Continuing on from last week, I’m going to look at the characters and bosses that come in Bullet: Palette and share my experiences as I played them! For playing these characters as heroines, I’m going to pit them against Hyper Mode from Bullet🍊, as I find she is the most vanilla boss to run up against. Her quirk is really just “Dump 20 bullets into your bag every round. Good luck!”. As for tackling the bosses, I’ll try to overcome them as Mariel Martin from Bullet❤️, as she’s one of my favourite characters to play as!
Bullet: Palette features four new characters that need to be mixed into a base game to play. The theme for this set is art, as the heroines fight with drawings, paint, sound, and… dice? I’m curious to see how Precursor Die fits into the theme here, but theme isn’t particularly important here. What I care about is how fun and interesting each of these characters are, so without further ado, here we go!!
Bridget Glenn
Right off the bat, a heroine after my own heart. Bridget Glenn is an author, with verdant green eyes and ink spilling over her pages as she writes characters to life. Each of the quotes on her patterns are wonderfully evocative of classic literature. Her quirk is that she can swap which column each colour falls into, and bullets can be moved to any space in a column matching its colour, giving a great amount of flexibility to how bullets can be moved.
I feel like Bridget would be more useful in the competitive mode where (if you have a keen eye and watch your opponent), you’ll have a much better idea of what colours are coming into your sight, otherwise her ability to move which column is getting bullets is not helpful defensively. Offensively, it’s awesome. For 2 energy you can swap column colours, then move a bullet of that colour from anywhere in your sight to anywhere in its column, allowing you to set up your patterns for maximum effectiveness.
I actually feel like Hyper Mode isn’t a great match-up for Bridget Glenn, as she excels at being able to move a bullet to any open spot on the board for just 2 AP, and that’s not really a power you need when you’re getting flooded with Hyper Mode’s bullets
Bridget Glenn cleared Hyper Mode on her second try.
Precursor Die
You know what you need more of in a push your luck game? More chance. If you find yourself agreeing with that statement, Precursor Die has you covered. At the start of each option phase, you roll a die. Some of Precursor’s actions are affected by the number you roll. Precursor’s actions are fairly weak, in that it costs 2 action points to move a bullet a single space, but one of those AP are refunded if you had managed to roll a 4, 5, or 6. Similarly, for 2 AP you can draw another pattern, or draw two and discard one if your die is on the higher side. For a single AP you can re-roll the die, and bringing the precursor part of the name into play, for one AP you reveal as many bullets from your bag as your die number, then return them to the bag, letting you know what’s on the horizon for you.
Precursor Die was much more difficult to use than Bridget Glenn, almost unfairly so. A lot of Precursor Die’s patters were 3 or 4 across, making it extra difficult to clear the edges of her sight. At least Precursor has the ability to move a bullet up, which is uncommon, but not rare, so it’s no consolation. Precursor Die is uninteresting and un-fun to play. I expected more with the die, like being able to better control bullets that match the number, or something. After 3 attempts that just made me feel frustrated, I doubt I’ll ever play as her again.
Shout★
I’m only tangentially aware of idol culture, as much as any anime fan can be without ever having engaged in that side of the fandom, mostly just from seeing Hatsune Miku’s face in ads, her cameos in various video games, and most recently, a Jaiden animations video detailing her obsession. Shout★’s quirk actually reminds me more of nonograms than anything else, but I digress. Each of her patterns have a ‘volume’ requirement, which just means the number of bullets in each column. This can be tricky to control, especially when your bullet bag is utterly full from Hyper Mode’s relentless onslaught. Thankfully, Shout★ has a couple of very useful abilities. One lets you have a +1 or -1 to each volume’s requirement for the next pattern, and the other lets you move every bullet in a single column, either left or right.
While tricky, and requiring careful planning, Shout★ proved her mettle and was able to clear Hyper Mode in a single try. I’m glad the battle ended when it did, though, as I don’t think Shout★ would have survived another round!
Zuri Kasango
The last of the heroines in Bullet: Palette is Zuri Kasango, the graffiti artist that looks like she was ripped straight out of Jet Set Radio Future.
