Grid Force: Mask of the Goddess Review: The Matrix For a New Generation

There are times I take a game for review completely on a whim, just because something about the title speaks to me. The artwork, the story, maybe even the gameplay style. With Grid Force: Mask of the Goddess, all three jumped out at me, but especially the neon-soaked and punchy artwork. Even though I was more than a little intimidated by the concept of the game being a tactical bullet-hell, I figured I’d give it a shot. While there’s a lot I enjoyed about the game, ultimately Grid Force failed to completely hook me. Keep reading to discover why.

Reboot the World

It’s hard to center the intriguing premise of the game. Earlier I called it a new type of Matrix, but that’s just a rough approximation. The story takes place in a world called Gora. You wake up floating in a void, bereft of your memories. Apparently, this isn’t your first rodeo, but you typically retain your memories of past adventures. You play a young woman named Donna, a champion of the Goddess Clea, a god-like entity called a Machinae. She claims her fellow goddesses were driven mad in the latest reboot of the titular grid, which itself determines how the world will be shuffled into a new form. Your job, then, is to defeat them in battle and take the source of their power, their mask, away from them.

It’s a lot to process, especially with the amnesia theme. Luckily there are a lot of plucky characters around to help Donna make sense of things. Her initial gal pals are the child-like Pan, motherly Bird, and fierce Koniko (though you wouldn’t think Koniko was her friend at first). That’s only a small smattering of the individuals that can join your crusade. You’ll face off against a lot of others in your adventure, and it’s totally up to you whether you recruit them or leave them to their own devices. Just know that choosing to abandon someone might lead to negative repercussions later, and the game is full of such choices in a weaving narrative.

Dodge, Fire, Deflect, Repeat

If you think all that sounds complex, wait until we get into how Grid Force: Mask of the Goddess actually plays! The game calls itself a tactical bullet hell, but that’s not entirely correct, at least in my estimation. It’s more of a weird mix of a Shump and Mega Man Battle Network. You don’t just control Donna during battle, but a group of 4. At first, that just consists of Donna, Pan, Bird, and Koniko, but eventually, you can swap out any character for another in your active roster. During battle, your first goal is to move around the battle grid to dodge bullets and retaliate with your own attacks. These cost Force, which can be replenished with items that appear on the field, but that’s pretty rare. Usually, you’ll instead need to swap out a character and let them recover, which is generally the way to go.

The upside is that you’ll recover health this way, and can even revive downed allies if stay alive long enough for them to respawn. The downside to this is you have to remember how each character differs in combat fresh in your mind at all times. Especially since there’s an elemental weakness chart that the game only shows you once and then never brings up again. Long story short, some elemental attacks deal more damage to specific elements, some deal less. If you find your attacks doing almost nothing, it’s best to swap out for another heroine. I did appreciate how fast-paced the combat was, and it’s relatively easy to change squad members with a press of LB or RB buttons. Where things get a bit trickier is deflecting enemy projectiles.

Once you defeat a boss and steal their mask, you can use it to summon them during battle, dealing massive damage.

At first, most foes can just be defeated by dodging and firing back at them. But pretty quickly, Grid Force introduces foes with shields you’ll need to shatter to deal any real damage. Though you can do this with standard and special attacks, there’s a more effective way – hitting their shields with deflected projectiles. Most shots can be deflected, though there’s also plenty that can’t, denoted by a cursor on the screen. Let me tell you, when you get the timing down, you’ll feel like a god doing this, since doing it repeatedly will also stagger foes, leaving them prone while you wail on them for a few seconds. When you get the timing off, you’ll feel like a fool and suffer a lot of damage in the bargain. There’s really no middle ground, and there are a lot of different projectiles, all with their own movement speed, look, and sound. It’s a lot to keep straight, and I admit I got more than a little frustrated by how much the game fixated on this mechanic. Thankfully, there’s an upgrade system that helped alleviate some of my frustration.

Enhance Your Divas

After each battle, you’ll acquire items called Sigils. These can be spent to upgrade your team between battles. You can boost various stats, from offense to defense and even Force. Depending on the character, some stats will be more expensive to upgrade than others. Once you’ve boosted a certain amount of stats, you’ll learn a new attack. Plus, if you manage to boost the same stat a couple times in a row, you’ll increase the upper limit for that character’s stat growth. I promise it’s less complex than it sounds, and it quickly became pretty intuitive. All I’ll suggest is you pay attention when you learn a new skill, since these can really save your bacon in battle. Some are passive, and some can be activated with a button, but either way, they’ll increase your chances of survival.

A Mixed Bag

STOP PUNCHING ME!

When the combat works well, Grid Force is a joy to play. It’s incredibly fast-paced and smooth. But by the same token, it’s really annoying when you find yourself in an especially rough battle, of which there are many. Some examples can include mini-boss battles, but even regular battles can be overwhelming. As an example, there’s one recurring enemy in The Burg that fires three giant fists at you simultaneously in rapid succession. If you miss deflecting this a couple times, you’re gonna find yourself dead pretty quickly. There are also some annoying moments when foes can freeze your active character, forcing you to switch to another. One noteworthy boss even could steal my teammates, using them against me in battle.

Gorgeous Gora

Visually I’m incredibly impressed by Grid Force. I love bright colors and unique character designs, and this has both. The game also features really attractive comic book panels to continue the narrative. My only minor complaint about these is at first, they’re all in bold color, but later on, a majority of them are in black and white instead. I would have almost preferred having less of these moments and instead having them all be in vivid color. Musically the game is fine, though I don’t recall any tune really sticking in my head. That said, there are good audio cues for enemy attacks, and that’s always good in a game this frenetic.

Room For Improvement

I’m all for weaknesses, but don’t take away my ability to check on them during battle.

I don’t have a lot of huge complaints about Grid Force. I already mentioned that the combat can be really challenging and sometimes overwhelming, even with pretty solid gamepad controls. My biggest issue is in a game all about dodging bullets, I feel it’s asking a bit too much to also force the player to regularly deflect them. Though, as someone that’s admittedly not a fan of the Souls genre, maybe I have a particular dislike of an overwhelming focus on this sort of thing.

Also, though this is more of a side note, I’m not sure if I’m the target audience for this premise. While I love the art style and colors, I also strongly suspect Grid Force is heavily geared towards the lesbian community. Not only are all the characters I encountered female, but there’s an early reference to Karens. Which isn’t a bad thing, mind you. It just might limit the scope for who will be drawn to this game with a huge roster of female-only characters.

Survive the Grid

Despite my issues with the game, I still feel that Grid Force: Mask of the Goddess is worth checking out. The only proviso is that you have to be willing to deal with a complex combat system that is often overly demanding. But if you’re open minded and don’t mind a little suffering, this is definitely a title worth investigating.

Final Verdict: 3.5/5

Available on: PC (reviewed), Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S; Publisher: Gravity Game Arise Co., Playtra Games; Developer: Dreamnauts Studios; Players: 1; Released: September 15, 2022; MSRP: $24.99

Editor’s note: The publisher provided a review copy to Hey Poor Player.