Gunfire Reborn Review by Yun-Kun Gunfire Reborn Review Table of Content Table of Content 1 The Bads 3 Overwhelming Tutorial 3 Overwhelming Description 3 Gameplay Clarity 3 Character Fantasy 3 Character Diversity 3 Lack of Customization 3 Cooperation Diversity 3 Standard Level Design 3 Grind 4 Enemy Diversity 4 Searching Things 4 Faltering Rhythm 4 Resource Feedback 4 Dash Feeling 4 Level Verticality 4 Reload 4 “Random” Environments 5 Input Recording 5 The Goods 6 Price 6 Theme, Colours, FX 6 4 Players 6 Pick and Play 6 Weapon Diversity 6 Upgrades 6 Scrolls 6 Cursed Scrolls 7 Combat 7 1/9 Gunfire Reborn Review by Yun-Kun Dash 7 Grenade 7 Enemy Specialties 7 Explosive Barrels 8 Tactical Enemy Variations 8 Time to Kill 8 Bouquet and Elites 8 Resource Consumption & Regeneration Rate 8 Player Shield 8 Gunfeel 8 Pickup Feeling 9 Shooter Looter Feeling 9 Boss Takedown Feeling 9 Macro Boss Fights 9 Progression Feeling 9 Armory, Bestiary, Library 9 Scoreboard 9 Weapon Unlock/Tutorial System 10 Conclusion 10 2/9 Gunfire Reborn Review by Yun-Kun The Bads Overwhelming Tutorial A bit daunting to follow with all these texts, popups and input locks. Overwhelming Description It’s hard to differentiate the different “text blocks” contained within gameplay descriptions. Considering the amount of description there is, it slows down everything else. Gameplay Clarity It’s hard to differentiate enemies from the environment, it’s hard to read incoming attack patterns and it’s hard to know when an enemy is getting close to you. Fortunately cooperation didn’t seem to add that much visual cluster. Character Fantasy Kitty and Doggo. I like them. But eh, they are not crazy charismatic and they don’t really inspire anything else than... kitty and doggo. Character Diversity There will likely be more character in the future but for now the limited choice (and the required grind to unlock the second one) makes the replayability really low on this side. Lack of Customization No customization (whether cosmetic or gameplay) of the character, outlining even more the lack of different characters. Cooperation Diversity And suffering from this is the cooperation, where everyone's the same dude with the same abilities. Lowering not only the fantasy of each individual but also the tactical depth of cooperation. Standard Level Design Level Design is as usual in 3D Roguelites: kinda bland and repetitive (series of closed arena with a bunch of pillars). 3/9 Gunfire Reborn Review by Yun-Kun Grind Meta Progression seems pretty, pretty, pretty grindy. Not sure since I didn’t sink so much time just yet (2+ hours). Enemy Diversity Feels like the diversity of enemies is kinda low, even if there are 7+ enemies (crossbowman, bowman, artificer, spearman, shieldman, kamikaze, beetles). Searching Things Feels like I’m always searching for loot and chests in the arena and it’s kinda tedious. It’s even worse when you know there can be a golden chest (more or less hidden) spawning. This makes you check everywhere in order “not to miss something”. Faltering Rhythm Combat Rhythm is cut way too often, between vaults, upgrades, loots, merchants and searches. This is largely aggravated in cooperation mode where everyone doesn’t have the same progression rhythm. Resource Feedback I never know when I gather or reload a resource (skill, grenade, upgrade effect, ammo, shield and dash). So I just spam my hotkey until something happens. Dash Feeling Dashing feels kinda bland and is really, really short. There’s no real feedback aside from the movement: no sound, no smooth camera shake, no FX... Level Verticality As a player it’s really hard to climb the level designs, but a lot of places seem to be made to give you the will to start exploring the upper floors. This leads to tedious and frustrating platform attempts (once again stomping the game rhythm). Reload It’s frustrating to have to reload all weapons at the end of a combat. 4/9 Gunfire Reborn Review by Yun-Kun “Random” Environments Maybe they are not even random, I don’t know. But environments do not feel random at all. It’s just a series of rooms (act 1), looking all the same. Input Recording No input recording (or input buffering), or seemed so (this is the fact of “saving” player inputs for a really short 0.2 seconds to cast an action he tried to perform but couldn’t for some reason, like being already performing another action). 