Gunfire Reborn Review: Blazing with Character

Well this is awkward. It says right here that Gunfire Reborn released in 2021. And it’s April of 2022. Am I outdated?

Yeah. But for my first ever game review (woo-hoo?), I wanted to choose something comfortable and something I loved. Regardless of the date, I wanted to share everything about Gunfire Reborn, because it’s a project that deserves a lot. It’s easy to tell how passionate the developers are, and so I shall reciprocate that passion by spreading the word. Gunfire Reborn is pretty great.

This is an extension of my short YouTube review.

The Basics

Gunfire Reborn’s gameplay loop is simple; it’s a first-person shooter roguelite dungeon crawler (I stumbled on this sentence many times when recording the voice-over). Enter a procedurally generated dungeon, slay monsters of all different kinds, collect new weapons, scrolls, and ascensions, beat bosses, die, and do it again. Gunfire is a roguelite, so there is significant meta progression.

Chaos, then Calamity

I love getting into situations where I have no control over my actions and instead just spam my mouse buttons until my display is cleared of baddies. And Gunfire Reborn allows me to do just that. But then, once the room is clear, I get to read the descriptions of the weapons that just dropped with soothing music playing, while feeling like a detective working under candlelight in a thunderstorm to choose my next weapon. Except I flunked out of detective school and really just pick the weapon that looks the coolest. Except all the weapons are the coolest, and I just have a random number generator decide.

One-in-a-Million-Runs

Gunfire Reborn is great for replaying. Every run is different. This is a result of multiple factors. Each weapon has inscriptions: modifiers that alter a weapon. They range from simple damage buffs to complex strategy-changing modifications. Then, the scrolls you pick up (and sometimes leave behind) change. That one overpowered combo of 3 scrolls that carried you to the end? Yeah, probably won’t see that combo again for a long time. And when you do, you’ll already be building a different path which throws everything off. But wait there’s more! Every character also has a set of unique ascensions which alter their own kit, meaning you can play a different way with each character. Usually, you’re forced to, because the ascensions are luck-based. Yeah, if I got Sword Guard 3 every Tao run I would never lose, but I find myself 3 bosses in still hoping it’ll show up.

Beautiful Everything

Man am I a sucker for cel-shading. Not only is it easy on the performance, it just has so much charm and character. Even though the heroes lack lore, it still feels like there is so much more to each of them because of that style.

There are only six heroes so far, but each of them is special. From their looks to their gameplay, these characters are all crafted well. I don’t mesh with all of them, but I’m not expected to. Each hero has different playstyles and synergies, and those can change drastically throughout a run with the ascension system.

Beyond the characters are the weapons. There are plenty of different types of weapons, and each of them feels unique too. Consider the Justice: a lizard that launches fire grenades that explode on secondary fire. That’s right, instead of adding a generic grenade launcher, they added a lizard. Well played.

Best With a Friend

Many roguelites and likes these days are focused on solo play. And those that do have some sort of multiplayer tend to be a second thought. Gunfire Reborn nails co-op play. In fact, I felt like the game was missing something went I went back to play alone for the first time. Trading scrolls and weapons to improve your partner’s build and creating strategies is fun and rewarding. It’s also nice to have someone to revive me when I die to the Wind God for the hundredth time.

Iffy Meta-Progression

My biggest gripe with Gunfire Reborn is how terrible the talent tree is. The talent tree is the root of all progression issues (haha get it… tree… root…). The talent tree offers a variety of buffs. From simple things like damage buffs and money multipliers to straight-up game-changers like item recycling and reforging. And the talent tree is a grind too, which feels terrible because you just don’t have the buffs provided by the talent tree. It’s frustrating not feeling like you’re strong enough to win; not because you aren’t skilled enough or lack experience, but because you haven’t grinded long enough to gain the stats required. And then once you do have the significant buffs unlocked, you then go back to the normal difficulty and beat it with two eyes shut.

Ascension Balance

When I talked about ascensions earlier, I mentioned how much variety there is in your build. But I never mentioned how I always ended up choosing the same ascensions over and over because… they’re just better. Yeah, it would be really cool to summon swords that fly at enemies when I hit an enemy, but I really need this defensive ascension to survive. At lower difficulties, you can get away with picking flying sword because you’ve already unlocked the talent tree and could beat the game with the mouse upside down, but beating higher difficulties requires the use of the best ascensions. I know that it’s not possible for everything to be perfectly balanced, but sometimes it feels too easy to pick the same ascensions and win every time.

Conclusion

Here we are at the conclusion of my very first review. I’m getting sniffy. I’d like to thank my parents and my teachers and everyone else.

Gunfire Reborn is pure fun, something you can play over and over. And really, that’s what roguelites are about, at the heart. It just needs a little touch-up to the balance to make me feel like I’m winning because of my skill, not just some increases to the damage numbers on my guns.