Beekyr Reloaded Review

Kaleido Games has turned its sights to the “cute-em-up” genre with their bee-themed shooter Beekyr Reloaded. It’s certainly a unique protagonist and setting, but does it play well?

Beekyr Reloaded Review

In Beekyr Reloaded, players take control of a bee with unlimited firepower, who sets out to get justice on the wasps and hornets that took their hive’s honey and pollen. It’s an incredibly basic tale that serves as window dressing for the action, one you can safely mash your way through. The throngs of flies, praying mantises, scorpions, and other enemies each have their own quirks, but they don’t have much personality among them. Still, the setting itself makes things unique.

The game takes liberal cues from shooters like Gradius and its goofy spinoff Parodius. Action mostly takes place in a horizontal scrolling format, one that has players avoiding enemy fire and bits of the terrain. Levels run the gamut from fields to forests and rivers, with each one fitting the bug motif quite well. It’s nothing truly revolutionary, but navigating a dark forest full of thorns or traversing a lush forest full of rivers is still welcome. There are four main worlds, each with a series of sub-levels in each. There are no continues, but a successful playthrough can easily be polished off in an afternoon.

The gameplay mechanics are par for the course. Players can shoot forward, fire off a powerful “bomb,” or upgrade their attack power with powerups dropped from enemies. This increases your rate of fire, helps you fire off in different directions, or helps you out in a number of different ways. Death means starting out once again with your basic shooter, which means that sometimes defense is the best offense.

There is also the occasional vertical scrolling level, which has players collecting pollen to fire off a bomb at an unsuspecting enemy. These play more like Space Invaders than anything else, and though they are pretty straightforward, they help to break things up.

Those looking for an audiovisual treat in Beekyr Reloaded might be disappointed with the title. The graphics themselves have a decent amount of detail, but the animation feels like a Flash game you’d find on Newgrounds. The chiptune-laden soundtrack is hit and miss too, with some songs standing out much more than others. Whether or not it is for you is a matter of preference.

Beekyr Reloaded has a decent amount of replayability for those looking for it. Multiple difficulty modes can be unlocked, and the entire game can be played in co-op. There is also an online leaderboard for those looking to be number one.

The cute-em-up antics of Beekyr Reloaded have got the foundation down, but its presentation will make it or break it for a lot of people. Those weaned on shooters like Gradius may like what’s on display here, but your mileage may vary.