Review: Bouncy Bullets 2 (Nintendo Switch)

Admittedly I do not play a lot of first-person shooters, as I usually find them too gory and realistic. I like to play Nintendo because it brings me back to my childhood, where games were story-oriented and had legendary characters with complex missions. Bouncy Bullets 2 doesn’t have a story or really any characters, but that doesn’t stop it from being an enjoyable game. 

Bouncy Bullets 2 takes place in a colorful Minecraft-like world where everything is a square. You are a first-person shooter who shoots colorful blocks at bad guys. You have red blocks to shoot at red bad guys and yellow blocks to shoot at yellow bad guys. Grey square people are allies, and shooting them means elimination. Black square people are bad guys to bounce a shot off the ground or wall to defeat. You have a race to the finish of 90 seconds to advance through each level, or else you timeout and die.

This game has basic elements of older games (fall in the water, get shot first, run out of time, you die) and is still entertaining. You respawn right after you die and are allowed to try the level again without worry of a game over or having a limit of lives; it also loads very quickly. The levels break down into Easy, Medium, and Hard categories, and they get progressively more difficult with each level. You start just trying to jump over the water and get to the end. By level 16, you’re avoiding laser beams and jumping over buzzsaws coming from the ground. Each level is colorful and vibrant, and by the last one, 45, gets extraordinarily challenging. 

Bouncy Bullets 2 has an extremely quick pace. You can refire quickly in case you have a bad shot. You can jump and shoot, and if you miss, you can jump right back up and shoot again. If you accidentally fall into the water, you restart at the beginning of the level very fast. After you beat one level, you quickly move on to the next without any delay or story mode to break up your pace. It’s easy to get in a rhythm with this game, and in my first playthrough, I was on level 15 after around 15 minutes. 

One of the downfalls of Bouncy Bullets 2 is that the first-person shooting isn’t perfect. Usually, these shots are aligned more straightforward, and it’s easier to aim. This game is slightly angled, and it takes some getting used to. Also, the control of the camera and gun at the same time can get clunky. When you’re being fired at, it’s hard to aim perfectly back at the same time, leading to many deaths and frustrating restarts. Additionally, the level layouts do get a bit repetitive

Not every game needs to have a story or even a mission outside of completing the level. The first-person shooting aspect brought me back to Goldeneye 007 and how much fun and sometimes challenging executing a perfect person shot is before getting shot yourself despite the issues with the camera.  

Sometimes it’s nice to have a game where you can turn your mind off and play. Going from playing Metroid Dread to this was a night and day difference, and it felt good just knowing the objective and mission right away. 

Bouncy Bullets 2 is a very good game to throw music on and play aimlessly. Each level is progressively more challenging, and just when you think you’re ready to give up, you find a way to advance.