Pepper Grinder Review (EldestBrisingr)
My favorite level from Ori and the Will of the Wisps was the desert. Built around drilling through sand and leaping out at the right angle, it was nothing short of brilliant. I remember saying to myself, “They could probably make a whole game around that idea!”
Pepper Grinder is that game. Back in May, I tried the demo on Switch and while I liked the drilling, the first few levels felt kinda samey. Six months later, a sale arrives on Steam. I picked it up, plugged in my GameCube controller adapter, and started drilling.
I admire the choice to go full-throttle with a single mechanic. More platformers should try that. After achieving 100% though, I’m left conflicted. I’m not sure if developer Ahr Ech could not conceive of new ways to utilize the drill or if they got distracted during development, but not every stage uses the drill to a satisfying degree. A handful of them give you at least one of three tools that don’t compliment the core gameplay: a gatling gun that turns the experience into a 2D shooter, a snowboard that primarily consists of holding right to progress, or a lumbering mech for stampeding everything in your path. None of these sections were bad. In fact, they were fairly enjoyable, but I was hoping to see more complimentary drilling mechanics, like the switch platforms, Donkey Kong Country-inspired cannons, and special types of terrain. Grappling hooks are a dime a dozen nowadays, and Penny’s Big Breakaway already did a better job with swing momentum earlier this year. The implementation in Pepper Grinder is also fumbled by being a toggle input instead of a hold and release like the cannons, with no option to switch it.
The skull coins were lazily done. Nearly all of them are just checking for small alcoves along the main path. Maybe that was done for the time trials. I still think Pizza Tower’s ranking system reigns supreme, but at least going for the gold here requires thorough knowledge of the stages and finding shortcuts by drill boosting. Most took me at least a few tries to clear. The bosses were surprisingly challenging. A little annoyed you can’t skip their intro cinematics (apart from the final boss for some reason), but great on the whole!
Like my review, Pepper Grinder is all over the place. My initial impressions were both right and wrong, but I think this developer has the potential to make something great in the future. It took me 9 hours to achieve 100%. I’ll let you decide if that’s worth $15. Like actual pepper, the experience is enjoyable with the right dosage.