For anyone looking to scratch that Mega Man itch, Gurei is an interesting game. It mixes elements familiar to fans of the retro 2D action titan with modern design, adding replayability and freedom. The result? An addictive action game that gets the adrenaline pumping every run!
Back in the days when games were smaller, developers often had to work with what they were given, which often led to many shorter games. Punishing games that did not expect the player to beat it on the first attempt, but rather to improve little by little. In some ways, it is an era that has things many modern games lack.
The ability to pick up a game and expect to either finish or be finished by it within an hour or two had a certain appeal. Starting up a new save file never felt like a massive investment of time. This is the design philosophy Gurei has decided to take to heart.
There are many benefits to these shorter games. They let every level and screen deliver exactly what the developer intends to the audience. No downtime, just pure gameplay bliss. They also allow the game to be punishing without feeling like it wastes anyone’s time – and Gurei really indulges in this.
Gurei is a short-burst boss rush game, finished within twenty to thirty minutes—if the player finishes it, that is. It is very stingy with lives, and players can expect to be stuck for multiple hours at times, bashing their head to get deeper into the boss rush. A pleasant bashing it is, though!
The bosses are phenomenally designed, with sweet patterns to learn and spicy mechanics to avoid. The world adventured through is also extremely beautiful, filled with landmarks that make it a platforming pleasure to traverse. It isn’t something that would be needed, as the overworld, for the most part, serves as a boss selection screen; however, it also serves as a wonderful way to get accustomed to the controls in a safe environment, something the player will need to do.
What makes Gurei truly shine, though, is its open sandbox design, and it accomplishes this without harming the difficulty curve. It is clear that Gurei took a lot of inspiration from games like Mega Man that let the player craft their own path through its robot masters. However, most games that take a page from that book end up with very front-loaded difficulty as the main character gets stronger while the rest of the game stays the same.
Gurei instead makes it so that each boss has ten different difficulty levels depending on when they are fought. This design choice is quite genius, as it lets the player fight each as their first or last boss. It also leads to more strategising about which power-ups the player prioritises, or how to push the bosses they struggle with as early as possible in a run, and offers a lot of playability. With ten bosses worthy of being a final boss, fans of the genre can easily sit through ten playthroughs and still see new things.
Additionally, it lets gamers practice easier forms of bosses they struggle with until they can comfortably defeat them on any difficulty level, making the sometimes straight-up unfair patterns of later bosses way more manageable.
It also takes away the only downside of these short burst games: getting stale once they have been beaten. Like the details of its world, Gurei has something new to show those who look for it, even after twenty hours of gameplay. It is amazing how Gurei manages to take the best of modern and old game design philosophy to create something that just clicks.
This all said, Gurei is not fully without flaws. While a lot of praise can be given to the overworld for how beautiful it is, it is remarkably empty. It makes sense given the game’s nature as a boss rush game without any meta progression besides the player’s skill. However, after many runs, the overworld starts to feel tedious. It is necessary for learning the controls early on, but a way to disable it and replace it with a boss select screen would be wonderful for those who are not looking to speedrun the game. It just feels like an extended loading screen at times.
Another issue is that Gurei is quite prone to crashing. Thankfully, the game saves progress automatically often enough that no progress is truly lost. However, it further highlights just how annoying the travelling can be, as the player still has to return to the boss chamber, which can take half a minute even for those who have memorised the map by heart, in addition to the time it takes to reboot the game.
It is a tiny annoyance in a game that is ultimately an amazing throwback to the days when games were not afraid to throw you back to the beginning, expecting you to do a little better each run. However, it does harm the otherwise addictive full-on burst of adrenaline Gurei offers.
