Gunked up.
The Gunk, the latest title from SteamWorld’s Image and Form games reminds me of the era of the PS2 when new IPs were released one week and then forgotten the next. From games such as Extermination, Primal, or Freedom Fighters, each resonated in their own way, despite being games that would never reach much acclaim other than retrospective videos on YouTube about forgotten gems of a past generation. The Gunk is very much one of those games that while enjoyable for the brief few hours it takes to complete, isn't going to likely be remembered that much going forward.
Broke and looking for a big payday, Rani and Beck land on an uncharted planet in hopes it contains something that can make them a quick buck. As they explore this grimey and bland world, they discover that much of that dark and gloomy aesthetic is due to a gunk that has consumed much of the planet. Equipped, coincidently with a vacuum arm of all things, Rani is capable of sucking up said gunk, transforming the recently barren and colorless environment into the lush and colorful paradise it once was. While treating the land by cleaning up this pollution, Rani will discover a long-lost event that transformed the planet into this desolate and barren wasteland and bring it upon themselves to hopefully right the wrong and save the planet and its people.
While The Gunk has a thrilling concept in its story, it's largely focused on conversations largely between Rani and Beck to push the story forward. While Rani will discover much of what is going on through her solo explorable curiosity, and while initially against the wishes of Beck, her justification of wanting to help does genuinely come across due to some fairly decent voice work by Fiona Nova as Rani, and Abigail Turner as Beck, even if I feel that some of the dialogue is laughably bad from time to time. The Gunk is not a long adventure, coming in at around 4-5 hours, so there is not much filler or additional quests to bog down the story and instead allows its narrative to feel front and center.
The Gunk has a very simple execution in its mechanics and ideas as apart from some basic platforming and light combat, you'll have a few upgrades to unlock to push through certain progress blocks the game throws at you, and no, this isn't a Metroidvania. You'll earn these upgrades by collecting planetary resources like plants and minerals; however, they largely don't feel like they make a substantial impact other than a few of them offering such abilities as firing off a blast to unlock doors, launching probes to distract enemies, or increasing the range and suck power of your vacuum arm. There is a decent amount to unlock and craft at your ship’s crafting station and you'll increase your range of upgrades oddly by filling an experience bar by scanning the plants and other oddities you find on the planet’s surface. This is likely designed to prevent any sort of over-leveling as they can control how much you’ll have access to scan at key moments in the game.
Most of The Gunk has you platforming or pulling switches to move things in the environment to traverse gaps or using your vacuum arm to clear gunk infestations to cause plants to spring up and create platforms that allow you to continue on. You'll also encounter specialized plants that give you seeds to throw into pools of water to create additional platforms or explosive seeds that can allow you to reach gunk that is beyond your arms capabilities. The gameplay loop present here is the same you'll experience in the first hour or so without much else to shake up that formula in any surprising ways. There isn’t really anything this game does that shakes up its loop or grants way to any sort of surprises that you won’t already see coming.
While there are enemies to fight, you don't have any sort of combat mechanics other than sucking up little enemies and throwing them, or dodging rampaging larger beasts and sucking up the gunk that they house on their back. The latter has you trained to use cover to have them smash into it, whereas as the second time you fight them, it's in an area that is so small and without cover that you're likely going to die due to the incredibly close camera and janky dodging controls. It's a shame that Rani didn't have the ability to use her arm to have some sort of deflector striking attack to make combat a larger focus here, but that's just me. That said, the final battle itself does make good use of her arm and the arrangement of enemies the game has. Honestly, had there been more encounters like this, I would have enjoyed the game likely far more than I did as it created something new to do amongst the repetition.
The environments are solid enough and are often visually stunning, and the way you explore and scan reminds me of Journey to the Savage Planet. In fact, I couldn't shake that comparison throughout the entire game. While each game does things differently, I will say the gameplay and world variety is certainly better there than it is here, but the narrative and story are serviced far better with The Gunk than Journey to the Savage Planet tried to do. The fact that The Gunk relies on a sole gameplay mechanic in sucking up the gunk does wear itself a bit thin, even with the short playtime. You'll get some variety in the gunk itself, and a few enemies that try to shake up the normal loop present here, but never in a way where it feels refreshing or something new thrown at you.
The Gunk is more or less a game that is certainly decent to play around in, but it's never more than just what that first hour of the game gives you. The story is certainly decent with some dialogue that is often better than it's not, but from a gameplay perspective, there isn't a single thing here that feels original in any capacity. We've had the strange planet scanning platformer many times before, and done better as well, and even sucking up things with a vacuum gave Luigi his own series of three enjoyable games. However; should The Gunk return with a better focus on carving its own identity, then I would certainly be interested in seeing where it may go, but as it stands, The Gunk is a good game that simply doesn't have what it takes to be that memorable.
Developer - Image & Form Games, Thunderful Development AB. Publisher - Thunderful Group, Thunderful Publishing. Released - December 16th, 2021. Available On - Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows. Rated - (E 10) Violence, Language, Blood.
Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X/S. Review Access - The Gunk was downloaded off of Game Pass by the reviewer.