In a gamer world that is full of addictive gacha games that despite your best efforts, might drain the wallet more than any one gamer wants to admit, some dare to make a game and ask “what if Gacha without the gotcha”. At first glance, Super Bullet Break looks like your over-the-top stylish and detailed anime character collect-em-all-athon, and partially it is, but the moe-infused card-based tactics game wants to be so much more than that. So what is the answer? “Everything is final” Roguelike rules applied to deck building?! Preposterous you might say.
Just so we’re clear, before we dissect any further, there are ZERO micro-transactions. What you see is what you get with this $20 purchase. This seems like a good deal, especially when looking at the challenging gameplay added to an otherwise colorful and lighthearted-looking game. What will really get some more interested in others however is there is a bit more of a test in one’s card game strategy with this one. Think moe style Slay the Spire with Dark Souls rules, mock it if you dare, and see if you can clear through the levels as fast as you might underestimate such an outlandish mix of game mechanics.
Super Bullet Break Review Takeaways
- The concept of starting with a basic deck and building on it as you clear each level of each map only to lose it all once you fail even 1 match might be enough of a hook for some wanting more of a challenge
- It’s still a huge library of Moe style Gacha influenced Anime girl characters that might keep plenty of people discouraged from playing
- The difficulty comes down to how much you can think on your feet and learn how to combine cards as you speed through each world map
- A flat rate gacha game for $20 might be a steal for some who love investing their time in collecting everything the game has to offer
- Final score: 7/10
Gamergirl Power
You start off quick enough, almost instantly on the opening screen. Select between three best gamer friends, Akari, Hikaru, and Sumire. Opening up your gaming device, all your beloved games are glitching out and not working. Soon you’re contacted by Nayuta, a mysterious girl who believes only you and your awesome gamer skills can help figure out why all the games in the world are suddenly not working. Aided by the contractually required feline mascot Blackcat, you dive into the first glitching game “Monochrome Tactics” and explore through a card-base battle system what’s causing the games to be unplayable. Powerful AIs from an old game called “Bullet Break” known as Singulaladies are going around corrupting other games with little virus minions called Buggos. You have to play the Bullet Break gameplay in order to save all your other games, one game at a time.
Gacha to the Next Level
So you have 8 games, or worlds/stages, call them what you will, and each one has 3 sets of pathway maps you must choose from. Every round you decide between a battle, an event, shopping, resting, or choosing a treasure. Battles are ranked 1-3 stars. Trust me, the 3-star battles can be as bad or worse than some boss fights. Events could lead to a mini-boss you’re not yet prepared for, or a nicer NPC will give you a gift or come with you as one of your new characters cards to play, known as Bullets.
In a battle, you can have up to 30 cards, Bullets, in your deck called your Magazine. That’s right, like the magazine of a gun. In true anime and gacha fashion, your cards are used like bullets you fire out your battle creatures, in this instance, very elaborate and detailed in design anime girls. This is where the gacha aspect comes in. You have a whopping over 160 characters to collect and be randomly given almost seemingly without limit on when you get some of the more powerful cards. A lot of the choice comes down to cards you’ve already gained after completing levels or maps. The best and most frequent way to get Bullets as rewards after battles and with a Scout Ticket which you buy at the shop. Buying and then immediately using a ticket after some randomized word association based on the type of Bullet you want, will give you a new character card to use.
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If You Lose Once, You Lose It All
So far through a first run of the first map of the first stage, you’d be inclined to think there’s not much more beyond your typical new style of Roguelike Card Games coming out lately. You start with 5 bullets and are up against any given amount of 1 to 5 enemies. Each Bullet card has a number in the upper left corner, it’s the number of steps taken that count down to when it becomes your enemy’s turn. So if your enemy makes a move in 30 clips as shown in the long bar at the top of your battle screen, then you use any combination of moves from your cards, usually between 3 and 8, and you make your choices based on what affect combos and how many moves you can make before it’s your opponents’ turn.
Slay the Spire most certainly seems like a heavy influence on gameplay mechanics, though there is one step further here that might make the game both more appealing, and much more challenging. As you play through the maps and stages, if you lose even one battle, all of your items, cards, and power-ups are gone. You start over at the very beginning of the first round on the first map with the same base of 13 cards you always start with depending on which Stage you’re playing.
That’s right, there is nothing permanent in Super Bullet Break, once you lose, it’s all gone. The same is said for beating one game world and going on to the next stage. Each game has its own creative list of characters you play with the most, however you can use any character from any game through the scout ticket process. This all creates a very fast-paced streamlined “battle till you drop” kind of atmosphere that depending on how much you like the game’s overall aesthetic and randomization of cards, can be highly addicting to clear the path on the map of each game world the best way you can. This opens up to a whole slew of ideas and attempts to strategize on the fly while adding the extra pressure of “do or die” and having to start all the way over if you make even one silly mistake while planning out your combos.
Gacha Collect Them All
On top of the unique aspect of “you lose once you lose it all”, a simple rule that changes the level of challenge of the game immensely, there’s also the amazingly intricate and dense library of cards and cartridges. There are over 160 unique playable cards, mostly cute, moe-powered anime girls, to rival Genshin Impact’s appeal of lovable character designs. Each card has its own rarity level, powers and effects, damage, and amount of moves needed to play. On top of that, there are over 150 cartridges – pretty circular emblems attachable to each and any Bullet that gives an added effect. The cartridges are added at random but you can randomly gamble on switching one you don’t like out on a better one at the Rest point once you get to one through the pathway you choose.
More Than It Seems
This all adds up as well to the fact that you are continually building a deck with each path point you choose and continue through the map. There is no deck builder. You can’t switch out Bullets until you have reached a full 30 in your magazine and are asked if you want to trade a newly acquired Bullet for an older weaker one you don’t need anymore as you progress. Every choice is quite fatal in Super Bullet Break. There is never any going back. Everything is final, from adding new bullets to getting rid of old ones. Choosing which path you take and what combos will keep you alive long enough to heal at a rest checkpoint. If you don’t pay enough attention you just might lose in the blink of an eye and have to begin all over again with nothing more than caution and experience of past mistakes.
By all accounts, Super Bullet Break is a much better and more addicting game than it has any right to be. The niche art style and character designs are still quite glaring and clearly meet a specific demographic. However, gacha games have proven time and time again to wrangle in a massive audience of millions. So why not invest in one that can keep you going for hours, days, or even weeks, trying to collect all the cards in your database? You’ll also have one hell of a time trying to beat every boss in every world stage and finally save all video games.
