Gunfire Reborn from 505 Games and Duoyi Games brings us an FPS roguelite RPG experience on PlayStation. Check our Gunfire Reborn review!
Sometimes a game comes out, and instantly you just know you are going to enjoy it. Whether it is the look, the genre, the presentation or the gameplay, or the fact that you played it to death on another console, either way, you just know that this one’s a keeper. Gunfire Reborn is one of those games. Coming from Duoyi Games and 505 Games, I first encountered Gunfire Reborn on the Xbox One about three weeks prior to experiencing it on the PlayStation 5. It’s a roguelite, a genre that is quickly becoming one of my favorites, and a first-person shooter, a genre that is arguably everyone else’s favorite.
Whilst not the first marriage that you think of, Borderlands and Enter the Gungeon are making it work. The comparison to Borderlands might be trite but not without merit. The low polygon style of Gunfire Reborn will be familiar to those hailing from Borderlands, and so would the promise of a gajillion guns to choose from. In fairness, Gunfire Reborn makes no such claims, but it does boast a large arsenal of guns that is not even mentioning the randomized stats each weapon drop can have.
Yet unlike other first-person shooters, Gunfire Reborn’s guns are varied and imaginative. You have the standard guns that you can encounter, from pistols to machine guns to sniper rifles, but Gunfire Reborn tries to mix things up with its more out-there weapons like a glove that shoots lighting Lasers, a pistol that shoots a tether at its targe, or a gun that has a roaring dragon on it that shoots a singularity at an area to attract others into its center before exploding.
In short, Gunfire Reborn has a crazy arsenal that fans of gunplay will no doubt enjoy, and everyone else will be quick to grab a favorite to play with. As with every good roguelite, it is not always a guarantee that you will find your sweetheart in a run, but when you do, you may struggle to want to let them go. It is a tricky thing to do because although Gunfire peppers you with an abundance of weapons, it only allows you to hold three guns at any given time. I say three when you actually have a pistol with infinite ammo that cannot be dropped, so you technically can only carry two weapons at any given time. Obviously, the pistol is there in case you run out of ammo for your other two guns, but the game is just so liberal with its ammo drops that it is a wonder how you could ever run out with so many dropped weapons and extra ammo just lying around.
And just like any good roguelite, Gunfire Reborn has a very robust perk system that can be built upon each time you die. At regular intervals, a killed enemy will drop a soul essence. This currency can be used to purchase upgrades from an ever-increasing skill tree. No matter how poor your last run was, it is always in the knowledge that it is forever towards a goal of being able to survive the next run. Gunfire Reborn is fully aware of its roguelite badge and fully embraces it.
Yes, it is an FPS with its guns and throwable grenades, but it is primarily a roguelite. Each of its levels and sections are randomized, the encounters you meet are randomized, and so are the in-game hidden areas you can find. The level designs are passable and not really the main draw of the game. With that said, there is some thought attached to the design, as some areas allow for vertical gunfights. Whilst this does offer some changes to the standard run and gun gameplay, it is not interesting enough for it to stand out. It ends up just feeling like an addition added to make the game marginally more fun.
In fairness, the game was already fun to begin with, just like the character and enemy designs that Gunfire boasts. In the first level alone, there is a nice variety of enemies that you face, each with its own abilities. And when the game throws them at you in waves, it makes for a frenetic episode. Occasionally you can run into elite rooms where a sub-boss character continuously summons enemies to fight you, and the only way to stop them is to defeat the sub-boss to escape. These can be fun if you unintentionally run into one.
Gunfire also has a multiplayer portion to its offering where a group of four players picking a team of its six playable characters can pull together to tackle its campaign. Thanks to its robust leveling-up system, it is likely no two teams will ever truly be alike, especially when you put into consideration its perks systems where players can collect any combination from a selection of up to 148 scrolls. It is no doubt that no two runs will ever be the same.
Gunfire is an excellent game for sure, if let down by a few bits here and there. The movement of the player character feels slow and tank-like most of the time, and it almost feels like there’s no reason to avoid attacks. You have a dash move that you can use to dodge out of the way some of the time, but the move is so limited and takes a while to recharge that it just doesn’t feel worth it. Of course, through perks and abilities, it is possible to improve cooldowns and allowances, but the likelihood of getting the correct combination of scrolls is so small that you are better off not holding out for it. Speaking of shortcomings, the aforementioned online can be a little spotty at times. Whilst the online community is not jampacked, what few matches I was able to play stuttered and lagged every so often. Whilst not entirely enough to kill the online play, which was ultimately fun, it was not a smooth adventure, to say the least.
The game has a full trophy list with a Platinum, and since it’s a Cross-Buy release, you can download both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions of the game to your PS5 console since each version will have its own list. Each list will have 34 Bronze trophies, 9 Silver trophies, and 3 Gold trophies. You’ll have to die a ton of times, die when a boss has 10% HP or less, buy everything from the peddler, defeat each boss, beat a boss in 10 seconds, beat a boss without taking any damage, reforge a weapon, reach level 100, and more.
Gunfire Reborn is an excellent game and comes highly recommended. For those looking for a different spin on the Borderlands formula of multiplayer mayhem with a lottery on which gun you get next, this game is for you. For those looking for a fast-paced, gun-toting roguelite that has a lot of depth and challenge going for it, then Gunfire Reborn is for you. If you are just looking for a fun time with friends, then I dare say that Gunfire Reborn might also be before you. Give it a try. You owe it to yourself. Gunfire Reborn is available as a Cross-Buy title with a $19.99 price tag, so your purchase will allow you to download both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions of the game at no extra cost.
Disclaimer
This Gunfire Reborn review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by 505 Games.
