Shoot to the beat, reload to the beat, and move rhythmically to the rock through randomly generated dungeons full of demonic hordes! Rogue-like shooter BPM: Bullets per Minute promises the feel of old-school gunplay with a musical twist.
Developer AWE Interactive has spared a story for the trip through playable metal cover and instead focused entirely on demonic aesthetics and gameplay. While you, as Valkyrie, stop the forces of the underworld from invading Asgard, everything revolves around uncovering new secrets in a rogue-like fashion - of course, starting over and over again in the process. The melodically digressive rock soundtrack with a slight chiptune touch fits perfectly to the red-hot action in randomly generated dungeons - although the developers overdo it a bit graphically with their focus on red tones. Sometimes you almost have the impression of sitting in front of an old monochrome monitor, when demons, lava, statues, and cult sites are all displayed in only slightly different color shades.
Stylistically, this gets to the heart of the matter and seems pleasantly consistent in principle, but in the long run, it gets a bit tiring for the eyes, especially since you occasionally overlook sacrifice sites to increase your character values. With coins, which you can get from chests or killed enemies, you can increase variables like speed, precision, or damage. Distance is also an important factor, as weapons like pistols, shotguns, MPs, fat rockets or projectile launchers have a rather short range, especially in the beginning. An annoying little graphics bug is also the white flashing of polygons at the edge of the screen during quick turns. After all, you're constantly on the move here to avoid being overrun - with lightning-fast dodge-dashes, double or triple jumps, or even the occasional flying or super-jump ability.
An important element is, of course, shooting and reloading on the beat. If you miss the beat displayed next to the crosshairs, the point multiplier is gone and the weapon locks up for a while in the worst case. Of course, this can get quite dicey in the scurrying hordes of enemies. Especially if you land awkwardly in a corner, your life energy drains ominously fast - and without giving the player with short invincibility the chance to reposition. It's a pretty frustrating experience when you've had a good run before. The enemies also mostly hiss and grumble their way through the dungeons in time with the music. When Boss Draugr alternately turns the entire left and right halves of the hall into deadly embers, you dance out of the way of danger.
Still, the music isn't quite as closely tied to the game design as one might think. Beginners or players with a poor sense of rhythm may set the beat detection in the main menu a bit more benignly. Or they can switch completely to automatic beat-matching and then shoot their way through an ordinary retro shooter without a score multiplier.
Conclusion
BPM: Bullets per Minute has the potential to be a cool rogue-like shooter in retro garb. The Nordic-inspired metal design and sinister demons fit well with the sprawling rock soundtrack and all the numerous secrets, abilities, and items to discover. The rhythmic shooting and reloading is also a nice addition, but it doesn't have too much impact on the game design and can even be disabled along with the point multiplier. However, some problems make the entry into the randomly generated dungeons unnecessarily bulky and frustrating.
