A deeply mid experience. The drilling is fun for a level or two but it becomes very clear that this core mechanic does not have the mechanical depth needed to even carry it through its 4 worlds and sub 2 hour run time. It's pretty satisfying to go into the dirt and pop out once or twice but the areas you can dig really hinder the level design. They are essentially just linear lines. You go in one end of dirt and navigate your way to the other end. This then gets combined with a grapple hook that feels truly awful to use and the cannons from Donkey Kong Country. These cannons felt like archaic game design in the 90s and here they are now in the year of our Lord 2024. I mean I love stickerbrush symphony as much as the next guy but the cannons in this game don't even require you to aim or time your shot like 90% of the time.

Then whatever momentum you can muster is stunted by the constant stop and start of looking for these dumb collectibles which I would love to ignore but they literally lock levels behind collecting them. So many of them are hidden behind walls or off screen that it forces you to crawl through levels scanning every wall for subtle cracks. Their inclusion is in complete opposition to the core appeal of the game.

Idk, the girl looks cute and I assume the fine folks worked hard on the game, but this game was just so frustrating to play. I feel a lot of love put into it but not a lot of thought.

Pepper grinder offers the correct dose of premium schmovement thrughout it's gameplay, the core mechanic of digging is EXCELENT like in it's inspiration (Ori 2) ,it fells ever so satysfing, but it's also much more thant that, different enviroments, twists and even [REDACTED] that caught you off guard makes for a great time.
Truly it does what the best movement games should do, it's easy to play this game, however, to master it? to chain getting out of a digging into another one with full momentum? to just past right through a little gap to continue on faster? so good.
For instance, water, water is slow right? as a begginer you might think that, BUT you can hydroplane, yes, comming back to the first water level and zooming trough it's path just shows you how well this was made.
An excelente game, i must play for movement fans, it leaves you wanting more, and you know what? i'd much rather have that than most games nowadays that don't know when to end.

When i first started playing Pepper Grinder, i was concerned that the Drill mechanic of the game would get old quickly, but i was gladly proven wrong. Throughout the game, they hit you with different movement options, enemies, and types of ground to dig through, which really freshens up the gameplay. There are some mechanics that only appeared for a select few levels, and while i wish the game utilized them further, i’m glad that the levels they were featured in were a lot of fun (especially in some of the later stages). Bosses were alright for the most part, but the first 2 are easily the weakest ones. The best bosses were the last 2 which gave me an actual challenge, and the final boss in particular was so sick. After the final boss, i decided to go back and play through the optional Time Attack mode for all the levels, and it was a blast. Trying to optimize all the levels in the game was a really nice challenge, and some of them in particular were so satisfying to get the gold medal on. Before Time Attack, this game was probably a good 7/10 game for me. After Time Attack, i’m gonna have to raise it up to 8/10, it really made me appreciate the game a lot more. If you’re a fan of platformers, i recommend giving this game a shot!