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An amazing FPS rougelike that is reminiscint of Borderlands. The game has solid mechanics and a great foundation. To join the annuls of greatness, more content will be necessary to increase the variety so the game feels less samey at times.


Characters
At the beginning of the game the player only has one character to choose from, but at the moment there are two to choose from. To unlock the second character, the player needs to invest in the progression system which will be covered later. Each character has the ability to dash, but they both have different grenades and a unique super ability. The first character is known as The Prince. He is a samurai cat who focuses elemental effects and his unique skill is Energy Orb. While the name is certainly unassuming its effect is quite potent. Energy orb deals a burst of damage and freezes enemies in time. The prince’s grenade releases a poison gas that damages and slows enemies that stand in it. They are both quite enjoyable abilities that can be used both offensively and defensively. The Prince is also the most balanced character in terms of shields and heath, as well as offensive and defensive options. Shields regenerate after not taking damage for a short while which contrasts with health which is only recovered with special health restoring items. The second character is Ao Bai who is a dog that has dual wielding as his super skill. Unlike The Prince, Ao Bai has low shields and high health, much higher than The Prince. This makes him tankier, but it is harder for him to recover his resources that help him defy death. Ao Bai’s grenade is a simple explosive grenade. Ao Bai is my favorite character because of the crazy dual wielding combos that can be achieved, but he is a high-risk and high reward kind of character. His only defensive ability is the fact that he will likely kills enemies before they kill him. This makes him more difficult but still really fun. I am excited to see what kind of characters the developers come up with next.
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2127837215

Ascension
Characters’ abilites don’t stay static, as that would be boring. After a level is completed, the player is able to choose from three different ability upgrades. One such example for each character would be gaining Energy Orb charges on The Prince and throwing two grenades at no additional cost for Ao Bai. Powers are diverse, with there being eight in each category. Most power upgrades also have three levels that provide a huge bonus if level three is achieved.

Weaponry
The weapons in this game are crazy, but they are also inspired by guns in other games as well. One gun allows you to throw it as a grenade which is quite similar to the Tediore gun manufacturer in Borderlands. The guns are diverse enough to not get boring, and this is further compounded by the fact that each weapon discovered comes with randomized inscriptions which apply various bonuses. These range from simple increased in crit damage, while one unique modifier I found gave my gun an extra shot in its one round magazine and if the first shot didn’t kill, the second shot got an extreme crit called a Lucky Shot in this game.
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2127836297

Enemies
Considering this game is in early access Gunfire Reborn has a great variety of enemies for each of three biomes to combat. One thing that really surprised me was that enemy AI is pretty smart and uses cover really effectively. Short enemies will crouch next to cover to keep from getting shot. Other enemies would dodge roll at times.

Status Effects
There are three status effects in the game which are decay, fire, and shock. Decay is essentially poison and it slows in addition to dealing damage. Fire just deals damage over time. Shock deals damage but can allow a shot to jump to another enemy. These status effects are pretty typical, except for the act that they can combine if applied simultaneously to an enemy. For example, shock and fire turns into manipulation which makes an enemy shoot at its own allies. This system is interesting and makes some of the weaker guns with elemental effects useful.

Occult Scrolls
Occult scrolls upgrade the player’s character with passive effects. They are a rouglelike standard and are gained mainly by defeating vault challenges. They are powerful, but interestingly often come with drawbacks.
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2127836649

Shops
There are two shop types. The peddler sells guns, healing items, ammo, and the occasional occult scroll. The blacksmith improves guns with more damage and additional inscriptions.

Progression
After a run is finished, whether it is a win or one of the many losses the player is able to use the soul essence gained by killing enemies to permanently improve heroes. While most of them are generic, there is a small skill line that is hero specific that further improves their specialty.

The story involves stopping some sort of corruption, but besides the beginning cutscene, this story is not brought up much afterward. The translation is one of this game’s weaknesses, as at the time of writing it isn’t especially great.

The sound design is great in both the music and the sound effect departments. The music’s most notable aspect is its heavy use of a bass drum to create a strong sense of hype while the player lays ruin to their opponents. The sound effects for each gun and each enemy helps to give auditory feedback that allows for a quick dodge just in time or a well-placed shot that creates more kiting space.

the graphics remind me of would be cel-shaded games except without the black borders. I would also liken the graphics a bit to Legend of Zelda Windwaker, due to their bright color scheme with stumpy character design. Every shot from enemies was easily recognizable as well which made it easier to know which could be ignored and which should be dodged.

The controls are the typical FPS ones.


Easy to Alt-Tab: Yes
The game performs really well most of the time but sometimes there was a half second freeze or enemies were sliding.

