I was sold on Gunbrella from the moment I heard its punny name and saw its titular weapon in action. Call me a mark all you want, but it’s a shotgun combined with an umbrella - how could anyone not instantly be on board?
As awesome as the Gunbrella is, there’s a whole lot more to love about Doinksoft’s latest game. It may be relatively short and lacking in challenge, but its excellent combat and platforming, combined with a surprisingly heartfelt story, make for one of my favourite indies of 2023 and yet another certified banger from publisherDevolver Digital.
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Gunbrella sees you controlling a lone initially nameless gunman as he travels across a dilapidated world that’s almost post-apocalyptic in nature, searching for those who wronged him in the past and left only a parasol-shaped boomstick in their stead. Along the way, he battles scrappers, a cult obsessed with the sun, deadly demons, and, in my case at least, the urge to shout “I’m Mary Poppins y’all” wherever he goes.
Considering the wacky weapon at the core of the game that took my heart and ran with it, I wasn’t initially expecting too much from the plot. All I really needed was to be able to float around like Mary Poppins and pop some skulls, but I was surprised at how much I ended up caring about the cast of characters and how intrigued I was by the central mystery, especially in the second half when things really get going. I can’t say too much about it, obviously, but if you’re just here for the Gunbrella then there’s a good chance you’ll end up liking its wielder nearly as much.
But if you are here for the Gunbrella, boy do I have some good news for you - it’s awesome and unlike any other weapon I’ve used in a game before. Although the gun part is a fairly standard but still incredibly punchy shotgun, the brella side of things is what sets Gunbrella apart.
At first, you’ll just be using the brolly to block and reflect projectiles as you try and approach thingds like a normal side-scrolling shooter. Then you’ll discover you can also bounce off enemies to stun or knock them into spikes. After that, you’ll start getting a bit more experimental, floating around the world and shooting from above before your enemies even get a chance to see you.
By the end of Gunbrella, you’ll never even need to touch the ground, launching yourself upwards with a click of a button, soaring through the grungy skies, blowing away helpless baddies beneath you, and then bouncing off the ground to do it all over again. Even though the shooting here feels awesome on its own, being able to zip about so easily takes it to a whole new level and effortlessly feel like a badass, even if you’re not especially skilled in side-scrolling shooters.
When you’re not raining death from above like a murderous Princess Peach, you’ll be using the Gunbrella’s more peaceful floaty properties to move around some fairly linear environments. The platforming sections of Gunbrella are a nice change of pace from all the killing, even if the mind-boggling movement options here can make it a little too easy to get around.
In fact, “too easy” is a phrase that can be applied to all of Gunbrella, as it’s possible that the boomstick brolly might be a little too awesome for its own good. Aside from struggling with where to go thanks to some vague objectives and a lack of any kind of map, I never had any trouble with anything that Gunbrella threw at me on Normal difficulty as I breezed through its short five-hour campaign.
While your shotgun starts off needing a few hits to kill enemies, you quickly get the option to upgrade its power and reload speed, which can turn it into a one-hit kill weapon to fear. That makes things easy as it is, but there’s also an overabundance of items that can restore your health, as well as special ammo types that absolutely rip through everything in sight, including every boss battle.
Things do thankfully get a bit more complex in the second half (which is something I was particularly hoping for when I previewed the game earlier this year) thanks to the appearance of demons that require a different type of ammo to kill, and some enemies who wield gunbrellas of their own, but by the time that happened it already felt like the game was mostly over. If you’re going to dive into Gunbrella, starting on Hard and only dialling things down if you find yourself struggling is the way to go, as it’s otherwise a little too easy to speed through.
Even if it can be a little too easy and was over far before I’d have liked, Gunbrella’s incredible movement options, surprisingly intriguing mystery, and punchy gunfights quickly made it one of my favourite indies in recent memory and a universe I’d love to see more of in the future. Just remember, there’s a 100 percent chance of blood raining from the sky, so you better bring a brolly.
Gunbrella
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It’s an umbrella, but it’s also a rather useful firearm. In Gunbrella, an action-packed platformer from doinksoft, you play a woodsman navigating a noir-punk world in order to exact your revenge.
