Mythinks #4
Gravity Circuit - Surpassing Your Inspiration
There's far from a shortage of Mega Man-likes out there, between all the old-indie freeware back in the day and especially if you want to count every single fangame that's ever existed. Heck, it's probably a scene I could be more into, myself, just I also can't help but imagine that, having played Gravity Circuit, it's going to be some stiff as hell competition, because it easily has to be one of the best out there.
Gravity Circuit's setup is very familiar, from the onset. It has an intro stage to get you acclimated to the controls, and from there on afterward, you can tackle the next eight levels in any order you wish, each one headed by a themed boss, and thus by defeating that boss, you gain the ability to use their powers. And once they're all defeated, the game funnels back into one last linear gauntlet of levels for the finale. Like, yeah, that's a Mega Man game, through-and-through.
Gravity Circuit in particular borrows from essentially the whole Mega Man series, combining the best parts of the Classic, X, and Zero series, while sprinkling in a little wee bit of customizability and loadout building I GUESS you can be granular and attribute to Battle Network or Star Force. The eight bosses are all named "Something Circuit", much the same way every boss in the Mega Man series is "Something Man." But in art style and tone, it definitely leans more into the X series. All this preamble isn't to say Gravity Circuit doesn't have an original component in its chassis, just going in, you will very easily spot the references and the ways this game wears its inspirations on its wholeass sleeve.
Though one more thing that it very obviously picks inspiration from is the titular Kai's moveset. Namely, the central part of his ability kit, being the grappling chain he can throw out to deal damage to enemies at a distance, or stick it onto surfaces in order to swing from them or bring himself closer to walls. Very obviously taking some notes from Mega Man Zero's Chain Rod. In fact, this is almost essentially taking Zero's Chain Rod and building a whole game around it.
The intro stage really takes the time to really hammer this point in, with several sections that have an impassable pit that you must use the swinging mechanic to get across, by aiming the grapple chain at the ceiling and swinging across. It also gives you plenty of time to realize that some enemies will turn grey and go prone when you deal enough damage to them, which puts them in a state where you can grab them with your chain and then use their bodies as ammunition to throw them around. But, in case you haven't noticed it, Kai demonstrates as much during a brief cutscene just so you know.
And a really nice a-ha moment that happens in the same level is that they have these grenade-chucking enemies. So with the knowledge that you can grab things with your chain, I couldn't help but wonder when playing blind and having a "Can you grab those grenades and throw them back at the enemy? Oh my GOSH you can!" kind of moment.
Hell, during certain portions of quite a few levels, you can nail an enemy with another enemy's corpse in order to just immediately deal enough damage to put them in that dead-but-throwable state, aside from any of the larger enemies. With this, you can kind of chain together strings of hitting enemies with other enemies, and then grabbing THAT enemy to throw at the next enemy, so-on and so-forth. This is such a big deal since, otherwise, Kai's limited to a fairly limited-range punching attack.
Not that he's totally helpless, he can attack at a pretty decent clip, and most enemies either have hitstun, or easily take one cycle between their attacks to defeat. Plus, Kai has plenty of mobility options to weave in and out of danger. There is a pretty substantial difference between the basic walking speed and running speed, especially given how much this game's movement is momentum-driven, but being in the "running" state even drastically increases your speed in the air after jumping off a wall. Being in the running state can make you quite slippery, so there IS a reason to not just be in that running state all the time; there's plenty of moments where, sure, had I been cracked at this game I probably could have made it past a certain couple obstacles while still dashing, but nonetheless had to slow down so I could have a little more control over myself.
I'm not sure if this is something they added in a post-release update or not, but I thought this game had the problem of having a run button; aka, a button you have to clench most of the time you're playing. But digging into the options, there's actually consideration for that, and this has easily made it about the best implementation of a "run button" I've ever seen. There's the default option of walking while not held, and running while held, but there's also options for vicing that versa, as well as turning it into a toggle, which is absolutely brilliant. Options are among this game's key considerations, actually.
Even outside of the options menu, options are king. Once you defeat one of the main eight bosses, you get access to a couple of their abilities that you can buy from the mysterious nostalgia-waxer, Nega. These give you special "burst" moves, that you can use a resource meter with, and assign to directional inputs not unlike Smash Bros attacks. You start out with a basic lunge-forward-and-punch move, but you can also wind up with various other attacks even at the start, like an uppercut and a counter attack. You can assign that one to Down-Special for more Smash authenticity.
