Nano Assault EX (3DS)
The microscopic world of microbes is a fascinating place, with creatures that defy the standards we hold for animals. Even though it’s the smallest level of our organic world, many of the microorganisms look utterly alien to us, so it is a bit of a surprise how underutilized the designs and concepts of the “inner verse” are in games and media. Nano Assault EX, however, taps this strange space for all its worth with a shooter that pulls on games like Star Fox for inspiration.
The story of Nano Assault EX is very hands off, the game setting up the situation with some narrative about an alien virus that must be destroyed with some pretty unnecessary details added about mankind being down to its last spaceship. Outside the set-up cutscene though there is not much else in way of personality or story, the game going all-in on its germ shooting gameplay. Piloting a group of spaceship-like nanites, the player is tasked with clearing the alien agents from a series of cells. Using the little fighter craft, the player will shoot down many strange looking cellular enemies, but its quite clear early on that scientific reality isn’t going to restrain the developers from giving you tough enemies with unique abilities. While the game tries to trend towards more believable microbe designs and even has some impressive research done in regards to including things like tardigrades as enemies, you’ll also be encountering floating goo cubes and crystalline microorganisms that seem to drop ice in their wake. This is likely why the game bothers with the alien set-up though, and while some things strain the concept of the nano assault, it mostly makes for a cohesive design direction where things don’t depart too far from reality so long as you can stomach the idea that all microbes can shoot little energy bullets.
Levels come in three varieties, the most prevalent being the large 3D cells you’ll traverse by gliding across the surface. Most every inch of a cell is open to travel, with the nanite ships clinging with ease to the cell’s sides and underside in a manner similar to the planetoids from Super Mario Galaxy. Your nanite can fly and shoot in any direction, opening things up to some interesting navigation and devious enemy placement. Your main goal in these stages is collecting three DNA strands to help with the cure of the greater viral agent, but to complete a level only requires defeating all the antagonistic organisms on the cell. You will need the DNA strands to unlock new levels, but even if you defeat all the enemies and get booted out before you’ve managed to snag them all, these levels are fairly short and easy to repeat. Despite being the most prevalent level type, I actually think these stages are the weakest ones of the three level types despite the game doing a fairly decent job of mixing up the hazards and foes. These levels can be pretty relaxed, done at your own pace, and with your preferred level of caution save for some timed switches or pesky pursuing enemies. You have a map to make finding DNA strands and enemies a non-worry, so most of the challenge here is tied to survival. The main threat to your survival is how the game will spawn in enemies, sometimes having them appear directly in front of you, but you can learn the careful navigation necessary to avoid moving right into a death trap while still maintaining your speed, so the game at least tries to up the pace a little where it can.
As soon as you play level 2 you’ll see the second type of stage: boss stages. While some bosses append other level types, there are a few that dominate their entire level, with most bosses forgoing the 3D freedom of the regular stages for a ring like arrangement around the boss. Your ship is able to move left and right and fire at the boss, their attacks usually designed to restrict your movement and trap you in a tight spot for the kill. Some of the bosses even add free flying to the formula, giving you the ability to move up and down during the fight rather than changing the concept too much, but the bosses get plenty of new attack types to accommodate your new range of movement. The bosses in Nano Assault EX are a real treat, often invoking memories of some of the best Star Fox bosses with their mix of weak spot targeting, hectic laser and attack dodging, and shifting phases that complicate the fight. There are a few that further tweak with the formula, including ones that incorporate the structure of the other two level types, so besides a rather underwhelming final boss, these stages deliver pretty well on challenge and interesting fight design.