I think Zuri’s whole quirk is really not ideal against an opponent like Hyper Mode. She doesn’t clear any bullets until the end of her Option phase. All of her patters are just bullet requirements. With a hand size of 1, Zuri needs to try and fufill the pattern of bullets in her sight. When she does, she discards her pattern and draws a new one. At the end of the option phase, depending on the number of patterns Zuri discarded, she gets to clear bullets from anywhere on her sight, up to a really impressive 14 bullets if you manage to fulfill 10 patterns.
When Zuri finally does get the opportunity to clear her bullets, every star she clears lets her throw another bullet into the centre, which can result in a full board clear. Zuri’s real downside is really that she just can’t clear bullets during the option phase, which means she does need to survive drawing her whole bag. If she survives, she’s devastating. But that’s a pretty big if.
I like Zuri’s glass cannon. I attempted Hyper Mode 4 time to no avail, but I’m quite keen to come back and try Zuri against other bosses!
Gamemaster Die
Unlike any boss before her, Gamemaster Die has no patterns, a single shield, but 18 shield slots. Each round in which her shield would break (which takes 5 bullets to do so), you roll the die and move the shield token along the dungeon path, and take whatever effect it lands on. Then, for the next round, the intensity is the sum of numbers on the places behind the shield token.
While the game can be over in as few as 3 rounds, provided you always roll a 6, the reality is that this is more of an endurance match than I gave it credit for. There’s no real way to rush the ending. As long as you clear 5 bullets, you’ll roll the die. Clearing more than that is just for fun. Gamemaster Die starts slowly, only adding 6 to 9 bullets in the first few rounds. But as you turn that final corner and get within striking distance of the finish line, suddenly you’re facing a barrage of 16+ bullets each round. Gamemaster Die never felt fair, all you needed to win in this scenario is just a bit of luck.
It took two attempts to clear Gamemaster Die. The first game saw Mariel kicked back to the dungeon spot 3 times before she was overwhelmed in 9 rounds, while the second game was over in the 4th round. Gamemaster Die is a fun boss to fight, if you don’t want the hassle of checking for boss patterns every round.
Shout ★ Live!
All of Shout ★ Live!’s (is that how you pularize that?) patters have the same effect. If you fail to achieve her condition, all your bullets for the next round have a +1. That can be brutal, but on the other hand, the patterns are really not that difficult to meet, at least for Mariel. Shout ★ Live! was a bit boring, with her two static quirks being all that there was to think about during the confrontation. There were no extra conditions to be aware of when a shield broke, which let Mariel dance around her conditions with relative ease.
One try is all it took to silence Shout ★ Live!
The Defacer of Tyranny
The Defacer of Tyranny is a true endurance battle. The goal is to outlast Zuri as her outlandish pattern requirements punish you by placing 5 extra bullets every time you fail to achieve them, and a shield breaks. Unlike most of the other bosses, all you need to do to defeat Tyranny is outlast her pattern deck, while completing some of the patterns and not taking a dozen bullets to the face.
On my first attempt, I failed 3 patterns in a row, which spelled disaster for my run. I was more cognizant of her tricks during the second attempt and still lost. But the third time, I… still lost. But only barely. The fourth time I stood up! Just kidding. I lost again. And again.
Mariel proved to be both helpful and absolutely useless when it came to specific patterns. Being able to leap her across the map was pivotal sometimes, but her inability to slide any bullet just a single space was crippling. I think it’s a testament to how much fun I was having losing, where I attempted this boss 8 times before I came out ahead.
The Loremaster
The Loremaster is a bit of a tricksy bag. On one hand, her patterns are relatively simple to achieve. On the other hand, she has regenerative powers, as in, if you don’t complete the pattern, she regenerates a shield. In addition, every time a shield breaks, she drops two more bullets into your sight, making a shield break just a little bit risky.
She was tricky, and once again, Mariel was both very helpful and frustratingly helpless with certain patterns, but overall, she was a great heroine to take on The Loremaster. It took three attempts to come away with a victory here.
Conclusion
Bullet: Palette features a diverse cast of quirks. From Bridgett’s ability to swap column headers, to Shout’s volume control, I thoroughly enjoyed diving into each one of the heroines, and their boss counterparts, with the exception of Precursor Die. I think Zuri was the bright spot for me in this expansion, both as a heroine and a boss. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Bullet: Palette if someone wanted to add just one of the 4 character expansions into the game. Each character felt unique and I’m more than happy to have them in my box!
