Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines

My first impression of Cosmic Canines was that it looked like a safe follow-up riding the goodwill of the original Grapple Dog. About twenty minutes in, that impression was wrong. Medallion Games did the sensible thing: they audited what frustrated players in the first game and fixed nearly all of it. Pablo's old momentum meter, which forced you to get a run-up before every major leap, is gone entirely. The punishing bounce pads have been swapped for stomp pads that don't penalise a slightly off angle. What's left is a precision platformer that actually respects your time, while still having enough bite to keep things honest. The headline addition is Luna, and she is far from a palette-swap. Pablo handles enemies up close with punches, a ground pound, and wall jumps, keeping his sections focused on pure platforming flow. Luna, by contrast, carries a gun and an air dash, which edges her stages into twin-stick shooter territory. She can fire while hanging on the grapple rope, air-dash to dodge attacks, and swap out secondary weapons as the world themes change. The two characters get their own dedicated levels built around their strengths, so you're never forcing a square peg into a round hole. Swapping between them does carry a small tax: muscle memory for one will occasionally make you jump on an enemy as Luna (she takes damage for that) or try to dash as Pablo (he can't). A minor annoyance, but worth flagging. Variety is where this game really pulls ahead. Each of the four worlds introduces a new batch of elemental power-ups that apply differently depending on which dog you're running. Pablo can transform into a lightning ball and zip across magnetic wall panels; Luna gets a flamethrower variant that clears deadly vines. There are rhythm-based stages where platforms blink in and out with the beat, barrel-cannon sections, and time-trial challenge levels layered on top of the main campaign. The collectible structure asks you to find three hidden gems per level to unlock further stages, which occasionally means backtracking through a level you thought you'd finished. That is the most consistent criticism across reviews, and it is legitimate: a couple of those gem hunts grind the momentum to a halt in a game that is otherwise built around feeling fast. Boss fights are a slight weak point too. They lean harder into combat than into the traversal that makes the rest of the game sing, and a few of them feel mismatched with the platforming-first identity the levels establish. The story, however, overdelivers for a game this colourful. The multiverse plot goes to some surprisingly dark places, and Luna's grumpy-pragmatist dynamic against Pablo's cheerful naivety generates genuine laughs across the NPC dialogue. Accessibility options, including invulnerability and infinite jumps, are available from the main menu and toggleable mid-run, which makes this viable for younger players or anyone who just wants to see the content without the friction. If you have no history with Grapple Dog, this still works as a standalone entry, though the original is short and worth playing first given it's bundled alongside this on Steam. Cosmic Canines sits comfortably in the same tier as the better 90s-influenced 2D platformers releasing today, and the dual-character structure gives it more replay texture than most of its peers.

Alex · Scout Team

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