Sannabi: The Revenant's demo has a lovely grappling hook
And lovely pixel art
I love a good grappling hook, and Sannabi: The Revenant is an action platformer all about using a grappling hook to swing through levels and skewer enemies. It's a bit like Katana Zero, too, and there's a demo available for the next week.
The demo is available via Steam from today until March 18th. I've had a play of it and it's good stuff. It starts with a tutorial that explains the basics: you can climb certain surfaces, wall jump, and use your grapple to swing and boost. In combat, the grapple lets you thrust towards enemies, killing them instantly but freezing time so you can choose the direction of your next move.
Katana Zero was a different kind of action platformer, with a different rhythm, but I think the comparison is apt. Sannabi has a similarly light cyberpunk setting, mostly taking part in a corporate-controlled megacity; a similarly dark story communicated partially via flashbacks and oblique dream sequences; and most importantly, text boxes where the words jitter.
Also: they both have sumptuous, detailed pixel art animation. The game is developed by a five-person studio called Wonder Potion and this is their first game, but it's being published by Neowiz, who seem to be publishing a lot of gorgeous pixel art games lately. They released Skul: The Hero Slayer back in January.
I played the Sannabi demo and had a good time with it for 30 minutes. At that point, I started to die more, and every third death seemed to send me back to the start of the level. That might prove too harsh for me, but I look forward to seeing more - though there's currently no announced release date.