Gunfire
Reborn by developer and publisher Duoyi
Games—PC (Steam) review written by Richard
with a purchased copy.Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
Gunfire Reborn is a title that has long
been in early access, and has recently received a full release. Maybe you've
seen mention of it before, or heard someone talk about, after all it's been in
early access for almost two years now, I believe. Now that it has the full
release though, it's time to take a look at the final product. Was the wait
worth it? Is the game ready for release? How good is it? Well, you're about to
find out.
Gunfire Reborn is a first person, 3D FPS
roguelike. I think we are up to six available characters to play at the moment,
but I remember back when your choices weren't quite so robust. You know, I've
had Gunfire Reborn basically since it entered Early Access, and I'm still not
sure if it really has a plot line? I think there's something about evil demons,
and you needing to find the cause and stop it? You and up to 3 other people get
to traverse through four different biomes, fighting your way to your goal.
So, gameplay. Typical shooter fare for
the basic controls, with you having access to up to three weapons at a time
that you can cycle through, a dash, a primary skill, a secondary skill, and a
secondary fire mode if your weapon has it. Each level is split into smaller
stages, with sub-zones in those stages, and each level culminates in one of two
bosses, except for the final stage. I remember a time when there was only one
boss available per level. Each level has a different theme with different
enemies and challenges involved. The sub-zones that comprise each stage are
more like checkpoints, where you pass through rooms, killing all the enemies
within, in order to progress. Enemies can drop weapons that you can pick up,
and clearing a room may open up a chest in the room you're in. These chests
will contain one of two items: a goblet or scrolls. The goblets unlock a
character specific skill, some of which you can upgrade, and the scrolls are
available globally to characters, and provide general skills.
Character skills are individual, by which
I mean each character you can play as has their own skill sets and build
suggestions, which the goblets use to unlock/enhance. As an example, the first
character you will probably deal with is the cat, who is best geared for
elemental type damage buffing. The bird, on the other hand, has a lot of melee
based or focused abilities. The scrolls are more general, and can provide
anything from increased movement speed, to decreased damage taken.
Now, while these upgrades and weapons
will disappear once you complete, or fail, a run of the game, you will find
that you've been earning soul points in addition to money throughout your
playthrough. While the money can be spent at a peddler to restore health or
purchase weapons, or a blacksmith can upgrade your weapons and increase their
damage, soul points are used for something a little more permanent. After a
run, you will be brought to an upgrade tree where you can spend soul points.
These upgrades are permanent, and except for a few character specific, are
applied across all your characters. These upgrades include: increasing peddler
wares, increasing ammo capacity, hastening revive speed, amongst others. This
is also where you can give a boost to the quality of the inscriptions you find
on your weapons.
So, what are inscriptions you might ask?
Well, weapons can have bonus effects attached to them, such as increasing
damage to enemies under an elemental effect, or increasing critical damage. At
this point, I'd like to talk a little bit about the combat system. Since each
character has their own unique playstyles, I'm going to stick more closely to
the general combat. So, if you've ever played Borderlands, you'll probably have
a good idea how this is going to go. You shoot at enemies, hitting weak points
does extra damage, and you have a chance to make a critical. Here though,
they're called Lucky Shot and Critical, which I still have trouble
differentiating between. One is for hitting an enemy in the weak point, the
other is chance based. There are some melee weapons, and they work similarly,
although it can be a lot harder to hit weak points with them. In addition to
the bonus damage shots, there are elemental effects: corrosion, fire, and
lightning. Each is good against a specific type of enemy. Corrosion is good on
yellow bar armour, Lightning is good against blue bar shields, and Fire is good
against Red bar health. Certain weapons have elements attached to them. The
Prism for example is a kunai that you throw and ricochets off walls. It also
deals corrosions damage.
