Pepper Grinder is an Unfairly Reviewed Masterpiece

Pepper Grinder was released for Nintendo Switch and PC in March of this year (2024) and has been my favorite game of the year so far. From the title screen to the final credits this game was an absolute joy to experience and delivered on everything I could ask for from an indie action-platformer. Reviews for the game have been generally favorable (7/10 from IGN, 8/10 from Game Informer, 78/100 and 6.8/10 from critics and users respectively on Metacritic), but after playing the game even these scores seemed too low. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I’m certainly no authority on video game reviews but there seemed to be a common thread between all the mixed and negative reviews: the game’s length. This is a frustrating criticism, that not only undermines the brilliance of one of the best indie games I’ve ever played but is symptomatic of my biggest gripe with modern gaming.

Let’s start by giving Pepper Grinder its flowers. Every second you spend with this game, you’re having fun. The gameplay is fast paced and rewards quick, precise movement. This combined with the unique level designs and gameplay mechanics keep you highly engaged throughout your playthrough. The central mechanic of drilling through earth was a great foundation to build the game around. It’s a fun, and unique gameplay experience that you’ve likely never encountered before. People have compared it to Ecco the Dolphin, but I don’t think this is a great comparison. Ecco might have been an inspiration for Pepper Grinder’s development, but the result feels a lot different. Pepper’s (the protagonist) movement is a lot faster, fluid and more intentional compared to Ecco’s wandering, exploratory gameplay. Pepper Grinder’s pace, clear objectives, and bright energized atmosphere are also very different than the dark, often claustrophobic environments of Ecco the Dolphin. The developer, Riv Hester, has been very open about Ecco the Dolphin’s and several other classic game’s influence on Pepper Grinder but the result is its own experience.

While Pepper’s drill is the focal point of the gameplay, it never overstays its welcome or lets itself become stale. The game regularly presents new ways to use the drill and builds on mechanics from previous levels. You will often ditch the drill entirely or rather use it to power other tools and weapons to keep gameplay fresh and flex the developer’s ingenuity. For a game that is this brief it’s incredible how many playstyles, enemy types, obstacles, and unique level designs are packed into a playthrough. It is so satisfying when you start stringing all these mechanics together. You can be tunneling through the earth, launch yourself into the air, use a grappling hook to swing yourself into a drill powered cannon, launching you across the level, all in the span of 10 seconds while also taking out various enemies and navigating obstacles. Pepper Grinders gimmick never becomes gimmicky and facilitates an experience that’s a must play for fans of the action-platformer genre.

Level of difficulty is something that will never be a universal experience, but I found Pepper Grinder to have a nice blend of challenge and fun. While I certainly died plenty of times during my playthrough, I never got stuck. When it did take me a couple of tries to get through a level, the game is not very punishing and there are regular checkpoints throughout each level. The first three bosses felt like just the right amount of difficulty spike to be the final challenge for each world. That overall experience does not apply to the final boss. The final boss is very hard (at least for me), but in the best way possible. The final boss is challenging but very fair and follows an attack pattern that you can learn and exploit. For me, the casual platforming fan who enjoys Mario over Meat Boy, the game presented the perfect level of challenge. It was satisfying to beat but I never became frustrated.

What I’ve described so far is a perfect platformer. I certainly think it is and I’ll just say right now, I’m giving it the first 10/10 on Super Mulligan. However, that made me curious as to why this game wasn’t getting the level of hype I think it deserves, so I started reading reviews. As I mentioned before the most common complaint about the game was its length (about 4 hours), which just seems unfair. I feel like we’ve entered a stage in gaming where we associate length with quality or value. This is becoming a huge issue in my opinion. IGN is often the loudest voice in the room, so I’ll pick on them for a second. I just played Cyberpunk 2077 which kicked off the game with an EIGHT HOUR TUTORIAL and got a 9/10 from IGN. Tears of the Kingdom requires hours of grinding zonite just to enjoy the main mechanic added to the game from Breath of Wild, and that game got a perfect 10/10 from IGN. It’s fine to expect a lot of content from a AAA title that cost you $70 but we have to stop using length as a metric of quality when reviewing games. Before you come for my head, I’m a big fan of both of the games mentioned above, and an open world RPG has a lot of world building elements that it deals with that a platformer doesn’t. But both games also have a lot of filler, grinding and in general a lot of not fun tasks required to enjoy the rest of the game. Pepper Grinder ops to have absolutely no filler, doesn’t drag out any aspect of its design and is priced accordingly for its short playtime. IGN’s review scale describes a 7/10 (the score it gave Pepper Grinder) as, “Could it be better? Absolutely. Maybe it lacks ambition, has a few technical bumps in the road, or is too repetitive, but we came away from it happy nonetheless.” But their review of Pepper Grinder included the points, “…no two levels ever seem the same…,” and “…propulsive platforming action of a kind rarely seen since Ecco the Dolphin…” To me it feels like the game was docked points from the big-name reviewers for being respectful of your time.

In my opinion, Pepper grinder is a must play for any fans of the genre and stands out enough that I would recommend it even if action-platformers aren’t usually your thing. While the game is short, it presents a level of quality and creativity that rivals games like Mario Wonder and hit indies like Celeste or Shovel Knight. It’s extremely rare that I’m engaged and having fun for 100% of my time with a video game, so I have to give Pepper Grinder a score of 10/10. Please, do yourself a favor and pick up Pepper Grinder for yourself. The full price of $15 is more than worth it but I’ve already seen it on sale for $10 on the Switch eShop. The game will also have physical versions and be released on PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S later this year.