An Anime Deckbuilding Gacha Experience: A Super Bullet Break Review

By Manuel

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC

Are you a fan of gacha games but aren't a fan of the predatory microtransactions they often contain? Well, Super Bullet Break takes that gacha gameplay, adds in a deckbuilding RPG with roguelike elements, and takes microtransactions out of the equation entirely. Developed by BeXide Inc., and published by PQube, this game released at the tail end of 2022 on the Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PC and we're going to take a look at it today. We're no stranger to deckbuilding RPGs, but the idea of one that so openly displays its gacha and anime inspirations so heavily is quite intriguing. So, without further ado, let's dive in and hope we get all those legendary pulls!

Super Bullet Break drops you into the shoes of Akari (and later on Hikaru and Sumire) who is tasked with fixing several popular games that seemingly have all gone down at once. It turns out that these games are now being controlled by rogue AI in the form of "singulaladies" who have spread "buggos" to the games. This interference is not only causing the games themselves to be unplayable, but even if you manage to get in you'll find that the corruption has spread to the in-game heroes themselves. Thankfully there is a good AI, named Nayuta, who is trying to end the influence of the singulaladies. Her plan is to recruit expert players to set everything right with the help of the equally mysterious Blackcat. It's now up to the three heroines to harness the power of "bullets", in-game characters who do the actual fighting for you, to defeat the singulaladies and bring the games back to their normal state. Not everything is as it seems though, and surprises lie around every corner. After all, what exactly are the singulaladies after? And who exactly is Nayuta?

Ugh, Monochrome Tactics...

An optional boss.

Each of the "games" within Super Bullet Break follow a particular genre. You start with "Monochrome Tactics", which resembles a JRPG, then move on to "Seasons of Love", which resembles a dating sim, and so on. These in-universe games actually get a bit darker as the game progresses, but their core gameplay remains the same. You traverse on a board game-like grid where you have 2-3 options of what your next move will be depending on what space you are currently on. Spaces come in the form of random encounters, events, shops, treasure, and rest areas. Most of these spaces are self-explanatory, but it's worth mentioning that the event spaces are the most random and can have quite varied outcomes. These spaces can be a free heal, a free bullet recruit, an item drop, or even a boss encounter you weren't expecting. They definitely have the highest risk/reward, but are often preferable to random encounters. Speaking of random encounters, each of those spaces have a star rating on them that indicates their difficulty. Since even single star encounters can lead to disaster if you hit bad RNG, it's best to not bother with higher star spaces unless you're looking for a challenge. Putting this all together means that you're going to want to carefully plan your movement ahead of time to make sure you don't box yourself into a bad situation. Each map eventually ends in a rest space that then proceeds the boss space. If you beat the boss you're moved to the next board. Each of the games has three boards to go through, these each end in a sub-boss, the game's perceived boss, and then the singulalady that is behind everything respectively. If you clear a game, which is quite a feat by the way, you then unlock the next game in line. Pretty simple stuff right?

A random encounter. Still deadly though.

Sure, why not?

Gameplay in Super Bullet Break comes in the form of a deckbuilding RPG. You begin each battle with a set of bullets and they each have an attack and a set of skills that they use when played. Each bullet has a cost to play and a bar at the top shows you how the bullet's cost affects the turns of everyone in the battle. Once a card is used it is sent to the discard pile and a new card is drawn. The deck shuffles when all cards have been played and everything starts again. If you lose all your HP it's an automatic Game Over. If you manage to kill every monster you're facing, or take down the boss at the end of each map, then you live to fight again. Each of the three girls is given a base deck for each game, and you can obtain additional bullets from winning battles, scouting for them in shops, or finding them in event or treasure spaces. You are only allowed to carry 30 bullets in your deck, and having many bullets affects how often they end up in your hand, so building the right deck for you is very important. Then again there is no way to keep your deck beyond your current playthrough, so it's somewhat rare that you'll find yourself hitting that limit in most runs. Since this is a gacha game of sorts, each card has a rarity attached to it, as well as a "cartridge". These cartridges are additional passive or active skills that can make or break a game by making a card either useless or ridiculously overpowered. Cartridges are applied to cards randomly when you get them, but they can also be changed at rest spots in lieu of actually resting. Lastly, each game has some sort of special mechanic to it that only exists there. "Seasons of Love" has a "Heartsplosion" mechanic that delays enemy attacks for example, so it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with these unique elements as they come up. The combat system is rather deep, but I think we'll leave the discussion there as there is more to get to.