5/9 Gunfire Reborn Review by Yun-Kun The Goods Price The game lifespan is high for the price (over 10 hours) and the realisation level is way above that price category. Theme, Colours, FX Feels good (when it’s not too dark), colours are cool, FX are really a nice touch. Nice mood overall. 4 Players If it was just one player, you could compare this game to a better executed (yet cheaper) Immortal Redneck. But having 4p-coop brings instant fun to the equation, especially since the game difficulty seemed to be following. In addition, playing with friends really reduces the impression of “grinding” by adding the usual layer of “teamwork” layer. Pick and Play Game is very easy to just pick up and play, having instant fun with friends. Even if the game kinda throws everything at you at the very beginning, you can just ignore most of the stuff and focus on playing and having fun. It works. Weapon Diversity Refreshing to see weapons coming from a different base fantasy (Chinese mythology). In addition, each weapon has some kind of unique behavior or pattern which makes it interesting and fun to try out the different weapons. Upgrades Most upgrades are not really “fun” or “original”, but they’re doing a great job at offering interesting build choices to the player. Especially since there’s a bit of random involved leading to variations each run. Scrolls A light mutator in the game and another mechanic helping the “build feeling”. The sheer amount of scrolls (over 100) also helps renew the game experience. 6/9 Gunfire Reborn Review by Yun-Kun The fact that they have both buff and debuff also make them more interesting to pick (more spicy). Feels like they can be really random and offer both the feeling of “trash” and “op” runs. Cursed Scrolls A really high mutator changing the playstyle of the player. Quite refreshing. There’s only a few of them for now though. These really spice things up. And they also are a pivotal part of the “build feeling” as many of them can be considered “must-have” in certain builds (or make certain builds even exist in the first place). Combat The combat in general is a mix between Borderlands and Immortal Redneck. It is a medium-paced, tactical combat based on positioning and target prioritization. It makes it easy to pick-up for players non-accustomed to FPS games. And for the many reasons listed below, I feel like the combat works really well. A quick note on elemental damages: it just works. I don’t feel like it’s great or particularly well put. It just does its job (diversifying the builds, creating counterplays to enemies, forcing the player to have different tools equipped and creating a learning curve). Dash Many elements in the game require clever and timed use of the Dash. This diversifies the amount of attack patterns that can be thrown at the player and gives a simple and clear milestone of progression to the player (does he know the Dash timing of a pattern). Grenade The tactical choices offered by the grenade are really highlighted by the combat situations (and the enemy bouquet). Debuffing one single target, hitting multiple ones, using it as a means of protection... It really is satisfying to experience the different uses and learn the best one in the different scenarios. The fact that you can customize the grenade (through build options) completes the mechanic and makes it a real combat asset and way of expression for the player. Enemy Specialties If we put aside the lack of gameplay clarity, most enemies have a slow and predictable attack pattern. Some of them have clear weaknesses which we can take advantage of. In addition, enemies are represented in different masses based on how strong they are (mass of small or few big, which we call the “bouquet”). 7/9 Gunfire Reborn Review by Yun-Kun The “bouquet” and enemy specialties are what really makes the combat “tactical” as they are the main thing that drives the player decisions. Explosive Barrels There are explosive barrels (of different elements) laid out in the levels. They make the environment somewhat interactive and create some fun combat situations (especially when a teammate blows you up by shooting one). But more importantly, they create a “mastery threshold” and a way to fasten up the combat. Veteran players will quickly start to learn the spawn patterns and level designs and know when to blow them up to fasten up their progress. Tactical Enemy Variations Despite the (kinda) lack of diversity, there’s a “random elemental variation” that can be applied to enemies. For instance “artificers” can have a lightning or a burning grenade. And this graphically reflects on the enemy model. This is a nice addition in terms of visual diversity and renews the game experience while providing an additional tactical layer to the combat. Time to Kill The time needed to clear a room felt right (for this type of combat pace) both in soloplayer and cooperation (which is not a small achievement). It’s also nice to notice that the “grind upgrades” you get do not seem to influence too much the time-to-kill (I did not end up doing zero damage to enemies like it can happen in other games). Bouquet and Elites The repartition and amount of enemy types felt right (nice mix of melee, ranged, low and high health etc.). The addition of Elites at proper times to enhance the rhythm felt right as well. Resource Consumption & Regeneration Rate The rate at which you use your grenades, ability and dash feels right. Not too much, not too few. It really feels like these mechanics smoothly blend in the combat situation exactly when you need them. Player Shield I haven’t caught up with all the subtleties of the mechanics (in Gunfire Reborn specifically) just yet. But it seems to get several jobs done: incentivizing getting into the fray at the beginning, while alternating with tense situations when depleted (roles switching from hunter to hunted) and it gives another layer of customization / build. Gunfeel While not being through the roof, the gunfeel is really pleasing and shooting at things is quite cool. This is incentivized by the joy of discovering guns, using them, seeing 8/9 Gunfire Reborn Review by Yun-Kun the floating damage numbers pop off etc. The critical hit sound is pretty rewarding as well. Pickup Feeling Picking up gold and ammo feels good. Shooter Looter Feeling It’s nice to loot weapons by killing enemies (even if loots are hidden and must be searched for from time to time). It could be more juicy and more rewarding to loot them, but it’s a nice importation from the looter shooter genre anyway. Boss Takedown Feeling It feels good to take down the bosses (only done the first one though). The boss takedown animation and following rain of loots is on point! Macro Boss Fights While it may not be pleasing to everyone, I really liked the pace of boss fights. It follows and is in harmony with the pace of the rest of the game: slow and tactical. Boss fights require patience, careful positioning, careful focus firing, proper damage source combo, switching of focus priority, focus of playstyle (hunter/hunted) etc. They are long and they offer a lot of room for optimization, especially in teamwork. I think it’s quite rightly done. Progression Feeling In Gunfire Reborn, we wanted to start one more run because the game was fun and offered a challenge to our party, we wanted to overcome that challenge. We perceived practical things we could improve and do to go further. It wasn’t about grinding power points to go further. A nice feeling of progression followed me through my runs and made them feel meaningful to me. And while I talked about “grind” in “the bads”, I think a part of the meta progression works well (maybe it’s just about tweaking some numbers to make it feel less like a grind). Armory, Bestiary, Library Really good “progression” and “completion” feeling with the accessible list of weapons, enemies and power-ups directly from the main menu (and with quite a nice staging). May I suggest you let us rotate 3D object up and down as well though? :D Scoreboard While scarce (Early Access I suppose), it was a nice touch to have a bunch of stats at the end of the game. I’d like to have more stats and maybe be able to compare them 9/9 Gunfire Reborn Review by Yun-Kun to the other members of the party though (but some players don’t like this as the game’s not about competing with each other). Weapon Unlock/Tutorial System Weapons being so weird, it would have been overwhelming to have too much of them from the get go. Fortunately enough, the game features an unlocking system that progressively adds more weapons to the random weapon pool you have access to. This smoothly tutorialize the different weapons being introduced to the player. Conclusion At this price, we can’t really talk about the “bads” without feeling like nitpicking. The value of this game is pretty high. High lifespan, simple to pick-up, fun from the get go. I would highly suggest playing cooperation though (especially with friends). 10/9