I’m not crying. It’s just been raining on my face
What a blast from the past! Gunbrella comes to us from Doinksoft, who last developed Gato Roboto (if you don’t count Devolver Bootleg). That was the first game I reviewed for Destructoid, back when I was just a shy-but-plucky freelancer bugging Chris “Maximum Ups” Carter for a chance at the big time. For my first time, I did such an adequate job that I was allowed to do it again. Now here I am.
I didn’t love Gato Roboto. I didn’t hate it, either, it just didn’t really have enough substance to it. In that review, I said, “It’s hard to recommend Gato Roboto when we live in a world where games like Cave Story and Iconoclasts exist.” Doinksoft must have taken that to heart (if they read it at all) because Gunbrella has many more shades of Cave Story splashed across its much more substantial body.
Parabellumsol
Gunbrella is the story of the eponymous firearm-slash-accessory, and also the woodsman who carries it. His wife has been murdered by the very weapon he now carries around, and he thirsts for revenge. Also, his child has been abducted. It’s a real fill-in-the-blanks introduction.
I suppose that’s aside from the fact that a gun also has an umbrella built into it. That’s a new one for me. Not only does it protect you from the rain, it also can block bullets, propel you forward, and allow you to float gently back to earth. Gunbrella’s movement system mostly centers around this one device, and it works pretty well in that role. Given that you have it from the start, and it seems to have all its abilities off the hop, you learn all its functions early and can get around easily.
Rain of bullets
The preview provided to me was a rather large slab of the game. It was certainly more than enough to see what Doinksoft is going for.
While Gunbrella is a gated exploration game where you explore larger and larger chunks of an interconnected world until you can move on to the next area, it doesn’t really fit under the Metroidvania, erm, umbrella. You’re not enabled progress by picking up new skills or items. Rather, you move forward by completing quests. This is one of th