Note: video review embedded below.

Revolver360 is, at a glance, complete and absolute absurdity. Picture a bullet hell shooter drenched in futuristic neon blue which fully rotates at the press of a button, existing in three dimensions as you fly sideways through waves of enemies while trying to keep up with the madness on screen.

The number of systems and mechanics at work at any given time in Revolver is in itself intimidating, which when paired with its genre-typical difficulty level and the added intensity of a third dimension, can feel like borderline excess for the sake of it. But Revolver pulls it all off because underneath the inscrutable exterior there’s a very deep, developed formula at work, all focused around an elaborate shooting and scoring system that is only as invasive as you want it to be.

Different types of shots affect different enemies, various meters are raised by particular stimuli, and multiple paths through levels create even more room for experimentation. Revolver fully commits itself to being as complex and unique as possible within the capabilities of its systems, and while this means it’s likely the least accessible shoot’em’up I’ve played in a very long time, its desire to nurture and expand the boundaries of advanced play feels like a justified trade off.

Revolver expresses this best in its challenge mode, which features 50 quick, extremely focused missions which give you a specific task to complete in a short period of time. To me these felt less like fun bonuses to the main game, but rather a comprehensive tutorial detailing the minutia of Revolver’s intricate mechanics and how best to use them. This is accomplished through the challenges themselves, and also the contextual hint system which drip feeds you information in a way that is much easier to parse given you can immediately apply it to an appropriate situation.

Returning to Revolver’s main stages after completing a number of these, I was surprised just how much more I understood about the game I had already beaten once, and how significantly more capable that had made me where simply reading a manual and playing the game had not. I also began to appreciate all the little things I hadn’t even noticed before, like the finer points of the scoring system or how to best utilize the rotation feature to line up enemies, which further solidified in me the idea that Revolver had fully thought through each of its mechanics and the interplay that develops between them. The more I was able to understand the more I enjoyed playing, and it made me wish that other games would be as thorough in their initiations.

But even if you aren’t interested in getting deep into Revolver’s metagame it’s still a fascinating beast of a bullet hell shooter to play around with. Rotating your ship is an ingenious hook that somehow never manages to feel clumsy or obscure important information (an even more impressive task when put up against Revolver’s brainmelting cyberpunk visual style).

It’s a “cool” that didn’t need explaining; a “cool” which leaked out of the screen like a kettle getting ready to blow its top and told me that I better get ready. And then the game started and all pretenses of restraint evaporated as Revolver boldly declared that it wasn’t going to settle for being just enough shoot’em’up and neither should you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW_Tr5E-yts
You can read more of my writing on Kritiqal[kritiqal.com].

I couldn't even imagine someone giving this game a negative review. For the genre, it's honestly nothing short of revolutionary.

SHMUPOMETER Rating
EXCELLENT for Hardcore Shmup Fans | Good for Casual Shmup Fans


Pros:
- Great Soundtrack, included in the game files
-Unique rotation mechanic, allowing the player to dodge otherwise unavoidable bullet patterns, elimnate background threats, and find secrets
- Laser weapon that destroys enemy Yellow bullets and rows of enemies, but has limited shots, drops your multiplier, and has a cooldown to reload
- EMP shot to destroy blue bullets/lasers and purple bullets which are even more limited than the laser, but also has a reload cooldown
- Same EMP Cooldown Meter governs the use of Overdrive mode, if full, which allows temporarily unlimited lasers and maximum score multiplier and can be used relatively frequently per level
- Relatively forgiving health system, allowing you to take many hits compared to most Bullet Hells, and inculdes health pick ups, and limited regen
- Ways to deal with difficult bullet patterns
- Stable 60fps+ gameplay
- Great port - includes support for XInput and DirectInput - I switch the input mode on my controller AND THE GAME RESTARTED ITSELF SO I DIDN'T HAVE TO
- Helpful how to play page that explains the game numerous mechanics and strategies
- Global leaderboard which includes player replays - allowing players to learn how others played
- Lovely graphics that clearly distinguish threats
-Short. Only 4 stages, meaning it can be completed quickly for somebody wanting to get through their backlog or learn the game easily to run for a better score
- Sector mode - allowing a player to practice a specific level
- Challenge mode - 50 Extra levels that are very challenging and further explain combat and score mechanics
- Inexpensive

Cons:
- One life, zero continues - If you die, you have to start the whole game over
- Nearly impossible to avoid damage? While most well-crafted bullet hell games are built so that a trained player can take no damage, it seems like you will almost inevitably take damage at some point. Even the #1 ranked player took damage.
- Relatively difficult despite forgiving health system - I've lost runs many times on Sector 2, but eventually I beat it and the rest of the game on the next run.
- Potentially overwhelming gameplay. While you're dealing with an onslaught of enemies, bullets, and lasers, you will sometimes have to deal with background damage dealers if you're not paying attention and rotating the world frequently
- Rotation mechanic may be seen as an annoying gimmick to some players
- Possibly too complex gameplay for some players - Enemy Survival, along with multiple weapon cooldowns
- Stylized UI can get lost lost in the game's art style and hectic gameplay.
- High Price per hour - $10 will seem expensive to somebody only playing to beat the game which can take less than an hour or two. (dependent on player skill - a single run takes less than half an hour)
- Bright, color burn effect may be harsh on the eyes of some players


