Thank You Szilard Papp for providing us with a review code!

I didn’t expect anyone to make a spiritual successor to Kula World of all things. A PS1 puzzle with a unique premise. The game is played on a grid, but the grid itself is in a full 3D environment. It utilizes gravity so that your character (or in Kula World’s case, the ball) can move on the underside and multiple axes to become an abnormal platformer that is easy to learn, but very difficult to understand, let alone master.

The Gravity Trickster is heavily inspired by Kula World to the point it may as well be an expansion pack. Of course, since 25 years have passed, the graphics have significantly improved. The Gravity Trickster takes a more science-fiction approach to its visuals and aesthetics compared to the more surreal and party-like visuals of Kula World.

With 150 levels in total and all of them taking around 60 seconds or less to complete, there is quite a lot of content to The Gravity Trickster. So if your IQ is 200 and above, it’ll only take you two and a half hours or less to complete, right? Regrettably, that’s not how it will play out for you. The Gravity Trickster is constantly introducing new mechanics and hazards to keep in mind such as spikes, crumbling grids, and fire blocks that you can’t stay on for too long. After the first five levels, the difficulty ramps up considerably.

The Gravity Trickster is one of those games that you learn as you go along. There is not a single tutorial or hint system, evoking a trial-and-error playstyle. You’ll be making leaps of faith constantly—as well as failing constantly. If you’re one of those easily frustrated players, I would recommend to stop reading here.

The default difficulty is normal, which is what I assumed the game experience is balanced around. You have a timer as stated above and you earn a score based on what you collect throughout the level. You also can pick up B.O.N.U.S. letters scattered throughout every 5 levels (similar to K.O.N.G. in the Donkey Kong Country series), and if you collect them all, the sixth level will be a bonus stage. The game also saves your progress every five levels. On normal, if you fail a level, your score will go down. And the penalty increases every time you fail.

My problem is that the normal difficulty is borderline impossible to beat without tons of trial-and-error or without completely tanking your score. Easy removes the score penalty but keeps the timer, and “no stress” removes the timer so you can take your time. Even so, no stress difficulty can still bring about anger as the trial-and-error learning curve still exists due to things such as limited camera control and field of view.

My other issue is the lack of a practice mode toggle. In many puzzle-platformer hybrids (namely the Super Monkey Ball series), the moment you complete a level, you can practice it to your heart's content. Not in The Gravity Trickster! It’s also like this in Kula World, but that came out in 1998. If you want to practice, let's say, level 84 in The Gravity Trickster, you’re forced to play through levels 81, 82, and 83 as you can only choose in 5 level intervals (level 1, level 6, level 11, etc.). Considering that every level has objects to collect and a timer to beat, a lack of reliable practice mode/toggle is such a strange decision.

A minor issue I also have is that it takes too long to restart stages. In Kula World, failing is near-instantaneous, and getting back into the experience is just as fast. Despite The Gravity Trickster running on substantially stronger hardware compared to Kula World, loading takes about a few seconds at most and there is a countdown before any level begins. Because you’ll be failing a lot, all this time adds up when you just want to be thrown back into the game. I’ve played many games like this and they all understood not to delay the player for their mistakes. I’d even like a button on the controller that is a dedicated reset button so I wouldn’t have to pause and hit restart mission every time I fall off a stage. (Falling off a stage is the biggest time waster as the death trigger is located way below the stage.)

There’s not much more to say about The Gravity Twister. You get to unlock some cosmetics for your robot, but outside of completing all the levels and collecting trophies, that's all there is to it. I appreciate the fact that it took a forgotten game and made it accessible to a modern audience, but it also didn’t improve on, or even fix the issues of Kula World. The Gravity Trickster feels more like a faithful remake than an evolution to the experience. It sounds like throughout all of this I didn’t enjoy The Gravity Trickster much. That would be correct as I've had my fill of trial-and-error puzzle experiences throughout the decades. But while I don’t have a single urge to revisit, let alone beat all the stages, I can still recommend this experience to people. Just the smart kind of people, not an idiot like me. Since it’s a rather simplistic puzzle game at its core, groups across all ages and demographics can pick it up safely.