BPM: BULLETS PER MINUTE

Good idea, bad execution. Previously coming from another similar game (Metal Hellsinger), I was curious to try this out and see what the fuss was about. Got into the game, first problem immediately is the lack of modes. There's 'Runs' and 'Challenge'. I couldn't be bothered with challenges after seeing my crosshair being on the enemy didn't actually damage it. Runs however are where a lot of the problems lie. I'm by no means an FPS expert, I have many hours in this, and tracking aim is above average, but this doesn't seem well designed for an FPS player at all. The music is one of the biggest positives, which ties into the gameplay with having to time dashes, reloads and firing. Then you need to clear rooms in these randomly generated dungeons either with enemies, shops, challenges or libraries. You can also offer dropped coins (not auto picked up for some reason) to upgrade skills. Now, weapons have a range... for some reason. I do not understand the reason behind this. Abilities picked up never worked, and were not explained. Dash being on the beat only made it awkward to dodge things as this won't allow you to fire. The crosshair is genuinely awful, you cannot aim at anything because it's just a tiny dot. No adjustments available either which is a baffling decision. The randomness of each dungeon can really screw you over. I had a run with 6 key unlock chests, and only had 2 keys drop. This game has no tutorial by the way so there is likely something I missed. Another annoying part is you have no reliable way to heal, so if you get really low on a run, you will end up dying to a challenge or a boss. And bosses I am mixed on as I only managed two, getting to the third stage. But I am not a fan of them, too hard to read, wasn't obvious at all how or what they were attacking with, I just new, if they stopped, I could take cover to at least prevent damage taken. Speaking of which, weapon design is very strange. I only got the revolver and SMG, as alternative weapons, but these were not good. I also got an upgrade somewhere that turned my weapons into explosives which, sorta helped a lot. But this brings in another issue. I am not a fan of Roguelikes. Depending on how they are designed, they become artificial content. Meaning you have no agency over your runs. Much like my bad luck with these dungeons, I was faced with multiple bad runs. I also can't identify the upgrade statues that easily because of visual saturation. So overall, the RNG in this Roguelike can leave you with good runs and bad runs. Again, they're not my thing so I have likely gotten it wrong. The permadeath aspect is my least favourite part of it. I'd rather restart from the stage than the entire run. And the difficulty system felt useless. Enemy variety is okay but reading the moves can be a problem at times, they don't always make sense, and enemies aren't distinct enough to really identify each one, except the insects, but the humanoids are much harder to read and defeat. After about 8 different attempts on a run, I decided this game ain't it for me. Only one of them had me get to stage 3. I would say I hope this game gets some updates in the future, but it's over 5 years old now, and I somehow doubt it will get updates. It's a shame because I didn't really get to explore the character unlocks or different abilities. Only had one ultimate in my run too. Performance was not the best either. I had hitching here and there, I capped my FPS and it did not help. I forgot to try and lower my settings. Visual indicators for enemies are not the best, they are highlighted in yellow or orange to indicate health. But it's so hard to tell if there's a clutter of them. For the price though, I cannot recommend this game. If it was on sale and at a generous discount, maybe it's worth a try. But there is something to like if you are a fan of FPS games and Procedural Generation (Albeit with varying RNG). The real challenge was the crosshair.