want to do nothing but drill around in Pepper Grinder the same way you don’t want to do anything but web slinging in Spider-Man.
The levels in Pepper Grinder will have you drilling through bodies of dirt, snow, sand, bones, and whatever other soft substance encapsulates the treasures that Pepper cherishes. While drilling, you can press the jump button for a burst of speed that’ll also make her drill more dangerous and the longer you spend time drilling, the faster Pepper moves and while it’s fun to go fast, it also makes you more prone to error. You’ll die a lot trying to understand the ins and outs of drill traversal in addition to the game’s physics, but the game does a nice job guiding you through every nuance with its level design alone.
Yes, that’s a gun and yes, those are bombs attached to chains.
Depending on your skill, each level can take anywhere between three to 10 minutes to get through. They’re very much like Mario levels where all you’re expected to do is get to the end and raise the flag pole while finding jewels and coins along the way to get the highest score possible. Much like the big, hard-to-reach coins in Mario games, each level in Pepper Grinder has five big pirate coins that are there to challenge you, and in between levels you can use these coins to buy cosmetics, power-ups, and even locked levels.
As mentioned, the game is pretty short, as there are only four worlds in the game total with each world having around five levels to play through, in addition to the aforementioned secret levels that are unlocked with Pirate Coins. Still, as short as it is, there was no shortage of awesome moments that kept me invested. The first world did a great job of teaching players how to drill, also helping you discover your own nuances and drilling style as you go through the levels before reaching the world’s boss that required you to really control how fast you’re doing everything. After I beat that boss, I thought I’d plow through the rest of the game pretty easily, and that’s where they introduced a swinging ability, a grappling hook mechanic, and before long it even introduced vehicles and a gun that all of a sudden made the game go from an action platformer, to a run-and-gun, to a bullet hell game… and there were times where you even became a kaiju. This all culminated to a crazy final boss fight that I took almost an hour to beat due to my own mistakes. There’s nothing more satisfying than getting that final triumphant victory after quite a challenge, and it was all worth it.
That said, is the game terribly difficult? It presents a challenge for sure, but the bad gamer in me has to mention this as well: Remember how I talked about the shop where you can buy cosmetics and secret levels? Turns out you can buy upgrades to your health meter too. I beat the game’s final boss with the default four bars of health. I don’t know if that makes me a dumbass or a badass, but I sure had fun.
Don’t worry about that big blue thing. Seriously.
In addition to the game’s campaign, you also have a time attack mode to have some extra fun with that becomes more enjoyable once you really understand a level’s layout. Employing strategies like purposely taking damage to shave off a few seconds gives the game a great nostalgic 90’s feel, so that adds some value to the package. It brings me back to a time where I bought games by judging it by its cover, and this really feels like a gem.
While I wish there was more, I’m satisfied with its length and really felt like this was a great palette cleanser between all the big games coming out so quickly. Pepper Grinder is a fantastic experience and while you’ll probably only need three hours to finish it, the amount of enjoyable and memorable moments easily make it one of the best experiences of the year so far, and that should make it well worth the $15 on Switch and Steam.
Pepper Grinder is a fantastic experience and while you’ll probably only need three hours to finish it, the amount of enjoyable and memorable moments easily make it one of the best experiences of the year so far,
Gaming in 2024 is off to a hot start in so many ways, especially with the amount of huge games we’ve gotten on the AAA side with games like Persona 3 Reload, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Dragon’s Dogma 2. Huge might even be understating it as it’s not outside the realm of possibility that players will be spending over 80 hours on each of these games. With that, palette cleansers are all the more essential. That’s where Pepper Grinder comes in.
I won’t spend too much time talking about the story, because it’s nonsense. You play as Pepper, a treasure-loving girl who gets shipwrecked on an island inhabited by weird goblins that apparently took her gold and jewels and somehow spread them neatly around the island. Upset, she comes across a drill named Grinder that she uses as more than just a weapon to get her booty back, while also realizing that there’s more to this island than meets the eye.
Again, not much to talk about with the story here. The game has quite the clever title, and the fact that the drill has a name is cute, but I’ll be honest: I found out the drill had a name via the press release. I didn’t actually know that even after beating it, because that’s how meaningful this information is.
The longer you drill, the faster you get. Just be careful not to kill yourself.
What matters is Pepper Grinder is a short and sweet 2D action platformer that’ll provide players with a nice challenge and a bunch of surprising set piece-style moments. As you can imagine, the drill that Pepper has equipped is quite the weapon, but it’s way more than that. It also doubles as your primary method of traversal when you aren’t running and jumping, and both of which purposely feel slow and clunky. You’ll want to do nothing but drill around in Pepper Grinder the same way you don’t want to do anything but web slinging in Spider-Man.
The levels in Pepper Grinder will have you drilling through bodies of dirt, snow, sand, bones, and whatever other soft substance encapsulates the treasures that Pepper cherishes. While drilling, you can press the jump button for a burst of speed that’ll also make her drill more dangerous and the longer you spend time drilling, the faster Pepper moves and while it’s fun to go fast, it also makes you more prone to error. You’ll die a lot trying to understand the ins and outs of drill traversal in addition to the game’s physics, but the game does a nice job guiding you through every nuance with its level design alone.
Yes, that’s a gun and yes, those are bombs attached to chains.
Depending on your skill, each level can take anywhere between three to 10 minutes to get through. They’re very much like Mario levels where all you’re expected to do is get to the end and raise the flag pole while finding jewels and coins along the way to get the highest score possible. Much like the big, hard-to-reach coins in Mario games, each level in Pepper Grinder has five big pirate coins that are there to challenge you, and in between levels you can use these coins to buy cosmetics, power-ups, and even locked levels.
As mentioned, the game is pretty short, as there are only four worlds in the game total with each world having around five levels to play through, in addition to the aforementioned secret levels that are unlocked with Pirate Coins. Still, as short as it is, there was no shortage of awesome moments that kept me invested. The first world did a great job of teaching players how to drill, also helping you discover your own nuances and drilling style as you go through the levels before reaching the world’s boss that required you to really control how fast you’re doing everything. After I beat that boss, I thought I’d plow through the rest of the game pretty easily, and that’s where they introduced a swinging ability, a grappling hook mechanic, and before long it even introduced vehicles and a gun that all of a sudden made the game go from an action platformer, to a run-and-gun, to a bullet hell game… and there were times where you even became a kaiju. This all culminated to a crazy final boss fight that I took almost an hour to beat due to my own mistakes. There’s nothing more satisfying than getting that final triumphant victory after quite a challenge, and it was all worth it.
That said, is the game terribly difficult? It presents a challenge for sure, but the bad gamer in me has to mention this as well: Remember how I talked about the shop where you can buy cosmetics and secret levels? Turns out you can buy upgrades to your health meter too. I beat the game’s final boss with the default four bars of health. I don’t know if that makes me a dumbass or a badass, but I sure had fun.
Don’t worry about that big blue thing. Seriously.
In addition to the game’s campaign, you also have a time attack mode to have some extra fun with that becomes more enjoyable once you really understand a level’s layout. Employing strategies like purposely taking damage to shave off a few seconds gives the game a great nostalgic 90’s feel, so that adds some value to the package. It brings me back to a time where I bought games by judging it by its cover, and this really feels like a gem.
While I wish there was more, I’m satisfied with its length and really felt like this was a great palette cleanser between all the big games coming out so quickly. Pepper Grinder is a fantastic experience and while you’ll probably only need three hours to finish it, the amount of enjoyable and memorable moments easily make it one of the best experiences of the year so far, and that should make it well worth the $15 on Switch and Steam.
by Danreb Victorio
