I vaguely remember playing Biogun's demo during Steam's next fest. At the time I was deterred by its cartoony depiction of innards, and the early "disability" of our protagonist doesn't make a good impression. Now the game is fully released. I keep hearing, though few, positive responses from fellow metroidvania enjoyers. I decide to give it a go. Much to my surprise, Biogun is a very good metroidvania, and it's more metroid-like than the latter comparing to its peers in the genre. This game has balance mixture of run'n'gun and platforming, a variety of gun mods and special weapons, and some interesting ideas in level design. Even though some of my disgust towards the meaty environment remains, the cartoony art style grows on me.


1. Overall Design
Like I mention above, the more I play Biogun, the more I fall in-love with its design. The setting is interesting.

• You are a vaccine created by DocX in order to save his beloved dog.
  
• The whole adventure happens inside the sick dog's innards. To me this is a refreshing idea.
  
• The inter-connected organs(maybe I don't know) fit naturally to a metroidvania, and the depictions in this game are strokes of genius.
  
• I actually learn a lot of the medical terms, and their usages correspond to some features in metroidvania.
  
• Enzymes are temporary buff.
  
• Atoms are collectible upgrades that can boost our protagonist.
  
• Blood vessels are metro for you to fast travel, for blood cells to circulate around the body.
  
• The heart is a fricking Dj party responsible for beats and pumps.
  
• The lungs are huge pneumatic hammers operated by cells.
  
• And of course, the cells inside a dog are all cute dogs!

2. Gating-abilities And Other Upgrades
How the game handles abilities is the main draw for me.

• The usual trope of double jump, air dash, and stomp still presents, but there are also some interesting abilities.
  
• Capsule allows you to store one enzyme for platforming sections in other areas.
  
• Dual-purposed weapons are and will always be my favorite feature in metroidvania: The Viral Rifle is a chargeable sniper rifle that deals massive damage on single target. It can also penetrate terrain and activate the switches within; The Cell Buster is a shotgun that is not only good for crowd control but also useful to bust down oxygen crystals blocking your way.
  
• Scanner is another one worth noting. Scanning reveals information about the NPCs and enemies. With enough scan you can unlock upgrades such as revealing destructible walls and attracting enzymes through wall. This design easily makes exploration streamline and interesting.
  
• The platforming challenges are wonderfully designed.

3. Other Compliments
→Soundtracks are great.
→There are many gun mods to modify your fire power.
→Chips offer various buff to our protagonist.
→Boss fights are designed with players progression in mind.
→Cosmetics with some nice reference.
→Feepups are so cute!


1. Some Bugs
I don't know if it's me or the game, I've encountered some weird bugs during my playthrough.

• Sometimes you can get stuck on weird heaps that you can't jump over no matter how hard you press the jump button. Back up a bit fixes the problem though.
  
• Rapidly entering and exiting, especially jumping and falling out of levels, may cause black screen.
  
• Sometimes you can go in debt and have a negative amount of currency. This automatically fixes itself after a few minutes though.

2. Other Complaints
→I wish you can equip more chips at once.
→I think gun mods should also have their own quick slots.
→There is no clear indicator of which type of floor you can jump up.
→I wish you can have the option to just consume tablet I just pick up.

中文小簡評
→一款傑出類銀河戰士的跳台射擊遊戲。
→我依稀記得在Steam的新品節有玩過試玩版，但當時被他的場景設計稍微噁心到，所以沒有玩太久。
→正式版出來後聽到許多同好對其讚賞不已，於是決定再給他一次機會。
→果不其然，Biogun的確是款好玩的metroidvania佳作。
→遊戲背景設定相當有趣：你是一支疫苗，博士把你注射到他的愛狗，試圖解決威脅愛狗性命的傳染病。
→學到了諸多醫療專有名詞。
→很喜歡這款對器官運作卡通化的描寫，心跳就是一場電音DJ趴！
→狗勾身上的細胞也是狗勾，狗勾紅血球好可愛啊！
→關鍵技能除了常見那幾位外，還有一些有趣的設計。
→基本武器有許多模組可以變更射擊模式。
→諸多晶片能強化主角。
→特殊武器不只有傷害而已，還能解鎖更多區域探索。
→掃描有自己的升級方式，掃描越多生物解鎖越多升級。
→一些跳台挑戰區域非常有趣。
→Boss有根據玩家進度做相對應的攻擊設計。
→不知道是我的玩法還是遊戲本身問題，遇到了些奇怪的bug(快速切換場景容易卡黑頻、有時錢會變負數等)。
→晶片一次只能裝一個。
→武器模組應該也要有自己的快捷鍵。
→哪些跳台可以跳上去沒有明顯的標示。

Truly a Metroidvania that slipped by a lot of people. Can easily say this is one of the most underrated indies of the year for me. Now, I'll admit that the game doesn't run the best at times, but it made in Construct 3, which is not the strongest game engine, so, the fact that it runs as smooth as it does is incredibly impressive. Big kudos to John and Ivan for such a well made game.

You play as Bek and you're a vaccine inside of a doctors dog trying to kill the Dooper virus. The entire map is mapped out like a dogs body, and like classic metroidvania fashion you gather new upgrades to revisit areas and gain new powers. The platforming is nice and smooth, the biomes are impose some challenges, and the wide variety of items to get makes the game feel fresh the entire playthrough. But, it is easy to miss a lot if you're not careful. I finished the game in close to eighteen hours with 95% completion, so there is a LOT to collect with gun chips (little bonus buffs on whatever gun you have), gun mods (changes damage, rate of fire, velocity, etc), secondary guns (four total that allow you to unlock a lot of doors, usually gained after main story bosses), and lots of collectibles with dogs to save, hats to collect, and enemies to scan, and the game has 30 bosses for you to fight.

As nice as the variety is. I will say that balancing can use some tweaking on some weapons, as the rifle was INCREDIBLY strong against bosses compared to other secondary guns. Using a secondary gun costs energy (blanking on the name) which you get for shooting enemies, and the energy also can heal you. You can upgrade energy capacity and health with a collectible, but overall still very fun.

Lastly I am hyping this game up a LOT because I truly think it has so many positives, but it does have a few negatives with it. Like I said earlier, the game doesn't run the best at times compared to others, but it doesn't effect gameplay too much. I would mostly lag a bit when entering and exiting some areas, restarting the game would fix it and it usually would happen after a few hours. And secondly, the game has these pills that gives you some small benefits liek spawning an enzyme (they help with puzzles and unlock more as the game goes), or heals you, or something like that. I ignored the pills most of the game as they were easily forgettable. And lastly their is some UI bugs with the game where some stuff may get stuck on the screen or function the best when you open it. The small UI bugs did not effect the gameplay in a negative manner, and were moreso, a minor inconvenience

Despite the few negatives with the game I still highly recommend it because all the positive things it does with combat, traversal, upgrades, collectibles, and funny little story is truly a gem. It's the first major product from Dapper Dog Digital and it was a big task, but they delivered a great, and unique metroidvania. Any fan of the genre could get behind this game. I truly hope you give it a shot.

Can be a bit buggy and framey but otherwise one of the best metroidvanias I've played this year and definitely worth picking up to support the developers. Fun exploration and bosses. Also has a demo!