Orbital Bullet
by Aethyna
Feb 18, 2022 |
1
Votes |
58
Played |
0
Reviews
10
rate
Genres:
Action , PlatformerGraphics:
2DLabels:
Adventure , Pixel Art , Roguelike/roguelite , Sci-FiPlatforms:
Publishers:
Assemble Entertainment Featuring a unique 360˚ view, Orbital Bullet is a rogue-lite platformer that comes with fast-paced and non-stop action whether it is shooting at various enemies or stomping them into the ground. Play, die and repeat to advance your character, discover new biomes, and defeat challenging bosses. Play Now Similar Games Played
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Summary
Featuring a unique 360˚ view, Orbital Bullet is a rogue-lite platformer that comes with fast-paced and non-stop action whether it is shooting at various enemies or stomping them into the ground. Play, die and repeat to accumulate points that you can then invest into your character’s talent tree, unlocking access to many useful and permanent perks like self-heal, a shield, and a better starter weapon. There are lots of biomes to discover and play through, bosses to defeat, and loot to collect.
Gameplay
Orbital Bullet puts you right into the action, after a simple enough tutorial of course. The game doesn’t feature any background story of where you are or what you’re doing, but you can generally glean more about the game world and what you’re doing there.
The gameplay itself is pretty similar to a standard platformer except for a major twist – everything’s in 360˚! In a way, it’s rather gimmicky, albeit the fun sort, and everything’s done so well to make use of this unique aspect of the game.
Being an action platformer of sorts, the game also comes with controls that make you feel “in the moment” as you play. You get to dodge enemy attacks; jump and double jump to overcome dangers and get a one-up on your enemies, especially the pesky flying ones, by stomping them into the ground; and if you get the right skill or talent, you can even perform some cool moves like an earthshaking ground-stomp or hovering in the air.
The game features a huge variety of weapons that offers different shooting experiences as well. Some of the guns lob grenades or plasma while others offer some straight-up shooting albeit at varying ranges. You’ll start the game with the default pistol, but as you progress, you’ll unlock a host of powerful weapons, from rifles to plasma guns, to even grenade launchers.
Shooting isn’t necessary either, sometimes. Giving a nod to classic platformers like Mario, you can actually jump above your enemies and stomp on them. There’s also a special skill that you can grab that allows you to do an “air stomp”, causing the ground to shake and damaging nearby enemies as well.
To make things interesting, the game doesn’t give you a self-heal ability nor any way to regenerate health right from the start, making your very first run likely to be a fairly short one. You can get a self-heal ability, along with a host of other helpful abilities via the talent tree.
You see, true to the rogue-lite fashion, although you experience perma-death in your playthrough, the game still offers you a kind of overall progression so that you won’t feel like your every run is wasted. This progression is the talent tree.
By accumulating points, you can then invest into this tree to obtain new abilities as well as to upgrade existing ones. These abilities will persist throughout all your runs despite death, unlike non-transferable abilities obtained via skills that are bound to that specific run, along with perks that you picked up during a playthrough.
How can you get new skills? Well, you’ll gain skill points as you play. In between stages within a level, there’s a pitstop-like stage where a one-eyed merchant will sell his wares. You can buy some of his stuff with credits if you want. The most important thing though is that right beside the guy, you’ll find a skill upgrade machine. This is where you can then spend the skill points you’ve gathered so far.
Orbital Bullet is also designed for speedrunners. Every run you embark on will kickstart a timer at the bottom. If you can get to the end of the level within a specific time, you can then unlock a special loot chest which, I assume, would contain some special, and very rare, loot.
Every new run in this game feels fresh and exciting too. There are probably millions of computer-generated levels - Note the seed number at the bottom right corner of the screen for your every run – and the likelihood of you getting the same levels is minuscule, and even if you hit the jackpot and bumped into the same levels, it’s likely you won’t remember you’ve played that level before by then.
Graphics/ Sound
If you're into techno music, get ready to strap in because you’re in for a blast! The music here is simply brilliant especially if you’re into the genre. Plus, the music matches the sci-fi theme of the game and the gameplay perfectly. I’m also a huge fan of the graphics here. The colors used made every stage feels atmospheric, and of course, I’m a sucker for neon colors and there are plenty of those flying – or should I say, circling? - around each stage.
Conclusion
Orbital Bullet may seem rather gimmicky at first, and it does have a bit of that, but once you’ve gotten into the gameplay, the game will definitely make you change your mind. Even if you take away its iconic 360˚ feature, you’ll quickly realize that this game is truly an incredible rogue-lite platformer in its own right. Couple that with plenty of unique levels, thrilling boss fights, interesting enemies, and an overall progression that feels satisfying, you end up with a well-polished gem of an indie game!
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