Review: Nanostray (DS)

The first thing I do when I get a new system is to see what it has to offer in the shoot ’em up-department. The Nintendo DS didn’t have a wealth of shmups but it did actually have a few. I immediately got my eyes on the slimmed down version (a boss rush version called Death Label) of Ketsui but I never found it at a reasonable price. Then I saw Nanostray and I went for it, thinking that if I liked it I could get the sequal as well. I never did, for reasons to come.

Nanostray is divided up into parts – a bite sized campaign with a save feature to fit the platform (gaming on the go requires one to take frequent breaks), a more traditional arcade mode and a challenge mode. The campaign is not that long but it does have several different locations and a fair amount of difficulty. The arcade mode is a few of the campaign levels stringed together with traditional rules. Both are played with the same controls – being a regular shot, a charge attack and a smart bomb. The charge attack needs to be refilled constantly which is done through killing entire groups of enemies and collecting the blue medal they drop. Since the blue medals are basically raining down on the player at all times I felt it was a bit unnecessary to have that mechanic at all. Either make the medals few and far between or just have infinite charge attack. The medals can be sucked into the player ship by holding down R – something that could be used for something much more important. Namely switching weapons.

"It was a serious mistake that put me off from the get go"

As it stands, the ship has four different kinds of shots. All available to switch between on the fly when the situation calls for a different approach (homing, straight forward, sideways shooting and so on). The problem is that this is done on the touch screen. Not only do I need to take my eyes off the action to see where I should press to change to the desired weapon, I also have to move my thumb off the shoot button to press the touch screen, leaving my ship blind and not shooting for a brief moment. I used the main weapon during 99% of the game for this reason. Why it was done in such an idiotic way I have no idea. It was a serious mistake that put me off from the get go.

The stages themselves are okay with variety, a bit of walls to avoid (generally I don’t like that but here it made sense) and a couple of unique enemies. Nanostray is played at an angle which makes shots fly into the centre of the screen when the ship is off to either side and this takes some getting used to.

The bosses are where it’s at though. They don’t cheap out on the attacks and they often have several formations, even though the last boss is kind of a let down. (The final form of the last boss have exactly ONE attack pattern which it repeats throughout, they could’ve added a few more attacks to make things interesting if you ask me.) When the bosses try their hardest it’s actually really fun to play. I’d love to see a boss rush mode.

"It left me wanting to play a ”real” shoot ’em up instead"

I didn’t really care for the challenge mode where I had to reach certain goals within a set time or place. It felt like artificial lengthening with no worthwhile rewards. When the end credits rolled on the screen I felt pretty much done with Nanostray and although it had its moments it left me wanting to play a ”real” shoot ’em up instead.

Review: Yoshi's Island DS (Nintendo DS)

I remember when this came out! I got to review it for a community called Spinn, driven by SVT (Swedish Television) and I played through it, was mildly disappointed and wrote a few lines about how mediocre it was. But this was six years ago. I decided it was time for a re-evaluation because I really wanted to play Yoshi's Island again and the first one is outside this blogs scope since it was released on the Super Nintendo. Hence, the DS version found its way out of the shelf.

Where should they go from Super Mario World: Yoshi's Island? It was so good it is hard to imagine what could have improved the concept without changing it too much. Of course they figured out a way by implementing more babies. Yes, the "more of everything" approach. More babies, more puzzles, higher difficulty and so on. Every baby has different strenghts and weaknesses and the levels absolutely utilizes this, it really feels like every baby is needed in its own irreplacable way.

"if you play it to find all the secrets in every world and go for 100% clear it will last very long"

It is on the other hand fewer levels in this game compared to its big brother, there is five worlds to explore in total, and while this may sound like a pretty short adventure I assure you it is not. Well, OK, if you play the game just to clear it then it can be quite short - but if you play it to find all the secrets in every world and go for 100% clear it will last very long.