Gunfire Reborn is quite difficult while still staying enjoyable. Not only that, but this game has full four player coop included, which adds even potential playtime.
PtCR: 6x – Superb Value

👍 Pros 👍
Crazy weapons
Tight controls

👎 Cons 👎
Strange performance glitches

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A turn-based card game, roguelike, tower defense. This game has quite a few genres crammed into it, and it only takes the best parts of each of these genres. The game is then supported by


Clans & Clan Heroes
The fist screen that will greet any player at the beginning of a run is the clan selection screen. There are five clans in all but only two are available at the beginning so as to not overburden the player with mechanics. The rest are easy to unlock and can be done so just by playing the game. When on the screen, the player must pick two clans. The first clan is the main clan and provides their clan hero to the player’s deck. The supporting clan only supplies their cards.
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2117099244
Every clan combination is viable and there is an award on the stats screen every time a clan combo win is achieved. Clan heroes are strong units that can be buffed three times throughout a run at special upgrade stations, but they are still mortal and must be protected as they provide a lot of power during combat.

The simple part of combat
At the beginning of each turn, the player is given a certain amount of “Ember,” which is the resource that is used to play cards. Combat is both simple and yet complex. The player summons units onto one of three floors. Each creature or hero has an attack and a defense stat. These two parties fight one another by hitting each other and then the heroes go up a floor unless they are dead or are under the rooted debuff. It is for this reason that it is so important to have all three floors defended heavily. This is the game’s simplicity at its core.
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2117096944

The complexity of combat
Where things get crazy are the various unit abilities, spells, and bosses. Unit abilities are varied and often powerful. One such example is the ability “multistrike,” which allows a creature to attack more that once. This is great when it is combined with a creature that applies a stack of a status effect or if a creature has a really high attack power in general. There are many other unit abilities, and some are hero only, but they make damage calculation difficult at times if one had to do them manually. Thankfully, the game has a great quality of life feature where it shows the damage that will be dealt to a creature or hero and if it will be enough damage to cause it to die. It makes this roguelike quite a bit more accessible as it allows for some trial and error instead of pure min/max math outside of the game. Spells are crazy cards that also mix up the gameplay in a variety of ways. Some spells are simply damage against a certain enemy or the front enemy based upon the card’s description. Other cards can buff creatures, create debuffs, and even drop enemies down entire floors. Finally, bosses appear at the end of every battle, with the final battle occurring at level 8. The three main bosses have different abilities that are randomly chosen each run. It depletes the feeling of sameness that is a pitfall that some rougelikes fall into. Other bosses, that are more like mini-bosses, instead have risk and reward powers for their hero units. One such example is that the non-boss enemies may have 10 extra damage. The reward for completing this challenge can either be gold or a random artifact. These challenges are randomized as well per run. After every battle is the time to choose which cards to gain and how to spend the player’s hard-earned gold.

Shops and track choice
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2117097601
There are three shop types in this game. The first shop type is the unit buffing shop. Players are given the chance to spend gold to gain upgrade stones which can be socketed into any creature. Creatures start out with two sockets, but this can be upgraded with artifacts, and when all the sockets are used up, there isn’t any way to remove them. The same type of system occurs with spells, but they get different buffs for the most part.

Artifacts
Artifacts change up the game heavily and can change entire game mechanics. The demon horn, for example, makes it so that any Ember that isn’t used after a turn is saved for the next round. This would be perfect for a deck with mostly free cards, but also some high cost spells or creatures that will annihilate one’s enemies.

Difficulty
Once all run combinations are completed, it is time to try for true mastery with the Covenant system. This allows players to fight tougher enemies, and the rewards is a nice golden border around the cards a player wins with; besides bragging rights as well.

The story is a bit simplistic, but still gives good context to the basis of the entire game. Hell’s fire has been extinguished and it is up to clans of Hell to form an uneasy alliance to return their homes to back to the way it used to be while simultaneously returning the balance of Heaven and Hell.

Monster Train’s sound design is crisp and satisfying. The sound effects relay a sense of strength in each attack or spell used. The painful reactions of the player’s monsters and the enemy heroes also relay this power. The music relays the game’s theme of the bad games being good this time. The music has a choral and orchestral feeling, but in a haunting and corrupted manner. This reflects the corruption of power found in the heavenly beings.

The graphics are two-point-five-dimensional. The creatures and heroes are two-dimensional in appearance, but they are on a three-dimensional background. The creature and card graphics use a computer-based hand-drawn graphical style that fits nicely against modeled backgrounds. Every card art is also animated with intricate detail.

The game’s control scheme is simplistically brilliant. It is a drag and drop interface with only a few buttons. This game could run perfectly with a touch screen if one has a Windows tablet.


Easy to Alt-Tab: Yes
This game runs so well and I never had any bugs or crashes. This game can also nearly run on a toaster due to its insanely low spec requirements.

I have played this game for close to 18 hours now and I feel like I have barely scratched the surface. I recently unlocked the fifth clan, but I haven’t unlocked all of the cards for the first clan yet. Every unlock diversifies the game perfectly allowing for nearly limitless builds. There are also 26 difficulty levels that will keep any play busy for thousands of hours. This game is a steal for $25 dollars.
50x – Near Infinite

👍 Pros 👍
Amazing mixture of RPG, Strategy, Card Games, and Tower Defense games
Beautiful graphics
Simple controls
Amazing tooltips

👎 Cons 👎
Weak Story