BPM: Let the rhythm guide your every bullet - or drop dead. I am tempted to simply call this game art, and no matter how much the difficulty tortures me, I wouldn't change a single bit. However, that's not the end of the story. The game is likely based on the idea of making a FPS Necrodancer but ended up being an unforgiving rhythm-based precision first-person shooter in perma-death land with an appeal to speedrunners (hence, a FPS roguelike). While rhythm is important, you won't get anywhere without good shooting skills. There are some roguelite elements (like the bank) but specifically the character unlocks (apart from Skuld who plays more like Post Void) are rather different skill/difficulty levels, and we are forced to learn everything the hard way. And there is indeed a lot to learn in terms of builds. Unfortunately, I feel this is where the game falls short. The most successful builds are geared towards going infinite: Infinite shield, life, ammo, ultimates... name it. And if you are not an elite player, you can only make it with an OP build, and thus, the game becomes a slot machine on higher difficulty levels. Nonetheless, if you go into this game with serious intentions, it is practically guaranteed that you will come out refined on the other end. However, the endgame of BPM does not simply ask you to master the game (Odr), but to reach flawless perfection (Sanngridr, hellish, yikes). This feels unnecessary and keeps some people from enjoying the game to its full extent, but I would still recommend it to everyone who seeks a challenge and is willing to improve. 7.5/10

Like some other reviews have said, it's a good idea that has not been executed the best, in my opinion.
I could describe it as Binding of Isaac meets Doom and Hi-Fi Rush (I know the latter came after BPM, but you get what I mean). Except that it does none of the feature of these games particularly good.

On paper, it sounds like a game that could be right up my alley, old school with a great visual style (probably the best part of BPM for me) and music that the metal-head that I am should enjoy. However, it is ridiculously difficult, except on the practice difficulty (and I'm a musician, so it's not because I can't follow a rhythm), but you can't get to every level with that, and there's really not much to it more than go for another run, and if you die, start ALL OTHER AGAIN.
There is no story, no way to restart a specific level after you die. That would probably appeal to some people as it is straight to the point, but it doesn't work for me. I don't know, maybe I just suck at it, or I'm just too old for a fast-paced/precision FPS. To me, it got old very quickly.

Lately, I've been going through my Steam library to try and play the hundreds of games I've been piling up over the years, with the mission to give each of them a fair try and then review them (an impossible task because I have way more than a thousand, but let me delude myself please). So I gave a fair try to BPM by sticking up with it for more than three hours, but to be honest I wanted to stop playing after the first 10 minutes.

I'm clearly in the minority here, as most people seem to enjoy it, so I'll leave it as it's probably more of a me problem, but since we can't write mixed reviews on Steam, that's gonna be a no recommendation on my part.

Fun little distraction to put 10-20 hours into