Boy do they hide their secrets well! It is like they have stored every good idea for a hiding place they ever had and used it in this game. In the beginning it is really fun to collect everything and maybe give every other level one extra go to get everything but as the game progresses this becomes increasingly difficult to the point that I almost do not know how to find everything. There is just so many paths to take, doors that leads to doors one can not back into again and the search for 100% seems more and more like a distant dream and ultimately a chore I am not willing to pursue. In many of the last levels I put in hours of work without reaching 100% which makes me not want to try it again.

"no matter what kind of gamer you are you will definately have fun"

This is were the game really gives the player a choice. It is possible to just finish the game without a care in the world for the hidden goodies, there is no "bad ending" or anything that will punish those gamers, but if one really want to get everything possible out of the game it has hours upon hours of treasure hunting in its 40+ levels.

So, in conclusion, no matter what kind of gamer you are you will definately have fun with Yoshi's Island DS. It is a good addition to every DS collection.

Review: Big Bang Mini (Nintendo DS)

Ever since I played New Super Mario Bros' minigame "Danger, Bob-omb! Danger!" I have been wondering how it would be to play a shoot 'em up with the stylus. How incredibly fast and precise one would be and how easy it would be dodging bullets with a finger on the ship. Then I realized most shoot 'em up's probably would be horrible with those kind of controls, Ketsui Death Label made the right call giving us D-pad- and button controls. Then I read about Big Bang Mini.

Pitch black night sky is the warzone, fireworks are your arsenal and starsigns your enemies. Your vehicle is a small ball that you can move around with the stylus. On the upper screen is the sky and all the enemies that you shoot at with rockets. There's a small tutorial in the beginning of the game where you learn all about shooting and how the mechanics behind it works.

You see all the worlds on the menu as folders (like in Yoshi's Island, remember?) so it's early on obvious that you have to clear X worlds and Y stages. Every world has an end boss and a completely different theme where not only the enemies, bonuses and the star meter (I'm getting to this in a bit) but even your own ship changes. The menu is at least as colorful as the explosive stages and they are blessed with a very catchy song that I caught myself humming on both on the train, in the shower and when doing the dishes.

The gameplay! Let's get to it! No more digression! You navigate on the lower screen whilst shooting up on the upper screen to hit enemies. The rockets that miss their target explodes in colorful bullets that rain down together with the ordinary enemy bullets and has to be avoided to be able to continue. It's pretty much basic stuff in the beginning, you shoot a lot of rockets - many of them hits enemies and many of them misses. Then the game slowly introduces new abillities to give the gameplay a bit of variation, like for example homing rockets and shield barriers.

"Big Bang Mini is like a little audiovisual treat."

I briefly mentioned the star meter before and that I would get to it. Now I'm getting to it. Every defeated enemy turns into a little neon star that falls down into the lower screen. If you catch it the star meter fills up a bit and when the meter is completely full the stage is cleared. After each stage you enter a bonus mode where a starsign hides. It's then your job to reveal it through some method depending on which world you currently are in. The starsigns are made up and can be everything from lonely fishermen to bats and airplanes.

The stages are pretty short and you could beat the whole game in just one sitting if it wasn't so cute and pretty. You kind of don't want to stress through the experience and tend to play one world at a time. Apart from the main story there's also extra missions, games with certain rules and multiplayer. I very briefly tried the latter and it was immensely fun to play against a friend. We held our DS' like books and saw each other on the screen that wasn't the stylus one, then it came down to a very simple and pure thing. Shoot. Shoot everything you possibly can while dodging the other player's effort. There was only three areas to visit in the multiplayer but there still was variety through special bonuses we got during combat where we, amongst other things, could darken the other players screen and things like that.

I can't shake the feeling of this being a home made project. It's superficial and short. But it has other strengths, it's stunningly beautiful and hypnotizingly addictive. It's best in small doses, which I honestly think all portable games should be. Pure action, auto save after each stage and an awesome song. Sometimes it doesn't have to be more complicated than that. Big Bang Mini is like a little audiovisual treat.