We all have seen many Mega Man games, their spin-offs and their installments, and many more games inspired from and improved upon the whole series Capcom provided over the years, but I spotted one that is quite a bit different from many...
That would be "
Gravity Circuit", made by an indie game called Domesticated Ant Games, with publishing help from PID Games for consoles, and the game's framework was run on the Löve Framework itself(Small Fact; the framework's version codenames are referenced from Nickelodeon's "Invader Zim" series, and I do mean, they are all based on its references. The devs behind really love it so much to garner fans attention and quote nods to it. I can already imagine "Florpus" as a later version codename *laugh*).
The story of Gravity Circuit centers on a rather alien-ish world populated by what I can pretty much presume a whole race of alien-like robots that established their colony on that planet eons ago, but for what, few know not. On a particular digging operation, a buried structure was found beneath the planet's depths, plainly called "The Ark"(name could've been more uniquely fitting instead of being generically plain and dull, in my perspective), and the robots that found it are curiously eager to uncover its great secrets and unfold many mysteries...
Not too long, though, a great force of its evil emerged...
That force took on the form of a large army of vile robots of different shapes and sizes called the "Virus Army"(again, obviously generic, and could've thrown in a unique name change to stand it out more), and unleashed great destruction on their cities, in numerous waves of attacks the citizens couldn't handle.
To combat this threat, a heroic faction has formed as their means of quashing out the army's forces, which would be called the "Guardian Corps", and their formation would give rise to a new roster of strong protectors capable of stopping threats, including the Virus Army, which is called the Circuits.
With their strength and powers, the Circuits drove out the Virus Army's attacks and protected the citizens of their world after long battles against them, but one Circuit, the soon-to-be central hero of it all, the Gravity Circuit, Kai, went and got damaged in battle, leaving him down and out for the count, and needed to undergo repairs for his service in fighting against that army.
The Virus Army appeared to be subsided, but the true source of it wouldn't go inactive after such a thwarting, leaving its return inevitable...
And it came to pass many years later, and to make matters a bit worse, most of the Circuits that fought against that army went rogue on them, re-dubbing them the "Rebel Circuits", who have obviously fallen under the influence of the Virus Army, and another horrible conflict continuing the original carries on... until one day, Kai re-awakened, and seems to have no memory of what's going on...
Still, he and the Guardian Corps, led by Kernel, would not let this war go unnoticed, and it would soon be up to the Gravity Circuit himself to take the fight to the Virus Army and put a complete stop to them and the actual villainous force behind it once and for all, beginning his adventure.
The gameplay follows quite much of Mega Man's games, more strongly "Mega Man X", having an "Opening Stage" to get any player up to speed on controls and goals in the game, and upon defeating the boss, a batch of stages are given to be completed before going to the multi-stage finale. The only difference is, the robot hero doesn't actually rely on built-in weaponry and armaments from their metallic limbs, but rather through good-old humane defenses of fisticuffs, an anchoring grappling hook, and many different upgrades that provide numerous abilities, along with hidden health and energy increase found on each main stage's secret paths.
As we guessed, each main stage is themed on the boss robots themselves, the Rebel Circuits and their villainous purpose they're committing to disrupting the robot citizens' livelihoods in each stage, in this case...
The Power Circuit, Cable.
The Optic Circuit, Ray.
The Cooler Circuit, Blade.
The Break Circuit, Crash.
The Patch Circuit, Trace.
The Cipher Circuit, Hash.
The Wave Circuit, Medley.
The Shift Circuit, Bit.
And, at the end of each stage, a boss fight against them takes place, and their central essences are obtained and stored into the Guardian Corps HQ's vault in victory.
The game really delves into Hi-Bit territory, but the palettes are a bit more colorful than those of Mega Man's games... at least, comparably. The stages were loads of fun to play through and the enemies were a thrill to trash! The sprites are quite expressive in-game, too.
To better adhere its Hi-Bit meaning and aesthetics, the game's account on Twitter/X explains the game's fantasy console rules for it, as proven in this link here -
https://x.com/GravityCircuit/status/1271825136132526080There's so much to explore and obtain in each stage, and patches providing more than cosmetics kept providing us with a bit more to do. I don't mind it, though, but I still strongly feel the game should have a sequel that continues its formula, with a couple of improvements, even having longer and bigger stages, and maybe actual voice acting.
The sound effects are mostly made through FamiTracker, which is nice, and I do enjoy hearing good sounds made from it. The soundtrack by Dominic Ninmark is excellent to hear, too!
The game only has two minibosses, Scrap Golem in Trace's stage, and V. Assault Heli in Bit's stage, which are unfittingly bunched into the bestiary as enemies, rather than giving their own section there. Disappointing to me. I expected more.
One user asked about each stage having a miniboss from the game's Twitter/X account after playing the demo. The only answer was that not every stage has one, unfortunately, and it would take time to retrofit the minibosses into the remaining stages that don't have them. It sounds simple to say, but to actually do it with the process in patching the game, not entirely impossible, only they just don't feel the effort in doing it. Hopefully, the sequel can take care of it, even towards the opening and finale stages(Mega Man X3 does have unique minibosses in its opening stage and Doppler's Lab's stages, and I enjoyed toppling them).
The answer is in the game's Twitter/X account's link here -
https://x.com/GravityCircuit/status/1674094880501399553Of my favorite stages, Medley's was my great favorite, from a good ascent to the top to confront her, to the music itself giving out a good feel to dance to it.
The (
SPOILER) Ark's 2nd Stage, Machinery, really put a place as a favorite stage of mine, even the theme, but the fight against the Crystal Circuit itself really puts a completely different twist on the boss rush structure from past Mega Man games; those had us fighting each boss robot one at a time, at our non-linear choice before facing Dr. Wily in his Wily Machines and Wily Capsules.
In Gravity Circuit's case, the bosses are all fought randomly NON-STOP as part of ONE WHOLE FIGHT against Crystal Circuit, who uses their essences to form virtual husks of the Rebel circuits inside its digital arenas, all using their same powers from before. It's like the standard Mega Man boss rush, but STREAMLINED! And, I love it!
Aside from it not yet being mapped(though we do have tools and techniques on doing so, and more yet to be made), Gravity Circuit remains a great Mega Man inspired game to be enjoyed! If anyone's up to giving it a go, feel free! I'm still eager to see "
Gravity Circuit II" real soon!
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