After spending over 22 hours playing BPM, I certainly can’t say that I dislike the game. It has an appeal to it, but that appeal is largely in the experience of playing it.
Let me rewind a bit. BPM: Bullets Per Minute is a Roguelite First Person Shooter Rhythm Game, created by Awe Interactive and released on September 15th of 2020. It’s an odd combination of genres to be sure. Aesthetically it feels like a heavy metal album cover. The gameplay feels a bit rough, but very satisfying once you get the hang of it. Let’s break things down bit by bit.
Plot
Demons have invaded Asgard. As one of many Valkyries, you must fight your way through them and slaughter every monster in your path using a variety of guns, all to a metal soundtrack. The plot of the game is basically just an excuse for the gameplay, which is fine.
Gameplay
So, this is one of the two parts of the game that’ll make or break your experience. If you like it, you’ll have a blast. If you dislike it, there’s really nothing else here for you. In BPM, you need to coordinate your actions to the beat of the music: Those actions being firing your gun, dashing, reloading, and using any extra abilities. Using shops, shrines, jumping, and moving around normally are exempt from this rule, which works fine. Worth mentioning is that every level (and thus, track) in the game has the same beat. It means that your playing experience between each level is going to be pretty consistent, but it also means that you won’t have too much variety in how you engage with the game. There aren’t any levels with an irregular beat, for example.
As an FPS, the game doesn’t demand much precision from you. As long as an enemy is within your range, and within your crosshair, it’ll lock onto the part of the enemy closest to the center of your vision. If you want to critically hit enemies you do need to aim a little, but not much. Movement can end up being very fast, in a Quake-style, which makes a few of the optional platforming sections a little tricky.
As a Rhythm game though, it is immensely satisfying. Every gunshot and reload syncs up to the beat, and enemies attack in time with it as well. The experience of actually playing the game is difficult to describe, but clearing a room with perfect rhythm is always going to be a treat.
As a Roguelite, the game could be better. Progression is largely linear, without much in the way of choices. Spending more money at shops increases the variety the shops will have in the future, depositing money in banks will make it available for all future runs, and clearing the game with a character on easy and hard difficulties will unlock their secondary and ultimate ability, respectively. Additional characters can also be unlocked through fulfilling specific criteria, and vary in terms of starting equipment and additional modifiers to their gameplay, such as the ability to fly or using coins as health. Games with largely linear progression systems can work well, just look at a game like The Binding of Isaac. But where BPM differs is that what you unlock are generally changes to your starting circumstances. The one item I recall actually unlocking in the game is obtained at the very end. And, while useful and impactful, isn’t the most exciting thing in the world. The roguelike elements of the game aren’t the focus.
Graphics
Now, this is one of my areas of complaint with the game. Let me preface this by saying that the models of the game are great. Every weapon looks awesome, and is both satisfying to shoot and reload. The enemies are slimy and distinctive, and their animations help a lot to understand what they’re doing. A lot of attention was clearly given to them. On the other hand, the game doesn’t exactly look great. This is largely due to the colors, which tend towards monochrome.
The whole palette of the game consists of red, grey, and one other color depending on the level. It’s just not appealing to me, I would kill for some more variety. This style can work, but I don’t feel like it works well here.
Overall
If you like Rhythm games, First Person Shooters, and Roguelikes, I would pick this up on sale. As long as you don’t mind the visual style, and like the soundtrack, you’ll have a good time. It’s a surprisingly good game to turn your brain off for and go with the flow.