Look at that fanservice!

One of my personal favorite bullets.

Not content with just being a deckbuilding RPG, Super Bullet Break also has several roguelike elements. Each run is completely randomized and the map's spaces are filled with different events, encounters, and so on each time you start it up. This means that a space that previously healed you can now be an optional boss battle, and a shop space that sold recovery items can now be selling far less helpful items. Cartridges are also shuffled, and you might find that you have to battle more to get new bullets since the other spaces aren't giving you them. This RNG makes it hard to actively plan what your next move will be since one bad move can wreck all of your progress. The one constant though is that battles are best avoided altogether. HP is in short supply in this game, and battles can drain large chunks of it with little reward. HP drain and recovery is actually a big thing to discuss as recovery items are ridiculously expensive, usually only cure the amount of damage you'd get from a single attack, and are somewhat rare in general. Cards that recover HP usually do so in increments of 2-5 HP, while enemies often take 20+ with each attack and sometimes have the ability to hit more than once in a turn. The only reliable way to heal is to land on a rest space, but these only heal a percentage, with the 50% heal option costing an ever-increasing amount of in-game money. Clearing a map does not heal you either. You can realistically win a tough boss battle, move on to the next map, and then be taken out by a basic one-star random encounter because you can't get to a rest spot in time. "Scouting" for bullets in shops is equally unpredictable as you can know the exact traits you're looking for only to have them not come up in the pull. Also, even if the traits you want do come up you can still get a different bullet or it can come with a useless cartridge attached. These are only a few examples of how the game's RNG can screw you over, but there are so many to mention that I'll be here all day if I tried to list them all.

A standard map.

I wish more gameplay featured these graphics.

There's a giant problem that I had with Super Bullet Break though, it's incredibly difficult and the game does not offer a true in-game tutorial. I played the first levels of this game, those based in “Monochrome Tactics”, and I was expecting to either have the mechanics explained to me, or even to be given a bit of a break on difficulty since these were the first stages of the game after all. Neither of those things happened though, and instead I was met with several Game Over screens. At first I figured that this would be fine since I had got some really good bullets on some of my runs. Then I realized that there is practically no progression in this game at all. It's a roguelike in pretty much the truest sense of the word as there is nothing that carries over from one run to the next. You DO unlock entries into your journal of sorts for other bullets and cartridges, but I have no idea what these are meant to do. They can't be added to your deck, and the game sure as hell didn't tell me anything relevant. After wasting hours on failed runs, I looked the game up online to see what I was doing wrong. I was met with dozens of complaints like mine, and several guides created by fans, and even THIS video produced by PQube themselves. I can't think of a single game that is more unfriendly to first time players than this one, and that's quite the feat considering the art style and general look of the game. I eventually figured things out, but it wasn't due to the many in-game text menus trying in vain to explain the game's mechanics, or the dozens of guides I found online. It was all thanks to pure and simple RNG. There wasn't a single successful run that felt like it was due to me truly understanding the game's mechanics. They all seemed to be me just getting extremely lucky and winning by only the smallest of margins. I know that there are players who apparently have broken down all the ins and outs of Super Bullet Break, but I really feel that the average gamer will have an experience similar to mine.

All the singulaladies!

Why is this monster just a text box?

Let's move on from gameplay and talk about other aspects of Super Bullet Break that fare a bit better. Graphics are great all around thankfully and were what initially drew me into the game in the first place. It's very anime, and very heavy on the fan service, but there is a charm to the visuals that is hard to deny. Basically expect an all-female cast when it comes to the human (or humanoid) characters that cover every trope you can expect, and some that might surprise you. The monster designs are a little less inspired, but considering that I decided to mostly avoid random encounters in my playthroughs, they weren't something I ever really saw anyway. The in-game cutscenes feature some animation when it comes to three main girls, but everything else is a static image whose animation is limited to bobbing along in the background. It might be a bit much to expect more from an indie game of this size and scope, but I do wish there was more going on at times since I found myself getting bored of the repeated visuals after my tenth run at the same set of levels. Also, the girls' rooms are rather unique looking, but you'll only ever get to see them in the title screen. This, and also the in-game console where the game takes place, feel like ideas that weren't fully fleshed out. In short there is a lot to like here visually, but Super Bullet Break just falls short of what could've been near perfect.

