Grapple Dog feels like a long-lost childhood favorite

digitaltrends.com:

When I was a kid, I wasn’t buying a new video game every week. I had a set collection of cartoony 2D platformers that I cycled between for years. I don’t have any memory of acquiring Taz in Escape from Mars. It just appeared one day and therefore it was a game I played and liked. I used to live in blissful childlike ignorance, where how much fun I was having superseded whether or not it was considered a good game.

When I play Grapple Dog, I’m taken back to that far-off era of my life. The charming indie game about a dog with a grappling hook, which launches on February 10 for Nintendo Switch and PC, shares a lot of similarities with some of my childhood favorites. It’s a fun, colorful, and deceptively challenging title that feels like it was pulled straight from my old Sega Genesis collection.

Grapple Dog’s entire premise is in its title: pPlayers control a cute yellow dog who finds a grappling hook. That simple tool opens up a wealth of platforming potential. The pup can swing across pits, cling onto moving objects, and seek out hidden collectibles by quickly grappling between objects. For a modern comparison, it’s a bit like Celeste with a sunnier disposition.

Everything about the game feels warmly familiar, down to its structure. Players zip around six different, themed worlds (grass, fire, ice, you know the drill) that each contain a set of levels culminating in a boss battle against a big robot. Levels are filled with collectibles in the form of oranges, a delicious stand-in for coins, and hidden jewels. It’s like a Mario game where petting the protagonist isn’t weird.

Some of its other ideas specifically remind me of my old favorites. It has bonus stages where players need to complete specific challenges, like