So now you're at least ready to get into
a fight, but what can you expect to find in a dungeon run through Gunfire
Reborn? Well, in addition to jumping puzzles, cursed chests that will generally
trade health or money for weapons/scrolls/inscriptions, there are also
minibosses you may fight, as well as vaults and crystals. Minibosses are simply
tougher, and larger, versions of the enemies you find normally. Vaults are
these glowing cracks you see on the walls, which will bring you to a new area
where you have to complete a task. This could be killing waves of enemies, a
miniboss battle, or a jumping puzzle or trap maze. Completing a vault will
unlock a chest to help bolster your abilities for the run. The crystals I
mentioned are actually something new to me, that I've only seen recently, and
seem to drop a random scroll for you, and maybe a weapon and health restoring
item.
After traipsing through a level, you will
eventually come to a boss fight. While these used to be single options, you now
have a chance to get one of two bosses! These bosses will test your skill, your
weapons, and your patience. No, seriously, some of them are infuriatingly
annoying. Yoruhime Maru, for instance, deserves special mention for being a
pain. This boss fight in particular has been revamped over the early access
period, and I don't know how I feel about it. Half the fight got better, and
the other half got so much worse. Either way, if you win, you get a horde of
weapons, as well as a scroll and upgrade goblet! Congratulations! Have you
finished a run successfully? By the way, upon beating a certain chapter boss,
you can choose to either continue to the final stage, or return to the inn.
After a successful completion? Congratulations! You've unlocked a harder
difficulty! You'll earn more money and soul points, better items seem to drop,
and enemies with special abilities will spawn!
As you complete more runs, or fail
trying, you'll be unlocking new weapons and scrolls. Normally these get
unlocked by "beating X enemy Y times", and will instantly drop the
first time you meet the unlock conditions. They will now be available on
subsequent runs, for both you and your friends! Speaking of friends, you can snag
up to three others to come with you on your journey, and there's no need to
worry about choosing the same characters either! Now, the difficulty scaling on
the other hand… hoo boy. Two player is tougher, but alright. Three people is a
major jump from two, but survivable. At four people? You better hope your
buddies know what they're doing, good lord. The scaling really doesn't feel
great. I understand it's more geared towards more skilled/veteran players, but
it can be frustrating when enemies take a ton of damage, and slap you for three
times your max health in a single blow. Couple this with the fact that your
time limit to revive gets shorter the more you go down, and I found the more
people I played with, the faster we failed our runs. It's still tons of fun though.
Now, I'm going to put a note in here
about the final stage. No spoilers, I just want to say it's freaking tough, and
definitely geared for players who have purchased the majority of their
permanent upgrades. The enemies are brutal, they hurt unreasonably, and the
boss? Yeah, that's a thing. Give it a try if you get to that point, you'll see
what I mean.
As a whole, I've had a lot of fun with
Gunfire Reborn ever since it first became available in Early Access. Yeah,
there are some issues here and there, the balancing could be a little better,
and some of the bosses feel downright wretched at times, but the rest of the
experience more than makes up for that. With a boatload of different weapons
available, a number of player characters to choose from, and a myriad of
scrolls, it's certainly a fun game. Also, have I mentioned it's a roguelike?
Yeah, it is, so no two runs will go the same way, even if you're trying
to/hoping they will. While the major issues have been there for awhile now, the
devs are constantly updating, so hopefully there are a few more balance patches
in the future, but that doesn't really take away from the game too much, all
things told. The environments also will get a little stale after a few runs, so
be prepared for that.
Summary
Overall, Gunfire Reborn is an absolute
gem of a game I'm glad to have seen go through the stages up until full
release. There's tons of variety and build creation and lots of customization
between scrolls, weapons, and characters. The gameplay is fast-paced and challenging,
and great to play with friends. While there are some rough patches here and
there, most of it is easy to either work around or ignore. I can honestly say
that I've enjoyed almost every second of Gunfire Reborn since I first picked it
up and don't regret my choice in the slightest.
Score: 9 / 10