The third level type once again hearkens back to Star Fox, in that the nanites are actually flying forward automatically through a cell while gunning down floating microbial foes. With only your horizontal and vertical movement and your lasers to carry you through, the cells that involve these perilous flight paths make for some of the game’s most intense play. The opposition is abundant and aggressive, requiring both skillful flying and accurate shots to avoid losing your precious nanites, but these levels are not as abundant as they should be. Despite being less prevalent than the cell navigation stages, the flight stages benefit with tight and inspired designs. Even within a single stage there is surprising diversity, with areas segmented based on the type of challenge it will pit you against before culminating in a boss fight. While dying in most any level will start you back to the beginning, these longer and more difficult flight stages throw players a bone by allowing them to continue from the boss fight if they’ve reached it, allowing both the stage itself and the boss to pit the player against some dangerous situations without having to account too much for their life count. In fact, Nano Assault EX’s difficulty is what makes these level designs so great.
In Nano Assault EX, you can only take one hit per nanite. Stages start you off with a few and you can up your nanite capacity by collecting crystals, but you are always fairly fragile. No matter the stage, you’re never too far from losing a valuable asset, and that sense of danger makes Nano Assault EX’s levels all the more interesting. Even in the simple and slow cell navigation stages you can be devastated if you get sloppy or complacent, and boss fights or trips through flying levels can boil down to trying to keep that last life around against a tide of lasers and malicious microbes. Levels feel the right length that you can hop right in and try again but just long enough that dying remains a threat, but you’re not totally without ways to deal with harsh opposition. The nanites gradually unlock special weapons, and while many things can be dealt with well enough with the nanite’s default laser, these weapons are great in a pinch for clearing crowds or blasting chunks off of boss health bars. There are only four of these weapons total and you can only bring in one per stage, but they are diverse enough that there is strategic purpose to the one you select, even if the homing laser and projectile shield are often fairly safe bets. With your special weapons and the mercy checkpoints before bosses, Nano Assault EX’s difficulty feels spot on, only diminishing a little if you’ve managed to up your life count a little too high near the end.
Nano Assault EX’s mostly plotless Story Mode is the main highlight of the game, but it does toss in a few extra for players enraptured by the gameplay. Boss Rush lets you tackle bosses in a row with one pool of lives, Survivor takes that even further, but the so-called Arcade Mode has a curious issue. The main appeal of Arcade is to set high scores and compare them to a global leaderboard, but during my attempts at it, I noticed a most unusual occurrence. No matter how many points I got in a level, I always seemed to place 101st, even as I got higher and higher scores, it just bumped up everyone else’s points to match mine without changing my placement. It certainly killed any thrill in going for high scores, but you can still do special challenges to earn coins that buy models of microbes or some of the game’s funky alien soundtrack. Speaking of the music, Nano Assault EX does a wonderful job of making its microscopic world a visual and audio treat, making even the simplest cells luminescent and colorful. Just because you’re going across a bunch of cells doesn’t mean the environments look the same, maintaining the concept of moving across and through cells while making sure those cells have diverse designs.
THE VERDICT: A microscopic game world that plays like Star Fox seems nearly tailor-made for me, so I tried to temper my opinion of Nano Assault EX a bit so that I could view it beyond that. Peeling back that layer of personal appeal, the game still manages to show why those elements appeal to me in the first place. Distinct and unique settings and enemies come from the microbial setting and challenging and active shooting comes from the shooting style and aggressive foes. The main focus of Nano Assault EX seems to be on its weakest level type though, with the slower pace and pop up enemies making them less than perfect for that role.
And so, I give Nano Assault EX for the Nintendo 3DS…
A GREAT rating. Expanding out of the original Nano Assault, Nano Assault EX provides a lot of content but still leaves you thirsty for more. Visual flair and excellent execution make levels a treat, but the balance leans a bit too hard towards the cell navigation stages which are often too simple and can’t match the pace and challenge of the other level types. Upping the intensity of those stages or balancing out their presence with more flying stages and fighting challenges would make Nano Assault EX a consistently strong package, but that doesn’t mean it’s anywhere near bad as is. Shooting down unusual microbial enemies still provides the design variety needed to push the player through the story mode, and even though the extra modes have their faults, they do allow you to play the game in a few different ways.
Excellent difficulty balance and a unique concept make Nano Assault EX the kind of game it’s hard not to be excited by. Nano Assault EX nails making a big adventure out of shooting the smallest things.