originally posted on station456.tumblr.com on February 26th, 2012
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While not exactly a new genre, twin-stick shooters have really come into their own in the past decade or so. Games like Geometry Wars (released back in ‘05) and Super Stadust HD (‘07) have popularized this style of game. Nano Assault, a 3DS game put out by Shin’en in early December of 2011, is a twin-stick shooter on a platform that doesn’t have dual sticks.
Perhaps it’s inaccurate to say that the Nintendo 3DS is a system without dual sticks: After all, the Circle Pad Pro gives the system such a feature. Nano Assault, however, was released before the Circle Pad Pro, and since Nintendo systems are uncomfortable with online patches, the game will most likely never use the peripheral. Fortunately, Nano Assault is a great game that works just fine without the component that makes up the title of the game’s genre.
Considering this part of the game is essential to unlocking the rest, the dominant aspect of Nano Assault is the Story Mode. It begins with a cinematic explaining the the premise of the plot, but it’s rather poorly done. It spits a lot of high-tech mumbo jumbo at you that really is hard to follow and under-explained. From what I gather from the bits and pieces that the game itself threw at me and the back of the box, you take the reins of a nano-sized ship that is eliminating a virus that could destroy humanity. The game did a bad job of making me care about the narrative. A game like this doesn’t need a story, but what it doesn’t need even more so is one that’s poorly done. Thankfully, the story is not pushed at the player very often and is mostly unobtrusive.
But as I said, the story is a small part of the game, as it likely should be: Gameplay is the focus. The Story Mode takes you around to myriad cells where all of the glorious shooter-gameplay takes place. Most levels put you on a three-dimensional structure filled with enemies that looks just like pictures of cells and bacteria that you would find in a Biology textbook. You move your ship around these structures from an bird’s-eye-view with the 3DS’s circle pad and use the A, B, X and Y buttons as a replacement for a second stick to shoot in 8 directions. This is done in a nearly identical fashion as Super Stardust HD. The objective of these portions lies in collecting three strands of DNA and exterminating all of the dastardly foes that I assume are supposed to be bacteria or some such thing.
It’s fun. The differently-shaped structures are filled with enemies and obstacles attempting to make your retrieval of the DNA and eradication of all foes more challenging, and it does just that. The action is engaging and the level design is quite creative. Rocks (or things that look like rocks, at least) and Plants (or things that look like plants, at least) create mazes for your ship and multiple enemy types means different attack patters to dodge, different weak spots to hit, etc. One hit takes away a ship, and collecting 100 drops from downed enemies adds one more ship to your utility.
There are also a few on-rails, behind-the-back, Star Fox-style sections in Nano Assault. Unlike Star Fox, however, you have direct control over a cursor that your ship follows on its own (it works the opposite in Starfox), and this certainly works to the game’s detriment. You get precise control over where you shoot, but trying to indirectly control your ship with this control scheme becomes frustrating as the bullets come flying at you. The level design is very cool for these parts, and the Boss encounters you experience in this portion are always fun, but the shoddy controls makes this the weakest part of the game.
Nano Assault throws a few things into the mix to beef up the shooting. You have three modes of shooting, each differing by having different gaps between your three strands of fire: One keeps the strands close, one a little less close, and the last very wide. The first is in most cases the most useful, but it’s a helpful inclusion nonetheless. There are also four secondary modes of fire that are unlocked through Story Mode progression, each fueled by power-ups dropped by dead enemies. Interestingly enough, I again find the first of these to be easily the most useful, but perhaps that just speaks to my personal play-style. And lastly, the game boasts a brilliant use of the system’s gyro, acting as a way to rotate the camera. A fantastic application of this feature, one that I don’t think was intentional, is that it moves the action to the most appropriate angle when you’re finding the sweet spot for the stereoscopic 3D.
That stereo-3D is excellent in this game, by the way. The spherical environments are perfect for the glasses-free 3D display, as they look as though they’re literally floating in front of your face. Stereo-3D aside, the visuals here are exceptionally good, with colorful, creative work all-around. And while not stupendous, the techno soundtrack does a fine job of helping the gameplay stay intense. Infrequent drops in framerate in an otherwise solidly running game are the only damper on the well-done aesthetics.
Once the Story Mode is completed (which took me a fitting 4 to 5 hours) a Boss Rush Mode is unlocked, as well as Arcade Mode versions of each level as you complete them individually. Arcade Mode let’s you chase high scores (which are smartly tracked online, pitted against strangers and 3DS friends) and complete level-specific challenges such as getting so many points or going the entire duration of a stage without losing a ship. This mode provided me the most fun in the whole package, with enough incentive to make coming back to do better and better alluring. Boss Rush Mode separates the bosses from the levels (which are all excellent) into three segments containing consecutive fights against the dastardly foes, and it’s also great fun and are quite challenging to boot. Playing these two modes nets you nano coins, which are used (along with Play Coins) to purchase 3D models of enemies to view and tunes from the game to listen to. I would’ve preferred neater stuff to buy, but it’s better than nothing.
Nano Assault is a solid game, all-in-all. The shooting is great fun that pushes your skill just enough, and the Arcade and Boss Rush modes provide hours of addictive thrills once you’ve run through the Story Mode. The visuals are stunning, and the music serves its purpose. Even the poorly controlled on-rails segments, which are the weakest parts of the game, are still enjoyable. Don’t let this gem get lost in the sea of Super Mario 3D Land’s and Resident Evil Revelations’s in your local game shop: It’s some of the most fun I’ve had on my 3DS.
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