You've got firing a bigass laser beam that doubles as a distance maker by sending you backwards. You've got firing a drill forward that does repeated damage to whatever it goes through. You've got a ground-traveling shockwave attack. You've got a speedrunner favorite in taking a second to charge but then spending the next dozen or so seconds running at super speed. This naturally being the game's take on the Robot Master weapons, and I think it's a brilliant system, and keeping it all on a single resource sounds very smart. Especially since you can change your loadout literally whenever.
My only complaint with the burst system is how it interacts with respawning, and how dying brings you all the way back to 0 burst energy. Not the worst thing ever since I feel plenty capable with my fists and shmovement alone, but it'd almost feel more fair if it started you with, like. At least two burst slots filled, or something.
VIXI:
Though, that does at least run with the checkpoint mechanic where each checkpoint allows you to heal at it, at the cost of a bit of your spending money. Minding this gets more and more expensive the more times you do it per stage. But this also encourages you to learn the level, and especially the boss without having to hard lean on the burst skills to bail you out of trouble. Plus after spending some time learning said boss, you can just pick up the full refill on your burst meter to tip the scale in your favor, anyway. Just being all "This time, I'll get em." once you clock their attack pattern.
-------------------------------------------------------
On top of the burst system, there are also augments you can equip. Three at a time, each one giving a fairly game-changing effect. It has some typical upgrades, like a double jump and the ability to gently float after jumping, but it has ones like giving your ground slide I-frames, upgrading your chain to drag you towards the enemy you hit it with if you hold it, which is my personal favorite.
IONO:
The only thing I really wish is that there were more game-changing ones, because the ones we just described do make things like "take more damage but deal more damage" or "pickups get magnetically attracted to you" feel like mac and cheese by comparison. Tasty in their own right, especially as a supplement, but hardly a satisfying meal by itself.
-------------------------------------------------------
And because that was apparently not enough customization, they went and snuck another system in there since the last time I played this. In the levels, you can find "palette chips", which allow you to don the color scheme of that level's boss, granting you one additional benefit, still not shirking on the weird effects they can have sometimes. I wound up gravitating towards Playful Blue, Wave Circuit's paintjob, which gives Kai a spin attack at the beginning of his jump, which naturally really combos well with the double jump chip, but it also helps deal with some of the enemies I find the most annoying, like the bats and snowman heads, so that's nice.
Break Circuit upgrades your foot-dive into a ground smash attack, Power Circuit adds little electric balls to some of your attacks, and a nice second-favorite to me was Optic Circuit's giving you essentially the same effect as the Light Alloy chip, but you also shoot a beam down below you.
Customization really is the biggest bread and butter of this game, there's so many different combinations of Bursts, Chips, and Paintjobs to choose from, that there's a game in and of itself to just find all the whacky synergies. With Optic Circuit's paintjob, it freed up a chip slot I usually reserved from Light Alloy, just because I like some safe platforming. I thought about combining the slide invincibility with Shift Circuit's colors allowing you to slide forever, but apparently they thought ahead of me on that one.
Still though, all this is merely the beginning, and I think it's a pretty genius way to make a Mega Man-style game. As much as it is fun to blitz through this game on New Game Plus with your preferred loadout already unlocked, I think there's a lot of fun to be had in figuring out your personal most ideal route through the game. Heck, maybe even break from that route, which can drastically change the way you play just because of how much your ability progression is based on which bosses you defeat.
This game doesn't have the typical Mega Man-style weakness cycle; where you go from Chill Penguin to Spark Mandrill to Armored Armadillo, just because that's just obtaining the weapon the next boss is weak to. By opting out of this system, I think it allows more routing possibilities. Sure, speedrunners have sussed out the most optimal route through the game, but they're gonna do that to every game. When I think time-attacking through this game, it's usually keeping myself as the competition. So at least to the casual player, there's no real "correct" way through the game, unlike a Mega Man X where you're really not doing yourself any favors by saving Chill Penguin for any stage other than the first one you take on.
Without the weakness system, bosses also have a lot less of being pathetically kneecapped by just shooting the correct gun at them. I think this approach works best for a game like Gravity Circuit, because here it makes skill expression the name of the game. Sure, for this playthrough, I barely scraped by the bosses, but I can attribute that to being rusty. I remember back when I was obsessed with this game, I managed to floor most bosses, even so far as perfecting Power Circuit. Which... I guess only makes sense, since I find him the easiest, but hey. Humblebrag.
Getting really practiced at the game must be really satisfying, especially minding the in-depth ranking system it has. At least in proportion to the genre of game we're talking about, here, which it ranks you on a bunch of different stats. Time, how much damage you took, how many civilian bots you rescued, enemies defeated, etc. I'm not even entirely sure if getting all of them max-ranked in one run is possible, but getting a one, beautiful run sounds like the kinda thing to really go chasing after, like they're P-ranks in Pizza Tower. If one were bold enough, of course.
