Gravity Circuit: A fantastic 2D action-platformer, and must-play for Mega Man X fans.

A little action-platformer called Gravity Circuit released last week, and while the last trailer got posted here, I haven’t seen any mention of it since it came out.

[Some footage.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jk2JjmwfNc&t=1934s) Not mine, I just grabbed a random playthrough video from YT.

Anyway, this game employs the time-tested structure you’re used to from the Mega Man series: intro stage, followed by 8 main boss stages you can do in any order, finishing off with a few end stages. The visual presentation is polished, with an art style aiming somewhere halfway between 8-bit and 16-bit. The soundtrack is [*bumpin’*](https://youtu.be/jKB6_FAJxik?t=297). But it’s the gameplay where Gravity Circuit truly shines.

You through levels much like you would in a Mega Man X: a lot of dashing, jumping, wall-kicking, blowing up enemy robots, and finding upgrades to make yourself stronger. Rather than shooting, the core moveset is made up of punches and kicks, including a dive kick, and an up-air straight out of Smash. You also have a grappling hook, reminiscent of the one from Mega Man Zero 2, except much easier to utilize. This is used for mobility, but it also lets you grab enemies, either by finishing them off with the hook, or by grabbing their bodies which briefly persist after death. Grabbable objects, which also include most non-energy projectiles, can be thrown at enemies to deal a lot of damage, and this will be your main ranged attack option (the grapple itself deals damage, but not a lot.)

Level design is solid. Maybe not the most memorable, but they’re a ton of fun to run through while jamming to the music. Levels have checkpoints distributed through them, and dying sends you back to the last one with no other penalty, though these can be spaced a bit far apart. You can also spend a small amount of currency at checkpoints to fully restore your health and meter. In usual Mega Man tradition, there’s always a checkpoint in the room before the boss.

You don’t get “weapons” from defeating bosses like you might expect, however your set of actions is rounded out by special moves called “Bursts”, governed by a fighting-game-style meter which you build by killing enemies. The Burst moves themselves are also pulled straight from fighting games in some cases — Ryu’s Shoryuken, Chun Li’s Spinning Bird Kick, and Zangief’s Spinning Piledriver are all represented. That last one even works on bosses — there’s not a lot more satisfying than dodging a tricky boss’s attack pattern and countering with a command grab into the fucking pavement. These moves are very powerful, and there are quite a few of them, mostly unlocked from the main 8 bosses.

The last core system is a set of passive Chips, of which you can have 3 equipped at once. These grant effects such as a double jump (which you should unlock ASAP and never remove), passive super armor, longer hit invulnerability, increased meter generation, a longer and stronger grappling hook, and several others.

The boss fights are good. Well designed, and reasonably challenging — there weren’t many I beat first try. You do start to feel maybe a little overpowered once you’ve got most of the upgrades and some of the better Bursts, although that’s definitely in the spirit of the MMX games, so I guess I can’t complain.

As a huge fan of Mega Man X, Gravity Circuit was an absolute blast to run through, and I will definitely be replaying it in the future. All the different moves and mobility tools can take a while to get used to — I was probably over 75% of the way through the game by the time I had fully incorporated the grapple into general platforming (outside of the occasional section where you’re “supposed” to use it). Jumping from your grappling hook resets your double jump, and so does throwing an enemy in mid-air, so once you find a set of moves you like and get used to everything, you can really be schmoovin’ through these levels. There’s a New Game + that lets you start over with all of your moves and upgrades, and a Hard Mode if you want cleaner play to be enforced.

Anyway, I mostly just wanted to shout this game out because it didn’t get mentioned here when it came out and it’s really damn good if you’re into mobility platformers. Especially if you’re a fan of the old Mega Man X games, you should not skip this one. I’d give it probably an 8.5/10 overall.

by Answerofduty