Have you ever played a demo for a game and loved it to bits, only to play the final game and feel disappointed? That’s how it felt playing Pepper Grinder, the new title from Devolver Digital. While I was seriously looking forward to it since the demo’s release during Next Fest 2024, the game, unfortunately, itself isn’t as fun as the demo suggested it would be. There’s still a lot to like, but every time I play this game, I keep thinking about how it could’ve been much more memorable had certain things just gone a couple of steps further.
In Pepper Grinder, you play as Pepper, an adventurer who gets her treasures stolen after a shipwreck and must traverse the island to claim them back. Luckily, she’s got her Grinder, a super-powered drilling device that can burrow through terrain and water, kill enemies, and even operate machines like canons and vehicles. With this device, you’ll control Pepper as she dives in and out of the Earth like a dolphin, collecting riches, landing on platforms precisely, and defeating any enemy that gets in your way.
The most appealing aspect of Pepper Grinder is absolutely its gameplay, as the way Pepper travels definitely sets itself apart from the usual running and jumping in 2D platformers. The precision and quick thinking needed to land your jumps from one terrain to another, all while grabbing every collectible in your path, is addictive. Completing a path or nailing a really difficult platforming section is enough to get those dopamine receptors firing on all cylinders.
While grabbing every collectible isn’t a requirement, most of them are laid out in the exact path you need to drill in, so not only does that make the challenge incredibly inviting, but it also makes missing a jewel feel like such a personal failing. Pepper Grinder’s platforming actively makes you prioritize collecting every item over surviving the level.
There’s a good amount of variety to Pepper Grinder’s mechanics, too. The Grinder isn’t just used for diving in and out of the island and killing enemies, you’re also driving vehicles, solving puzzles with machines, shooting yourself from cannon to cannon, and much more. The game makes excellent use of Pepper’s drilling device, so much so that everything surrounding it is where it starts to lose its steam.
Pepper Grinder was clearly influenced by old Nintendo games like the Mario and Donkey Kong Country games of the 90s, but where those felt like they took place in exciting and imaginative worlds, Pepper Grinder’s world feels pasted on and unmemorable, and derivative of the games it takes inspiration from. The most noteworthy thing about the visuals is that they’re pixel art, but had they had smoother edges, the game’s levels and creatures would be characterless.
Even if I don’t know the names of most of Mario’s enemies, if you show me a picture of any one of them, I would recognize them immediately. In Pepper Grinder, I struggle to remember what even the most common enemy looks like. The game’s world is so lackluster, that it feels like an afterthought and like the gameplay alone was expected to carry the whole experience through.
A lot of the levels look very similar to the 2D platformers of yesteryear, and there’s no real personality to them. Many are left feeling empty and barren, save for the path of jewels and coins you’re supposed to drill through. This is especially a problem considering the levels that can only be accessed by purchasing keys.
If you’ve played the Donkey Kong Country Returns games, you’re familiar with how these levels work as those games had you collecting Banana Coins and using them to purchase keys at the shop. In Pepper Grinder, you purchase keys by collecting Pirate Coins. Unlike Banana Coins which are everywhere in Donkey Kong Country Returns, though, there are only five Pirate Coins per level in this game which are typically hidden out of sight, or at least, out of path.
Given this, Pepper Grinder’s world being so uninteresting is a serious fault, because exploring its levels to find secret passages and such feels like such a chore. Somehow, the only collectible that’s tedious to collect is also the most important one, considering they unlock levels, although these levels aren’t necessary to unlock.
Regardless of decade, 2D platformers have always boasted a sense of wonder with their worlds, and even a gloomy game like Limbo has joy in its exploration thanks to how engrossing its world is. Pepper Grinder’s levels feel more like obstacle courses than actual worlds to experience, and it doesn’t help that the music is nothing to write home about, either. If you changed Pepper Grinder’s island setting to, say, a space or a futuristic one, really nothing would’ve been missed.
The bosses also made me question if a game like Pepper Grinder even needs bosses to begin with. Where Mario and Donkey Kong have multiple ways of killing enemies like using power-ups or throwing bombs, Pepper really only has her Grinder, and even then, she mostly uses it to travel and not to kill. Pepper Grinder’s bosses have Pepper stuck in one tight location, so the only thing she really can do is attack with her Grinder over and over through the same paths, and it gets repetitive fast. Some bosses have you going through a platforming level before facing them, and those levels are far more exciting than the actual boss fight.
Even with all that said, though, Pepper Grinder’s core gameplay is still ridiculous fun, and raising the flag at the end of each platforming level still feels triumphant, if only for short-term pleasure. Pepper Grinder is a short game, only four to six hours, so the lack of other compelling aspects feels disappointingly underwhelming. Still, the thrill of the precision-heavy chase is an oh-so-tempting one, even if you won’t remember the chase very well afterward.
This review has been edited to correct “bananas” to “Banana Coins”.
A copy of Pepper Grinder was provided by PR for the purposes of this review.
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site. We cover gaming news, movie reviews, wrestling and much more.
