Gravity Ghost review: Orbiting around the heart

The last time I remember having this much fun jumping around a bunch of little video game planets was in Super Mario Galaxy. Arguably Nintendo's best game of the 21st century, Galaxy asked players to contend with outer-space gravity while doing the usual 3D-Mario things like jumping on goombas and collecting stars. It shined thanks to small, smart levels, but like most Mario games, it didn't have much in the way of heart (Rosalina sequences notwithstanding).

Over seven years later, we haven't really seen a substantial platforming game that mined from Super Mario Galaxy's best gravity-based twists (unless you count the sequel, Super Mario Galaxy 2). That means this week's modest, adorable Gravity Ghost doesn't have many peers. It too asks players to hop around a bunch of little video game planets while contending with gravity—and, hey, it even asks players pick up stars along the way.

I make the Mario Galaxy comparison not because Gravity Ghost is a once-in-a-generation masterpiece, but rather to blow up any assumptions that this smaller game is just an "arty" throwaway. First-impression attributes like crayon-styled images and a sad, family-obsessed story are quickly married with a simple, solid gameplay mechanic and a surprising amount of platforming depth. Bittersweet storytelling and kid-friendly twitch-platforming come together in a game that, at its best, can be enjoyed equally by parents and their children.

Diamond planets are a ghost's best friend

The game opens with players taking control of a long-haired ghost searching for a fox spirit lost among the stars. Your ghost has an apparent link to a young girl on Earth, whose stories of family and loss are told via animated cut scenes throughout her journey to connect other spirit animals to their rightful place in the universe.

Play is pretty simple from the outset. Players walk around 2D planets, hopping between intersecting gravity wells and adjusting their orbits while mid-air to float toward and grab the game's slew of star and flower pick-ups. You're essentially trying to ping-pong from one orbit to the next, at least at first. Before long, the game reveals multiple types of planets, which each have their own attributes, thus complicating your orbit-hunting process. You can swim through water planets; air planets work like pinball bumpers; diamond planets have more intense gravity; and fire planets actively repel your hero.

By the end of the game, tricky levels ask you to carefully navigate how you float through space as you contend with competing planets' gravities and attributes—and in many cases, terraforming them yourself so that you can change how they make you float around (like turning an annoying fire planet into a more friendly grass planet). There's a little hint of Metroid apparent in Gravity Ghost's large world map, in that the game doles out new maneuvers and terraforming abilities over time. The game is actually quite meek about those power-ups, as you never have to backtrack to solve a previously unsolvable puzzle. Some players may find that welcome, but I would have liked a few "Oh cool, now I can finish that thing from before" moments of discovery.

The basic mechanic of floating and weaving between planets feels satisfying—and even relaxing—because of the lack of time limit and deadly creatures. Since you can neither die nor fail, you can lose yourself on occasion to lengthy float-a-ramas, especially if you're trying to collect all of the flower icons floating around. These flowers are so plentiful that you're never likely to run out of the crucial terraforming ability they grant, but they still offer a satisfying "plunk" sound with every grab.

Fantasia's misfit children

Even if the game itself wasn't great, it could scrape by on sheer aesthetics alone. Ben Prunty, the musician behind FTL's soundtrack, chips in a melodic score of somber-yet-catchy electronic tunes, while game creator and artist Erin Robinson flexes her hand-drawn chops with explosively colorful characters. The game's wealth of "spirit animals" look like Fantasia's misfit children, and the titular ghost comes complete with a beautifully animated hair-trail effect that sees her locks following her every movement as she floats through space.

The story follows multiple female protagonists, each coping with loss and family issues at different ages, and its success lies in its use of white space. It weaves simple, formative experiences together to feel more like a fly-on-the-wall look at the wonder of youth than a carefully crafted, film-worthy narrative. At its best, there's a pure, autobiographical feeling in certain sequences, especially those with the thoughtful, geometry-obsessed grandma. Sadly, that means some of the game's most emotional moments don't come thanks to intense character development but rather melodrama, which at least makes sense in the context of Gravity Ghost's storybook-style treatment and script. That is to say, you may cry, but you won't necessarily remember the characters' names.

The game's cast of voice actors contains a mix of solid and stilted contributors, but I mostly wanted to mute it thanks to its overuse of Ashly Burch, best known for the Web series "Hey Ash, Whatcha Playing" and her voiceover work in the Borderlands games. Her squeakiness and enthusiasm come off as tone-deaf to the situations her characters face; just because those characters are young doesn't mean they can't have an emotional range.

These issues with the story aren't major failings, though. Really, the only issue that stuck with me after my brief time with the game (I gathered every collectible in three hours) was the way it concluded shortly after teasing some of its toughest, most creative levels. Gravity Ghost doles out a lot of maneuvers to make floating around the cosmos easier, but some of the levels are designed in ways that are too easy to beat once you have every power-up—especially the mid-air jump that essentially lets you float endlessly. I would love to see a follow-up expansion with some "challenge" levels or power-up restrictions to highlight just how tricky and fun some of its most inventive gravity-puzzle moments can get.

Until that expansion appears, I'll be content with memories of Gravity Ghost's somber whimsy. I wouldn't hesitate to share this beautiful, tricky game with a casual gamer, a platform-game junkie, or a child; it comes with a dark-yet-wholesome mindset that handles loss and adolescence with kindness and grace—and it squeezes in plenty of sweet, orbit-powered planet-hopping to boot.

The good

• A surprisingly robust gravity-fueled twist on 2D platforming
• Visual and sound design make this feel like a storybook of a game
• Pleasant enough for newbies, with a few good challenge spikes for diehards
• Somber story is told in a sensitive manner, so parents shouldn't fear sharing this with kiddos

The bad

• Some of the most emotional moments lean too hard on melodrama
• Power-ups make some of the more challenging levels way too easy to beat
• Game would benefit from a "challenge" pack of trickier levels to max out the game's cool mechanics

The ugly

• Voice acting, at its worst, made me hit the mute button and stick with captions

Verdict: Buy it if you have kids or casual-gaming friends to share it with.