Devolver Digital has one of the best track records in PC gaming publishing. Whether it’s Inscryption, Cult of the Lamb, Enter the Gungeon, or any of dozens of others of a vast array of titles, you’re bound to find not only a lot of “Overwhelming Positive” games on Steam, but also a ton of hidden gems that are worth delving for. As such, I’m more than willing to try anything that this publisher signs on to, and was lucky enough to preview Pepper Grinder on two occasions, coming away with a lot of things to like about it each time. Now that the game is out, did the final product pan out as well as these previews?

I’ve gone in-depth on how Pepper Grinder‘s gameplay – its main selling point – is so fantastic and captivating in my previous articles, but it still can’t go understated. Branded as “crunchy” gameplay, Pepper’s electric drill glides through soft terrain like nothing, and the levels are custom-tailored for you to pull off sick tricks and rush through them at blistering speeds. A true easy-to-learn and hard-to-master mechanic, this is more than enough for me to warrant the very least of a demo playthrough so you can see how well Pepper Grinder can control.

I do want to stress the phrase “can control,” because as soon as you’re getting the hang of the way one Pepper Grinder level works, the next will introduce puzzles that are more trial-and-error than they are brainteaser, or a set of enemies that almost guarantee you’ll lose health unless you have perfect precision timing. Though don’t get me started on the bosses – I spent more time on the first boss than I did in the three levels that preceded it combined, less on raw difficulty and more on fine-tuning my movement and losing lives in the process.

The entirety of my Pepper Grinder playthrough took place on the Steam Deck – and it ran like a dream, almost like it was meant for handhelds as it hearkens back to funky platformers of the Game Boy Advance. Despite its faults, it’s a pick-back-up-when-you-fail affair where once deaths are expected, it’s a sprint to the finish. Sadly, the game is as short as they come, ringing in at about three hours before credits run. I’m fine with short-and-sweet but just as I was getting over this game’s downsides, the experience was over.

Devolver Digital can’t be expected to have wins 100% of the time, but it feels like Pepper Grinder is a rare miss. Hardly a bad game in the scheme of the basics of its controls and presentation, it merely struggles in its consistency and tasks the player with too much all at once in certain junctions. If you’re a king (or queen) of platformers and have unbound patience, you can have a good time with Pepper Grinder, but that comes at the risk of beating it in one sitting unless you want to endure a speedrun. This crunchy platformer is now available at $14.99.

A PC review copy of Pepper Grinder was provided by Devolver Digital for the purpose of this review.

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Pepper Grinder

$14.99

6.5

Score

6.5/10

Pros

• Truly "Crunchy" Gameplay
• Beautiful Pixel Art
• Solid Soundtrack

Cons

• Atrocious Difficulty Spike
• Inconsistent Level Design
• Alarmingly Short