Gameplay takes place on a 2D-plane like most shooters. Shooting not only shoots standard bullets, but shoots homing missiles to the 3D background within a short range of your ship - requiring you to "hover" over enemies, environmental threats, and supply boxes to destroy them, or over parts of a boss to deal extra damage. Rotating the ship (or rather, rotating the game world) with the trigger buttons alows the player to more easily dodge some project tiles and deal with background threats or supply boxes that can provide health, weapon restore, or multipliers. You will need to balance this mechanic, along with the weapons I described in the "Pros" section to succeed. I was very concerned I wouldn't be able to beat this game because of a tough portion on Sector 2, but I got past it and found it was short work, meaning that memorizing enemy patterns might be a lass daunting task compared to shooters 2 or three times as long.

REVOLVER360 RE:ACTOR will drive away or annoy some players with it's art style and "brain metling" use of rotation and bright colors, but it is a delightul shmup that will certainly entertain and endear many others. I heartily recommend this for shmup fans and it is certainly worth a wishlist/sale for those that play shumps infrequently.

Well fewk me sideways...Just when I thought the genre had gone a bit stale and there were no new ideas coming along, this this pops out of relative obscurity and destroys vast swaiths of the opposition. The central "gimmick" here is that you can rotate the battlefield through 360 degrees to evade bullets and concentrate firepower etc. Whilst this seems like a simple idea, in practice it is one of the most inventful, unique and genuinley challenging shmups I've played for maybe 20 years. Grab it for less than a fiver if you like old skool shooters. If you don't (you should) then buy it anyway.

One of the best shmups I've ever played. I really dig the rotating mechanic. Feels hard at the beginning, but once you play a few challenges and get to understand how to combine the different mechanics and why, it becomes SO much fun to play. Frantic, adrenaline-filled gameplay overall.

Weirdly, it lacks loading screens so the game just "hangs" for in the worst cases for 15 seconds while finishing levels, uploading scores and other bunch of stuff that goes on on the background.

An unique and quite challenging shmup with a twist. Literally. Being able to rotate the entire screen as you play, and honestly if you don't do that, you might as well consider yourself dead from the beginning. I consider myself lucky for completing it on my 3rd try, especially considering how panic inducing the last boss's patterns were.

Speaking of which, all the bullets and just the entire game is so glowy, that it's really difficult to read some patterns especially on the last boss, but I'll forgive it since the game as a whole was amazing. Also it ran at a perfect constant 60fps at 3840x2160 resolution on a laptop, so i feel it's quite well optimized.

Hoping we'll see more games from this creative dev...

I have an odd relationship with shmups because I'm not that great at them. I don't always manage to complete all of the highest regarded ones. The best just feel awesome to play, though.

This game has a silly name but the triggers (if on a controller) rotate the screen around the action. This lets you turn a screen full of bullets into a single line and then use a laser to blast the bullets apart for points. It sounds like a gimmick but it's a lot of fun and provides a really interesting challenge and a one of the most fun and unique scoring systems I've seen.

The rotation mechanic is also important because you auto-kill items and enemies that are in the background, which you can only see/target if you are rotated a certain way. There are sections where you have to keep your screen facing "forward" to destroy obstacles in the way, while balancing the need to rotate to survive enemy shots.

I think there may be 4 levels with bosses. I'm not sure because I have only managed to beat the stage 3 boss in the single mission mode. I'm definitely going back though, and I recommend it highly.

Overview: Shoot em Up


The Good

+ A cool mechanic that allows you to rotate the environment around you allowing you to avoid bullets, obstacles and enemies

+ Throughout the level you are given a choice in how you want to proceed providing good incentive for replays.

+ Great difficulty balance. The game appears hard at first but once you get use to the games mechanics the game becomes easier

+ 50 Challenges that will test your limits and patience.

+ Easy to see what's going on for the majority of the game


The Average

Lots of blue....

Fairly short game, if you are not a fan of the genre you could easily beat the game in 1-2 hours and never play it again.


Conclusion

Shoot em ups are not my favorite genre. I find them repetitive, however this game is really fun because it doesn't over use the amount of bullets on screen and the rotating mechanic is interesting enough to keep you engaged for a while.

Yo listen up. Here's a story about a little ship that lives in a blue world, and all day and all night everything it sees is just blue like it inside and outside.

Then a whole bunch of purple shots covered the screen and blew it up. :(

For those of you who want an actual review I recommend watching this guy. He really knows his stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqWKp8GmkT8

(Fantastic game, but you will want a controller.)

Very, very, blue.