Black Paradox

Genre: Bullet Hell Shmup / Roguelike

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in The Pew Pew Bundle Vol. 1 along with Bleed 2 and XenoRaptor. It is also included in the Couch Co-Op Bundle Vol. 2, along with Bleed, Shikhondo – Soul Eater, and Vertical Drop Heroes HD.)

Black Paradox is a Bullet Hell Shmup with Roguelike elements that has you piloting a ship that looks a lot like a Delorean, with various guns you can swap out with others you find along the way, as well as other upgrades you can make to your ship between deaths.

Visually, this game is bright and colorful, with some decent pixel art Nothing that stands out much (beyond the Delorean-ship), but overall pretty good.

As for the gameplay here, it’s pretty good, but with a caveat. Your ship starts out pretty weak, with a lot of shots required to take down enemies, and with your own ship low on armor and easily shot down quickly, which resets your progress back to zero. And like in many Roguelikes, you can get permanent upgrades… however, the progression towards getting these is excruciatingly slow, to the point where players probably shouldn’t put too much hope in upgrading their way past a difficult part of the game.

Also, speaking of upgrades, most of the various guns you can collect for your ship throughout a run are decidedly not upgrades, as they add some major caveats to their use, such as slow firing speeds. The result of these elements of the game is that you never seem to feel very powerful in this game, which is a bit disappointing.

Overall, Black Paradox has some good stuff going for it, as the core gameplay here is solid, but the high difficulty and slow progression of Roguelike elements make this game far less engaging than it could have been.

tl;dr – Black Paradox is a Bullet Hell Shmup that has you flying a ship designed to look like a Delorean. The game has good gameplay, but the high difficulty and slow upgrade progression makes this a game only fans of the genre are likely to thoroughly enjoy.

Grade: C+

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