nitrome games if their marathon-length levels didn’t send you right back to the start when you died
Nanobots is a bullet-hell shoot ‘em up mostly reminiscent of Ikaruga in how, to damage enemies, you must change the colour of your little ship to match them. There are a couple core differences, though. First is that, rather than the traditional vertical screen, you’re allowed to freely roam a circular arena, kind of like what I understand of Geometry Wars. Second is that, rather than being able to change at will, you must traverse to certain parts of the arena to switch colour: for which the weapon you’re using will also change. It’s fun to move around the stage demolishing the scores of enemies that enter the arena, decently frenetic when you’re low on health and you need to survive long enough for the level to end/health packs to spawn in, and I love how your weapons upgrade and become capable of more as the game goes on, and how this is paired against the steadily increasing threat and numbers of enemies. On paper, it’s fun, but… God do levels being so overtly long kill it. Perhaps if there were checkpoints, or if the levels were split a bit more, or if there was a way to speed it up to get to the part where you died quicker, it’d be fine, but as is getting killed can be as easy as being on top of an enemy when it spawns, or hitting an obstacle that’s bugged and only has its hitbox show up, and can take you back as much as five minutes every time. It’s draiiinnning, and the fact that health packs disappear if you don’t pick them up turns what are otherwise fun levels into total endurance tests, enough so that I genuinely considered quitting even on the earliest levels. I’m glad I didn’t, because ultimately I do think I had fun in the end, but as far as Nitrome games I’d recommend… maybe not this one. At least not unless you've got some free time and patience on you. It can be rouuuuuuugh.
Nanobots is a bullet-hell shoot ‘em up mostly reminiscent of Ikaruga in how, to damage enemies, you must change the colour of your little ship to match them. There are a couple core differences, though. First is that, rather than the traditional vertical screen, you’re allowed to freely roam a circular arena, kind of like what I understand of Geometry Wars. Second is that, rather than being able to change at will, you must traverse to certain parts of the arena to switch colour: for which the weapon you’re using will also change. It’s fun to move around the stage demolishing the scores of enemies that enter the arena, decently frenetic when you’re low on health and you need to survive long enough for the level to end/health packs to spawn in, and I love how your weapons upgrade and become capable of more as the game goes on, and how this is paired against the steadily increasing threat and numbers of enemies. On paper, it’s fun, but… God do levels being so overtly long kill it. Perhaps if there were checkpoints, or if the levels were split a bit more, or if there was a way to speed it up to get to the part where you died quicker, it’d be fine, but as is getting killed can be as easy as being on top of an enemy when it spawns, or hitting an obstacle that’s bugged and only has its hitbox show up, and can take you back as much as five minutes every time. It’s draiiinnning, and the fact that health packs disappear if you don’t pick them up turns what are otherwise fun levels into total endurance tests, enough so that I genuinely considered quitting even on the earliest levels. I’m glad I didn’t, because ultimately I do think I had fun in the end, but as far as Nitrome games I’d recommend… maybe not this one. At least not unless you've got some free time and patience on you. It can be rouuuuuuugh.