Review: B.ARK

B.ARK is a cutesy, colorful shoot ‘em up made in the vein of Saturday morning cartoons, back when that was still a thing. In that regard it nails the design: a squad of inexplicably talking animals piloting color coordinated ships against an evil army in a lighthearted plot about the domination of the universe. And then the bullet hell starts.

Maybe I’m just bad at shoot ‘em ups, but B.ARK belies its cartoony look with a devilishly surprising take on the bullet hell sub-genre of shoot ‘em ups. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It wouldn’t be so bad if not for the fact that there are a couple frame rate hiccups when too many shots appeared on my Switch. Thankfully, this isn’t the type of game where you take one hit and it’s over; you do have a health bar and health power ups are plentiful. Each stage also has several checkpoints so you never lose too much progress should you die and with unlimited lives you can keep trying till you get it right. But, man, those bullets. There’s a lot to keep track of on screen especially if you’re playing with three other players.

Four playable characters means you can have four players tackling the adventure at once. There’s no online here so it’s all couch co-op though. Players can choose between Barker the dog, Felicity the cat, Lucio the bear and Marv the rabbit. Each character comes equipped with their own unique weapon and special ability to suit varying playstyles. Barker’s weapon allows up to three smaller ships to tag along, adding extra shots, Felicity has a spread shot, Lucio, exploding bullets, and Marv with the homing shot. Each of these weapons gain strength by collecting plutonium from fallen enemies or from debris. There are four levels of damage to each gun, but watch out, get hit and you’ll lose a gun level. As far as the specials go, Barker attacks with a rapid-fire stream of bullets, Felicity spread shot covers more area, Lucio uses a bullet protecting shield, and Marv slows time. When playing multiplayer, you can combine these powers if everyone uses their special at the same time. Playing alone? You can find powerups in debris that will activate your buddies’ powers when you activate your special.

Surprisingly, B.ARK isn’t that long. There’s a total of six story stages to play through before the credits roll. Each stage does have three difficulty levels to choose from as well as a hidden memory to collect that provides a little more backstory giving you a little more to do. There is also a boss rush mode, but that proved too much for me to beat even on normal so I can’t say if there’s anything beyond that or not.

Despite not being the greatest when it comes to shoot ‘em ups, I enjoyed my time with B.ARK. I loved the look of it and the animations are fantastic. Enough can’t be said for just how great this game looks; it’s vibrant and joyous. The normal difficulty seems a bit much to me especially in the later stages, but again, that could be that I’m just not good at this type of game. It’s a bit on the short side, but I’d rather a game end early on the good side as opposed to overstaying its welcome. Just don’t let the art style fool you, this game will likely prove to be too difficult for the younger kiddos, but more seasoned fans of the genre shouldn’t pass on the title.

B.ARK is available now for both the Nintendo Switch and Steam.