The classical shooter genre has been around for almost as long as video games themselves.  While there have been massive improvements over the decades, and distinct changes, much of the fundamentals have been in remain in place.  The adverse impact of this is that it can highlight a great game, and simply make all of the flaws in a not as good title stand out even more.  As Bullet Casters is one of the newer entries in this genre, and tries a handful of things slightly differently, the question then becomes of how it stacks up.

Graphically the title follows a cute, old-school anime inspired, pixelated look.  All of the enemies have great outlines and can be instantly recognized at a quick glance – something that is always welcome when the screen begins to fill with bullets.  The characters all look unique and interesting as well.  The only real complaint about the way that anything in the title looks is that the backgrounds didn’t seem to always get the same level of attentions as the sprites that are interacted with, and can look out of place from time to time. This is only a very minor gripe, though.

The gameplay is typical, current generation shump.  Many of the early levels start out easy, with small sub challenges that can be completed fairly quickly.  The difficulty quickly ramps up to the, now expected, night levels of screen filling projectiles.  While it is easy to feel overwhelmed in some of these stages, the game does offer a shop where characters can be upgraded with different assets – the standard shields, devices to shoot extra shots, etc.  The way this is done is interesting, as it uses the players clearance of the aforementioned challenges as currency.  This makes it so that if a wall is hit later in the game, the player can simply go back and start grinding out some of the left over challenges to power up enough that they are finally able to overcome it.

Interestingly the levels are all fairly short, which is welcome as it makes restarting them due to consistent failure that much easier.  Because of the bite sized length of each stage is makes deaths feel less like a true setback and more like a feat to overcome as none of them are truly that long—most the size of a standard checkpoint in another title from this genre.

Overall Bullet Casters is a great game, and a wonderful addition to the collection of anyone who has even a remote interest in this genre at all.  While the game is not without flaws, it does so much right that most aren’t even worth mentioning.  The developer is also extremely active with the community as well, which is always a large plus for the longevity of any experience.  The game is fairly cheap on Steam, so there isn’t really a reason not to rush out and pick it up.