Pepper Grinder feels like multiple types of madness all sloshed together in a great big platforming-shaped tankard and, well, I’m absolutely here for it. Shipwrecked on a mysterious island and having had all of her shiny goodies stolen by a group of absolutely evil Narlings, our heroine Pepper must rev up her drill and carve a path of vengeance through basically everyone standing between her treasure and exercising an outsized amount of revenge on those who inconvenienced her in the first place.
Pepper Grinder PS5 Review
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At once, Pepper Grinder feels like a giddy, yet veritable smorgasbord of congealed influences that takes in everything from cult favourite anime Gurren Lagann and halcyon arcade classic Mr Driller, to the likes of Ecco the Dolphin(!) and excellent indie platformer Celeste. That said, while surface impressions of Pepper Grinder very well confirm its adherence to those three former inspirations to various degrees, it’s really the latter influence that is felt most strongly.
Played out in two-dimensional stages that can scroll in basically any direction, Pepper Grinder in its first opening minute or so, feels just like a traditional platformer, encouraging pixel-perfect leaps and so on. Of course, it isn’t long before Pepper’s raison d’etre comes to bear in the form of a massive pneumatic drill and it’s here that Pepper Grinder establishes the fast and furious rhythm which arguably serves as its most compelling design touchstone.
Simply, Pepper can leverage her trusty drill to burrow through various types of mud, earth and other soft surfaces as she progresses through the world with a view to reach the end of each stage to raise a pirate flag before moving onto the next. Beyond a need to reach the end of each hyphenated themed stage (such a nod to the golden era of platform games is appreciated, if maybe a touch overdone by this point), Pepper Grinder has you picking up precious gems and other stones which can be used to purchase various bits and pieces from the numerous shops dotted around the overworld map – more on that in a bit.
Where Pepper Grinder truly excels is in the fantastic sense of momentum and total, unfettered control it bestows upon the player. When you’re going full-tilt and in full flow, scooping up every single gem along the way and avoiding damage as you tear through the scenery, swing around posts and leap through one area to the next, Pepper Grinder feels immensely satisfying in ways that I haven’t felt since Celeste leapt into my heart and took a siesta with it to the top of a nearby mountain.
Just the act of engaging Pepper’s drill is a pleasingly visceral one. Not do you get a deliberate single frame pause when you make contact with your drill against any of Pepper Grinder’s foes or towing bosses, lending each strike a real sense of impact into the bargain, nut so too does it make good use of the Haptic Feedback, with the DualSense rattling to life each time Pepper activates her trusty tool.
Speaking of bosses, Pepper Grinder’s selection of screen-filling monstrosities aren’t just for show. Challenging and yet thoughtfully conceived, these big bads provide a staunch challenge to your mastery of Pepper Grinder’s mechanics and though frustration can set in after more than a few deaths, the resultant feeling of achievement when one is eventually felled more than makes up for such difficulties.
There’s also a more than a nod to the classic Super Mario Bros titles too, with a number of hidden gems that must be teased out of the scenery by Pepper’s drill, while others simply require you to collect a number of gems in quick succession to trigger the spawn of a singular, much more valuable shiny rock. Elsewhere, though the various levels that make up Pepper Grinder are largely linear, this is an effort that nonetheless awards headstrong exploration off the beaten path as weak walls and crumbling surfaces can be drilled through, often providing a highly valuable pirate coin that can also be used to purchase all manner of shiny things in Pepper Grinder’s neat spread of conveniently placed shops.
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The various gems and other such precious minerals that you collect can be used to top up your health between stages or purchase collectibles in the form of stickers which can be plastered into Pepper’s sticker book. Certainly it’s worth mentioning too that those big gold pirate coins, which are carefully and craftily hidden in the various nooks and crannies of each stage, also provide ample opportunity for replaying them, too.
However, the shop and the stuff you buy from it feels somewhat poorly realised. Take the health top-ups you can buy, for example. Annoyingly, the health you buy only lasts one life and as you’ll likely lose that life on your first encounter with the boss of that world feels a bit pointless, thus making it feel like a heap of money (well, gems) wasted for no good reason. And outside of the stickers, some cosmetic changes to Pepper’s appearance, health and golden keys there really isn’t anything to purchase in terms of meaningful character upgrades and so on, which can somewhat lessen the need to scoop up absolutely every single gem on every single stage as a result.
An arguably bigger issue that Pepper Grinder has which undercuts its otherwise sterling offering, is that it seems to drift away from what it does best – namely that high-octane, super satisfying platforming and ground diving – that arguably sits at the core of its appeal. You see, before Pepper Grinder reaches its end you’ll find yourself blasting enemies with massive cannons, riding on the back of gigantic stomping robots and more besides. The problem is that while none of that is inherently bad, it does detract precious screen time from Pepper Grinder’s core mechanics which can often feel short changed by such sections. Honestly, just let the girl cook.
Despite such quibbles, Pepper Grinder remains a resolutely well made, roundly attractive and frantically satisfying platformer that basically turns you into a terrifyingly militant dolphin obsessed with high speed loot and murder. And, well, who has never wanted to be one of those before?
Pepper Grinder is out now on PS4 and PS5.
Review code kindly provided by PR.