I wouldn’t say that much, it’s only the online part where things are iffy. For example, you can notice the lag with 4 players. Not having drop-in isn’t ideal, but then again, it’s a roguelite where games are 60-70 minutes long. And with the aggressive player power curve, new players wouldn’t be able to compete against enemies if they join a friend’ game during the mid part.
The rest of the game is very well designed. Well, the translation also could be better…
A bit of game design discussion:
Gunfire Reborn is a game with a tendency for glass cannons. And it isn’t in the player classes, it’s embedded in how the progress work
The way the game progresses, enemies gain extra hp and extra damage as you advance through the stages. This power curve is pretty steep, in 1-1 they barely can dent you, you don’t even need to avoid them, but already in 1-4 the same shot of the same enemy takes a sizable portion of your shield, and in 2-3 the equivalent enemy can screw you if you aren’t attentive.
You also gain power, in three ways:
-You find more powerful weapons/upgrade your weapons
-You get new scrolls
-You get new ascensions
And if your build is good, you gain power in ways that are not even in linear but exponential, you really can go off the rails and get insane damage numbers. And in fact, that surely is what is going to happen, because from the three ways you gain power, the first one only increases your damage, and a good 2/3 to 3/4 of all scrolls and ascensions are offensive oriented. They do more damage either directly, or indirectly (increasing rof, lucky chance, critX, decreasing cooldowns or reload times, etc). There are a few scrolls and ascensions that for example make you recover a bit of %hp or trigger the shield recharge before normally, but they are less than offensive things, and if you think about it, there are very few things that directly increase your shield or hp amounts.
So what happens is that the game in stage 3-3 plays pretty differently to 2-1. The enemies supposedly gain more and more hp… but like it doesn’t matter. You have gained even more damage at that point, so you almost instant delete enemies on 3-3 despite being theoretically a tougher stage, while in 2-1 they feel more tanky, you usually have to maneuver around, retreat from the fat guys, take care of the shielded lizards, etc. The danger in 3-3 still resides in that, while you kill them easily, they can do the same to you, thanks to their high damage. The fact your defensive perks only have improved a bit (because what I discussed already) but your damage power curve is exponential, it turns you into a glass cannon usually, even if you don’t plan for it. You have to do a very conscious effort (and some ‘luck’) to make a tanky build.
It’s funny, but I have a harder time learning the enemies in the late stages of the game because they die so fast!
I finally beat Elite in Solo, after doing it three times on coop. I’ve been close in the last two days, usually choking in stage 3 by some silly mistake, but this time, honestly, it was easy. In fact, I had a build so good that it was a pity I wasn’t playing in Nightmare or some Reinc, because I also would have beat the game on that difficulty with this.
For defense, I had Lightless Shield + Phantom Skin + Reinforced eggshell + Overwhelming shield + Paranormality. They all synergize to boost or recover my shield or nullify damage.
For offense, and synergizing with my punchy build, I had Dual Edge, Energy Storage (2 uses of active Shield), Magic Watch (33% chance of not using a charge of active shield), Spirit Bible (120% skill dmg), Surprise Bonus (chance to double skill damage), double sec. skill ammo, mid Air strike (+50% dmg when jumping), Vindictive Nature (+40% skill dmg when being hit) , Enduring Caster (+skill dmg proportional to your hp/shield), and Sucker Punch (+30% skill dmg if enemies have more than 70% hp).
For mobility, I had Tactical Reload, and Strategic Advantage.
Funny thing, I scrapped by mistake my +16 rainbow arch after the third boss, but whatever, I guess, most of the rest of the game was solved by punches.
Time to try Nightmare.
Oh by the way, we have to do a shout out to the wiki of the game, which is very complete and informative:
https://gunfirereborn.fandom.com/wiki/Gunfire_Reborn_Wiki
Is there any quick comparison for how Gunfire Reborn presents its difficulty and control-over-a-build compares with, say, Wizard of Legend?
