The first few minutes of BPM: Bullets Per Minute had me wondering whether I’d gone all 22 years of my life without any sense of rhythm. Instead of effortlessly shooting demons to the beat and jamming to synth metal, my gun was doing all the jamming for me, leading to a swift death at the hands of some kind of hell worm.

That’s BPM’s key gimmick - all shooting is tied to the beat of the music. Both firing and reloading your weapon has to be done to a rhythm, which adds another layer to the Doom-style shooting. Where you’d be sprinting around a map and firing off hits whenever you get a chance in Doom, BPM asks you to kill to a very specific rhythm. At first, trying to play a Doom-esque shooter to a specific beat is like trying to rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time, but poking yourself in the eye along the way.

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Once you’ve relearned how moving and shooting works, BPM is a hell of a time. Reloading a rocket launcher and hearing the click hit perfectly with the music is incredibly satisfying, as is dodging an attack just as another riff starts. There’s clearly a lot of love poured in too, and I couldn’t help smiling every time I saw my character pretend to strum a guitar when picking up the shotgun.

In a lot of ways, Doom already feels like a rhythm game thanks to its very specific brand of dodging, jumping, and shooting, but it works even better when the concept is taken literally. Played well, BPM is the gaming equivalent of expertly drumming on your desk to Guns n’ Roses - you probably think you look a lot cooler than you actually do, but it feels amazing.

If, like me, your flow is off on the best of days, there’s also an auto-rhythm option. Out of curiosity - and definitely not because I was struggling past the first level - I tried it out. Thankfully, BPM is still a competent Doom roguelike without the rhythm gimmick, although it does remove the game’s niche edge.

The auto-rhythm mode isn’t a bad idea, though, as BPM isn’t just a fan of rock, it is rock - rock solid that is. Even on the easiest difficulty, enemies take a quarter of your health per hit, which can make it feel like you’re playing Doom on the highest difficulty. I’ve made it to the final boss on several occasions and still haven’t managed to beat it, even with the best weapons and abilities. The high damage rate also has the knock-on effect of making small flying enemies the bigger threat, as they’re harder to shoot and can kill you in four hits. Ignore that massive sea-squid demon boss, the real threat is the tiny worm on the ground that you’ve got to try and shoot to a beat.

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Speaking of beats, the music is obviously a key part of the experience here, and it’s thankfully full of synth-rock energy to power you through the challenge. It can be a bit much to hear over and over again as you restart a run, but it works perfectly for BPM. I would have loved to have seen heavier rock, similar to Mick Gordon’s work on the Doom reboot, but it’s still great stuff here.

The same sadly can’t be said for BPM’s visuals. Each stage looks like it has only one colour and the contrast has been put to maximum, which, beyond looking like someone’s ran around hell rubbing wotsits all over the furniture, makes gameplay notably worse as items become difficult to see. It gets worse as you go further down into a run and lava starts getting involved, with the screen being frighteningly bright.

BPM’s core concept works well, but beyond that gimmick, the roguelike mechanics leave a lot to be desired.

For starters, aside from occasional lbanks that allow you to store coins, no progress carries over at all. While this is typical of the roguelike genre, gaming is moving towards the roguelite, a la Hades, and BPM feels stuck in the past.

Pure luck seems to play more of a role in BPM than any other roguelike I’ve played, too. Sometimes you’ll get to a boss room to find an even harder version of it waiting for you there, and sometimes you’ll find the infinite ammo shield in the first room and fly through a run. Even when clearing rooms flawlessly, I never felt like my victories were based on skill. Instead, it was like I owed BPM for giving me the rocket launcher.

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Another major issue with BPM is its refusal to explain anything. Discovering how things work is a key part of the roguelike experience, but BPM outright doesn’t want to give any hints over what item you’re about to buy, what the symbols the map mean, and what your powers do.

That can be fun when you suddenly discover you’re shooting fire bullets, but a lot less fun when you’re in the middle of a good run and accidentally skip ahead to the final biome and get instantly annihilated.

Discovery is one of the key parts of a roguelike, but there’s usually some helping hand or tutorial involved. You’re not going to reach Olmec on your first go in Spelunky or defeat Hades straight away, but both of those games ease you in a bit before letting you discover some of its deeper intricacies. A tutorial wouldn’t have gone amiss.

The difficulty without much progression and lack of any kind of guidance can make BPM feel a bit unwelcoming, which is a shame when its mechanics feel so great to learn. It's worth diving into for the core premise alone, but don't expect to have anyone hold your hand through hell.

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BPM: Bullets Per Minute is available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and PC. We tested the PS5 version for this review. Review code was provided by the publisher.

BPM: Bullets Per Minute

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