Get used to this screen.

The shopkeeper has issues.

Sound is an interesting topic as I went in hoping that the game would feature voice acting. There are several soundbytes in the game, but they are short quips that are meant to go along with the tone of what is being said, not acting out the scene itself. These are all in Japanese, and I guess you can say that that is to be expected, but an English dub would've gone a long way. This is a tricky argument I'm sure, but it would've been pretty easy to implement seeing as the game only has a few voiced bits here and there anyway. I'd not really be talking about the voice acting much at all if it weren't for the fact that you'll eventually be hearing a lot of the same sounds over and over again in some boss battles that I wished I could change things up a bit at the very least. Music on the other hand fares a bit better. Most of the music is very upbeat, with a slight generic tinge to it. I don't know how to describe it beyond that it was very reminiscent of the type of music one would find in a visual novel. Like it's meant to supplement what's going on within the game, but not to draw attention to itself. The game's latter stages are of a bit darker theme, but I found the music to still have this feel to it. By no means a complaint, but I'd be hard pressed to pick Super Bullet Break's music out of a lineup.

What even is this giant text box?

They're making fun of it!

Super Bullet Break has a decent amount of content to it. There's over 160 bullets to "collect" and every run is completely different than the one before it. I say "collect" as I really wish there was a true way to collect and customize decks in this game. I guess this would lead to just steamrolling over everything, but it goes back to what I had to say about balance and how this game doesn't seem to have it at all. After the third game, you can replay others with the other girls, and this is interesting as they have different starter decks. It goes without saying though that the average player probably won't ever get to this point in their experience. My searches online showed me many gamers who gave up after a handful of tries in “Monochrome Tactics”. Even the PQube video I linked to above mentions "Don't give up!" as if they know that many would have that thought cross their minds. I actually vowed to give up the game after my tenth run of “Monochrome Tactics”, review be damned, and I literally only beat that section on my last try with only a few HP to spare. The game's biggest challenge is just getting through that first impossibly difficult section. If you're able to do that, and then somehow do it several more times, there's a whole wide game out there for you to enjoy. Everyone else? Well, try not to give up. There's a chance your wasted hours will eventually lead to fruition.

Look how much HP the bosses have!

I'll show you this in case you never see it.

I don't know if I can recommend Super Bullet Break. It's not a bad game, but it feels so mean-spirited in terms of difficulty that I can't help but want to steer gamers to more welcoming games. The idea of a roguelike deckbuilding game with gacha mechanics, that doesn't have any microtransactions, is really cool on paper. I just wish that the core gameplay wasn't so damn frustrating. I guess if you're a fan of the genre, or gacha games as a whole, you'll find some enjoyment here. If you're a casual gamer, or if you think the anime style visuals represent a fun simple game, you'll probably be wasting your time on this one. It may not be anime-inspired, but maybe try Slay the Spire instead.

For More Information on Super Bullet Break:
https://pqube.co.uk/games/super-bullet-break/

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Story: A
Gameplay: D
Graphics: B
Music/Sound: B-
Value: B

Overall: C-

Pros:
+ Cool anime graphics, complete with a variety of fan-service heavy characters, make this a very visually appealing game.
+ The idea of a gacha-style game with no microtransactions is a truly great idea.
+ There's a lot of variety and depth to the gameplay once you get into it.
+ Each set of levels cover different gaming genres, character tropes, and aesthetics.
+ No two runs are the same, and the base decks for each stage can eventually be changed too.

Cons:
- The game is completely unforgiving and starts with a near impossible set of levels.
- There is no true tutorial and most of the learning you do is through trial and error, or going through countless text menus.
- Lacks true voice acting and the often repeated voice clips that are here can become grating after a while.
- Takes its roguelike title seriously and offers no form of permanent progression.
- RNG is the biggest factor in whether a run is successful or not.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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Don't make me have to erase you.

#SuperBulletBreak