I finished successfully Gunfire Reborn on the first two difficulties. I cannot say the same for Wizard of Legend, which was too hard for me. About build control, you usually are offered 3 scrolls or 3 ascensions to pick one, and there are plenty of dropped weapons, so control is pretty decent.
I like how all of that sounds. Thanks for the impressions!
68 hours in, I can now beat Elite with regularity (and even feeling it’s easy if I have a good build). Time to go for Nightmare. I want at least reach Reinc1 as it unlocks some new build options.
Also, I just finishing unlocking all scrolls. And I have all weapons except one.
After playing this much, I’m reaching the typical point where you start noticing more flaws to the game, which were there from the start, but only now I see them.
First, the enemy spawn is way less random (is it random at all?) than I supposed at first. Funny thing I needed so much time to see it. Not the most important issue in reality, the fact I hadn’t noticed until now means isn’t that big problem.
Second, the ‘meta’ of the game is, once reached a stage of the game, to choose one of the two main weapons and pump the weapon level with upgrades as far as you can. I would prefer if using the two weapons (because ammo considerations, enemies with armor or shields, long vs short range, etc) would be maintained more time, ideally until the end of the game. But right now, upgrading a weapon to +12 instead of +5 increases the damage enough that it doesn’t matter if you are firing an enemy with the wrong damage type (-25% dmg). Each weapon level increases damage by 15%, btw. Having one weapon at level 12 is way better than having two weapons at level 8.
I’d prefer if each weapon upgrade of a weapon would cost more and more, promoting using more the two weapons. Of course, they would have to rebalance the entire game, as the final weapon level you would reach would be inferior than right now.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1217060/view/3114800719175535594
Turtle rebalanced (Battle Adrenaline is nerfed, but other three talents are buffed)
Dog is buffed (he needed it, beyond the gimmicky build nades)
Tiger is buffed too.
Cat is rebalanced, the stats changed to:
HP: 80→65
Shield: 50→65
Shield recovery delay: 3.5s→3s
Which is strange as he was the oldest character.
Sunder and Argus have changed somwhat.
Final boss slightly buffed (which is ok imo, if you reached the boss stage, you usually had a build to give him a whopping).
A bunch of balance changes for Reinc players.
Added unlockable frames for each hero. Each frame for each hero comes with a unique challenge for you to complete.
And finally a fail in the bug fixing section. They fixed 68 bugs. They had to fix one more! :P
Almost nice.
Yes, you can quit in the ‘in between’ world 1 and world 2 scene, where the well that recover your health is.
I don’t have any evidence to back it up… but I think the first time you reach that area, a text popup shows and say it. Surely you dismissed it without reading it?
If there was a pop-up I missed it too.
I’d probably done a dozen or more runs into the second world before I got fed up and googled to see when they were going to add a mid-game save option. And that’s when I discovered the well…
The transition from Elite to Nightmare is being rough. I’m starting to think maybe I’m not the super hotshot FPS player than I believed I was:
LOL
Finally
I still have a few metaprogression things to unlock, I guess I will get them first before spending essence on Reincarnation
New update! Well, the first quote is from April, and the last one from May
The game is having very good support. Another new update today, making the builds even more varied:
"In this Update, 5 new Exclusive Spiritual Blessing, 10 new Occult Scroll and some enemy Affixes are added. We also adjusted the quality and effect of some scrolls.
About the upcoming DLC, which will be released in the third quarter this year, we are now preparing new heroes, new weapons and new game mode for you so please stay tuned. The timetable and our plan of upcoming DLCs and free updates will be released Next Week. Thank you all for your patience and support!"
Also the game is on sale.
Looking forward to the new DLC. This really has been a fun little game. I’ll hop on for some co-op with my friend and his 6-year old from time to time.
New roadmap
I expected the dlc to come in Fall, instead of Summer, so that’s early.
excited to finally play this in Oct on Game Pass.