With all the inspirations it brings, Gravity Circuit also brings with it all of the especially tight level design, doing the classic bit of introducing quirky level gimmicks before ramping them up more and more as the level goes on. The scrapyard having crushers to maneuver around and zombie-bots that rise up out of the rubble, and into you, if you're not careful. Other than the brief intro segment, Shift Circuit's level takes place entirely on the backs of trucks and flatbeds speeding down a highway, with you having to avoid overhead signs and surf across zones with no traffic, occasionally.
What I really love is how many of these stage gimmicks crescendo into their respective bosses, to a degree that once again outshines the very games this is taking inspiration from. Wave Circuit has these spring platforms that force-fling you into the air after a second. This compounds when fighting Wave Circuit herself, thanks to the floor in her boss room having them, and these not just effecting you, but also her and her projectile music notes. Power Circuit has the floors that become electrocuted when struck with a lightning attack, which is naturally most of Power Circuit's attack, so you're having to watch which layer of floor he's about to hit and which you're standing on. It's a big difference from Mega Man, where the stage gimmick often makes way for the boss fight rather than compliment it.
Naturally, these stage gimmicks play a part in making every level extremely distinct, Break Circuit's level featuring conveyer belts and massive breakable boxes on said conveyers, but the stage also pairs this with what is essentially a ride armor that can break those boxes and other terrain very quickly, along with the bonus of the ride armor being immune to the death-lite spikes. Optic Circuit's level combines some force beam jr.s with some of the best opportunities to use the grappling mechanic in the whole game. Like yeah, you can play it safe and just hang from the ceiling, but that's slowwwww. What makes you feel like god is skipping across the platforms for a brief moment to give yourself the running momentum so you have the swing speed to just whizz past a segment with a lot of laser traps and lava beneath.
Something that definitely makes the game feel like a challenge is how I can't help but notice there's no health pickups dropped by enemies. They'll occasionally be dropped by the floating chests you can break, as well as a set handful of spots in the stage itself, but enemies won't drop anything more than money and burst energy. There's not even any E-tank equivalent, at least nothing past Trace's learnable self-heal move. Though I can also tell this is to make way for certain chips, especially the one that converts any burst energy you gather past being full into HP. But otherwise, yeah, it's just you and your own wits to best these stages with barely more than the checkpoint repairs to help you out.
CELESTE:
I also love the way each fight reflects the Circuit boss's personality quite a bit. Hash being more about trying to outsmart you than outright beat you in a fight, his attacks moreso keeping you at bay with his hologram clones and a screen-clearing desperation move. Melody's animations are fun and bouncy, but also I love how her boss room is themed like a concert stage. Brilliant. Bit could probably mop the floor with you in his unmatched speed, except the dude can't resist showing off, and thus has an extremely obvious animation tell for each of his attacks.
-------------------------------------------------------
And something that feels like a miracle to me is the way they take all these stage mechanics and actually evolve them further for the "Wily Fortress", or in this case, Ark stages. I'd hardly be able to put an exact read on the Wily Fortress levels and their X and Zero-series equivalents without replaying those games, but they always felt like a weaker note to end an otherwise great game on. Gravity Circuit, on the other hand, has the Ark stages feel just as much a highlight of the game as the eight Circuit stages are. They take the stage hazards you're already familiar with and mix-and-match them to not just interact with each other, but also do new things with them. The biggest standout being the scrapyard's garbage chutes are dumping blocks of trash as a hazard, as usual, but in the Ark stage that features them, they're dunking the trash straight into lava, which creates a huge, screen-spanning lava wave effect that you'll have to maneuver around.
And what's better is that the bosses don't suck! The endgame bosses in the Mega Man series tend to easily be the game's lowest points to me, having attack patterns nowhere near as interesting as the Robot Masters, leading to them to either be easy or take too long. Sometimes both. Looking at you, most Devil fights. The boss fight against Nega, who turns out to be the previous host of your mcguffin, is easily the the best boss fight in the game, where he pulls out plenty of surprises. It's always hit or miss when a game tries to turn a player character (or adjacent to being playable) into a boss fight, and this easily has to be one of the best instances of it that I've seen, with how his phases have him start equipping chips and burst moves, which is just golden.
