Video Game Review - Gravity Heroes

Rob reviews Gravity Heroes on Xbox One...

Gravity Heroes is a gravity-defying title from the developer, Electric Monkeys. Gravity Heroes is a sci-fi shmup that's a homage to titles such as Mega Man, Super Metroid and plenty of old-school arcade titles. The basics of the game are the ability to shift gravity at will. In theroy, this should make for a frantic, challenging shooter - which it most definitely is. Nevertheless, what Gravity Heroes lacks is a fun factor. 

Gravity Heroes isn't technically 'a bad game', what it's let down by is a random assortment of design issues that make it a dull and lacking experience - especially if you're a solo player. 

So...playing this game solo isn't ideal. Playing it with a player 2 isn't ideal either, but it's a little bit better than being alone. Why? Well, it's all to do with the difficulty. Regardless of how you play Gravity Heroes, the difficulty stays the same. What this means is that a solo player will encounter the same level of difficulty as someone who's playing with a full team. Quite often the 'bullet sponge' enemies feel unfair and almost make the game unwinnable. They take far too many hits to take down and are far too numerous to plan an effective defence.

But that's not all...

When playing the game in multiplayer, providing that one player is still alive, dead players can revive themselves. This allows for numerous chances to complete a stage or boss battle. A single player gets only one chance to succeed. A solitary death means you get to restart the encounter again...from the start! It's an unnecessary struggle that shouldn't happen within modern gaming. While the needless and unexpected difficulty spike will generally put a lot of players off experiencing Gravity Heroes, it does also have a few good points. 

The game is presented in a style that's reminiscent of a 90's arcade shmup. Its arena-based environments, enemies, characters and even story have an almost Mega-Man quality to it.

The story is a basic generic 'robot uprising' that's been said and done so many times. While the story is a little clichéd and unoriginal, the games cast of characters couldn't be any different. 

Each character has their own identity which attempts to build the story through numerous dialogue that's given before and after each level. This conversation gives your character a voice and awareness, which for a shmup is quite clever. Even though each of the playable cast falls into those distinctive sci-fi traits, you do often feel for these people and their brutal robot crisis. 

As referred to above, Gravity Heroes features single-player and multiplayer gameplay. Regardless of mode, each plays out the same - difficulty, story, levels etc. To be fair on Electric Monkeys, this game is designed for co-op, with couch co-op especially. At the time of writing this review, I've only been able to play the game solo and in a two-player co-op. In my experience having a second-team member helps. This allows you to at least attempt some kind of strategy and gives you double the firepower. The chaos is always unfolding on the screen and having a second pair of eyes was especially helpful. Of course, when you add in the ability to revive each other it dampens the pressures of playing as a solo player. 

To help manage the chaos, Gravity Heroes has a wealth of weapons for you to utilise. These all spawn at random intervals and don't follow any pattern in their spawning. What's more interesting is that a couple of the weapons do less damage than your starting pistol, which quite literally doesn't make any sense. You can also pick up various equipment which comes from a random pool of grenades, shields and health kits.

Controls are serviceable and aside from a couple of issues (see below) your characters movements are pretty tight. The ability to control gravity is mapped to the right stick, as well as a button combination - which your free to utilise both. However, the often sudden change in gravity can feel incredibly confusing and opens up for a tonne of user error. The ability to control gravity is a great gimmick and it's one that's not been overused. 

Overall, Gravity Heroes is one of those niche titles. Whilst it will certainly appeal to those who wish for the return to the arcade heyday of yesteryear. Its retro-inspired futuristic setting is incredibly pleasant and its characters do attempt to draw you into the world. Whilst these are Gravity Heroes' strongest points, it's all let down by its frustrating and unbalanced gameplay.

Rating 7/10

A review code was kindly provided for this review.

Gravity Heroes is available now on Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC. 

Rob Lake - For more comic book and video game chat why not follow Geek Culture Reviews on Twitter and Facebook @GeekCultureRev