[Review] Bouncy Bullets – Nintendo Switch

Developed By : Petite Games
Published By : Ratalaika Games
Category : Arcade, Action, Shooter
Release Date : July 12, 2019

During my history of reviewing games, I indeed discovered that Ratalaika Games publish short but interesting games. Bouncy Bullets does indeed follow the rule, but is it…fun?

Bouncy Bullets is a first-person shooter with parkour mechanics developed by Petite Games. Right from the start you will notice a surprising amount of colors: everything is bright, water is pink, and the terrain is blue. Your objective is to reach the end of the level without taking a single hit. Can you do that?

While Bouncy Bullets does not have any kind of story (or even cutscenes, for the matter) the task is clear from the very start. Avoid enemies’ bullets (or falling in the pink sea) and reach the end. In order to do so, the player is provided with incredibly long jumps and a…machine gun?
That’s right. You can shoot enemies with either yellow or purple bullets.
Yellow bullets will hit yellow enemies, purple will hit purple enemies and both will hit dark enemies. Just watch out! Don’t hit the grey ones, they are friendly and you will have to redo the level if you shot them.

The game presents a total of 84 levels spread in two different modes: normal levels and special levels, each with 3 “chapters” (altrough there are no noticeable differences between each chapter). The only difference between normal levels and special levels is that the special ones have extra enemies, since both share the same maps.
Throughout the levels there are plenty of traps too! Spikes and lasers are ready to cut right trough you, so you better watch out from those!

The game has many flaws: first of all, you’ll notice that the movement feels extremely slippery, especially during jumps. I fell and died quite a few times due to that. The shooting mechanics isn’t really that important. Surely, they are bouncy, but it doesn’t matter in the end. Enemies feel more like an added difficulty layer than anything. Maps sometimes feel extremely similar since the same assets are thrown in every level, and the special levels aren’t worth the extra time. Also, the game is EXTREMELY short. It took me a little over an hour to beat the normal levels. While some may enjoy the music, I personally didn’t, as there were just 5 tracks, which lasted just a little bit over a minute and a half each and I had to turn the music off since it started to give me a headache.

It’s not ALL bad though. There is some level or replayability since you can try to beat your highscores and get 3 stars in each level. The color palette used really stands out and it does provide some degree of challenge without being too hard. The visuals, despite the same assets being used over and over again, are pretty neat: there are things such as giant ice cones, parts of toy houses and random Super Mario-styled giant tubes coming out of the water.

In conclusion, Bouncy Bullets isn’t anything special despite the pretty visuals, and could have accomplished more with some more creative level design, but some might find some kind of enjoyment out of it.