The second Ark boss is also one of the best implementations of a boss rush I've seen in a game, compressing it all into a single fight where the giant crystal machine randomly copies moves from one of the bosses before throwing you into a simulation where you fight that boss's second phase. Seemingly with a little less health, which is fair, given this is basically a 16-phase boss fight. I mainly just wish it didn't checkpoint you on Normal difficulty, because way back when, I would've loved to be able to blast through the whole gauntlet on one try. And I DID manage to do it this time, so hell yeah.
And furthermore, the final boss tickles that itch I always love with final bosses being longass multi-phase gauntlets of fights, having you beat down a brainwashed buddy before progressing into the final boss itself, making this overall a five-phase fight which is very satisfying to learn and execute successfully.
But to pivot into more of the game's presentation, the game naturally has music that are humongous stand-outs, most tracks in the game once again rivalling the legendary musical pedigree of the series it pulls inspiration from. Most in particular, I love Break Circuit's stage theme, with Power Circuit and Wave Circuit as close runner-ups. And some of the final stage tracks are up there as well, the soundtrack is all over just killer and if nothing else I'd definitely recommend giving it a listen.
LUNA:
And on top of everything else, the game is a heck of a looker, too, with a fairly distinct pixel-art style that definitely leans into an NES-to-SNES style presentation, but I think compliments it nicely with every character having an extremely limited color palette, usually being mostly one solid color with very close accents, and it's a nice look. Super pretty!
-------------------------------------------------------
The story maybe isn't a focus, but it's still nonetheless a non-negligible presence, with the game playing with the idea of robots rebelling against their programming, but not in the more usual reject-humanity kind of way, rather the opposite. The whole purpose of the Ark, the Circuits, and the robots the onboard factory builds is to terraform planets in preparation for the arrival of their creators, before leaving and moving on to the next planet.
But as you'll learn, doing this causes all of the common robots to shut down. The Circuits, which are the cool headcrests with personas installed on them, didn't like this, so they decided to stop and settle down on one planet to build their own robot-society. However, a mysterious army of mindless robots rises and wreaks havoc on said robot society, killing the circuits. Only for them to return again later, now turned sides. Other than Gravity Circuit himself, of course.
It maybe doesn't go a ton of places with the interesting premise, but the writing still carries interest plenty, with it keeping more light-hearted than the premise might make it sound. Especially with the presence of Kernel, who starts and ends every level with a corny dad joke. (I guess that's why they call him "Kernel".)
Though it still knows when to get serious, and not have it feel out of left-field. Nega foreshadows his status as the original host of the Gravity Circuit by his reminiscing any time you defeat a Circuit, and just the fact that he gives you the ability to use Burst techniques in the first place. And of course, the surprise reveal of Command Circuit, who needs to wrangle up all the Circuits in order to leave. Though even beyond him following seemingly purely robotic orders to perform his function, even he admitted he wanted to travel the stars again, which is an oddly human motivation for an antagonist.
And of course, these "masters" stay shrouded in mystery, it not even necessarily being clear if their human, let alone still alive to begin with. But I still think the game comes to a satisfying conclusion; not every question needs to have a definitive answer.
Gravity Circuit is simply killer on all accounts, in my opinion, going far harder than any official Mega Man game has, delivering on a thrilling action-platformer which, while maybe not ULTRA-exceptional, is still far from your run-of-the-mill "good". And I know I keep bringing Mega Man up, but it is at least in part because of that particular franchise's odd status, with it going dead, reviving however briefly, only for it to go cold again. Maybe we'll not really see Mega Man games release on a regular basis anymore, but I feel like Gravity Circuit is all the proof I need that I don't need Capcom-sanctioned super fighting robots to get that particular itch scratched.
-------------------------------------------------------
VIXI SCORE: 9/10
This game is VERY satisfying to play well and at least casually speedrun! The level design feels adjusted to a precise T, and it's even pretty meaty for a simple Mega Man-like. I only fear that every Mega Man-like I play from here on is gonna be at least subconciously compared to it.
LUNA SCORE: 10/10
Amazing art! Amazing sound track! Really fun to fly around in! I only wish there were more places to use the grapple hook cause it's just that good. Amazing!
JINX SCORE: 10/10
fine capcom keep making resident evils or whatever i'm fine with this over here
IONO SCORE: 9/10
It could swing a little harder, especially since Kai feels like he can get pretty overtuned now, but what's there is REALLY REALLY FANTASTIC WOW.
CELESTE SCORE: 9/10
The grappling has its moments where I wished it was more of a 360 angle, or at least had more than just eight directions to grapple in. But it's hard to argue that everything else here is top-notch stuff!
OVERALL SCORE: 47/50
Coming up next on Mythinks: An older indie that took me a while to get around to playing.
