Bouncy Bullets 2 review for PS4/5, Xbox Series X/One, Switch

Platform: PS5
Also on: PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Switch
Publisher: Ratalaika Games
Developer: Petite Games
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: E10+

I?ll give credit where credit is due: Bouncy Bullets 2 is a vast improvement over the first Bouncy Bullets. Where the original was only barely playable (and pretty much unplayable on the Vita), a lot of its flaws have been fixed in the sequel. The controls are much more precise, the jumps are a lot less floaty, and the whole thing feels a little more like a platformer people might actually want to play.

Mind you, it still suffers from the issue of feeling kind of pointless. There?s no story or anything to propel the game along, so you?re basically just playing level after level of dodging bullets and running as fast as you can to the end. You can shoot those eponymous bouncy bullets, but most of the time they just slow you down, and given you?re on a timer, being slowed down is the last thing you want.

That said, if you can overlook the pointlessness, making a mad dash in every level is actually kind of fun now that the game actually works. There are two options — classic and speedrun — but, functionally, they?re the same, only the classic version has a timer counting down, and the speedrun counts upwards. In fact, in the absence of online leaderboards, this means you probably have more incentive to go quickly in the classic mode, but given how the game is structured, you?ll want to go as quickly as possible whichever mode you play.

And, again, the nice thing about Bouncy Bullets 2 is that it?s a game that you probably wouldn?t mind playing, unlike its predecessor. It?s a short, simple game, but the developers clearly took the criticisms of the first game and worked to fix all those issues — which is definitely the kind of thing that deserves being acknowledged and rewarded.

Ratalaika Games provided us with a Bouncy Bullets 2 PS4/PS5 code for review purposes.

Grade: B