By Anthony Swinnich on August 8th, 2005

Nanostray is just the type of game the Nintendo DS needed in its library. It’s not a necessarily system seller, and it doesn’t really use the touch-screen in an innovative way, but instead treats players to a beautiful game filled with exciting and challenging gameplay. Developer Shin’en offers up a solid shooting experience similar Iridion II on the GBA, which happens to be this games predecessor. It also borrows elements from Galaga, and Raiden, making for one slick experience. Nanostray isn’t without fault; several things could have been done better to really push this game into the upper tier of shooters, but there’s nothing wrong with just scraping the ceiling when the bar is set so high, especially since many people consider the genre dead.

Visually Astounding

Obviously the shooter genre isn’t quite the powerhouse it once was, but there isn’t another game available right now that pushes the DS as hard graphically. Nanostray’s main selling point is its beautiful visuals. Shin’en definitely put time into polishing this title up, and it shows. As the levels begin, the camera is moving backwards and it shows you the terrain of the planet you’re on. On a forest planet you’ll see mountains and trees; on a volcanic planet you’ll see molten rivers of lava. And just as you’re studying the terrain, your ship flies towards and across the screen.

After this the camera pulls back and you realize that the visuals you saw in the opening sequence are the same used throughout the level. You’ll fly through futuristic cities and along flowing rivers. It’s not uncommon to be flying above a barren desert and then suddenly catapult below ground into a secret installation, and continue the level there. While everything is flying by at a fast pace, it’s astounding that this title rarely drops below sixty frames per second. Occasional slowdown only occurs when there are many enemies and bullets on the screen, as is a common occurrence almost every other shooter in existence.

"Nanostray treats players to a beautiful game filled with exciting and challenging gameplay. "

Even so, it takes a lot to slow this monster down. You’ll be constantly bombarded by ships that fly up from below you or across the screen, and each stage seems to have its own specific enemy set with unique attacks. Also, dodging bullets isn’t as large a task as some games because they’re all brightly colored and easy to see.

The Art of War

While the bullets might be more visible, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any less than there are in other shooters. The screen will sometimes practically fill with a cloud of bullets leaving the player hard pressed to come out alive. Even when engulfed in a sea of projectiles, taking one to the hull doesn’t mean your ship will immediately explode. Unlike other shooters Nanostray has a health system. Each bullet will take off a small amount of life from your meter. It starts out at one hundred and each bullet takes around fifteen to twenty points, depending on the enemy. And once you hit zero, you guessed it: ka-boom. This feature greatly alleviates the usual irritation of getting hit by that one stray bullet, allowing you to be hit by six or seven stray bullets before the ship blows up.

Enemies will sometimes seem to be haphazardly thrown across the screen, but each one is set to a pattern reused each time you play the stage. Like most shooters, you’ll usually need to play a level five or six times in order to get through it, which means Nanostray requires some memorization. And even when you have the stage memorized, the bosses will usually also require you to play them several times before you can successfully take them down.

Even with playing the levels multiple times, the games Adventure mode only lasts about two to three hours. But fret not; similar to Super Smash Bros. Melee, Nanostray has a challenge mode included which greatly extends its life. Some stages require you to get a high score, and others might require you to complete a mission with only one ship. These missions are usually very challenging, but like any gamer will tell you: there’s rarely a better feeling than completing a seemingly impossible challenge.

Touching is Not So Good

While your ship has multiple weapons to choose from, you’ll probably play through most of the game with one since switching weapons is such a pain. While a good idea in theory, mapping the weapon switching option to the touch-screen didn’t come out as well in practice. Usually switching weapons in a shooter is most effective in a place that requires it. For instance, you’re firing at a group of enemies dropping off into the distance with your standard forward laser blast, when suddenly a bunch of ships flow out from the side of the screen, requiring you to switch to the side-shot. Taking your eyes off the screen to switch weapons in a situation like this is probably one of the worst things you could do, but if you want to switch weapons, you’re left with no choice. Mapping this feature to the shoulder buttons would have been a more convenient solution.

Of course that’s not the only annoyance in Nanostray. While the game is basically a top-down vertically scrolling shooter, the screen itself is tilted forward. This is meant to add depth, so if your ship flies forward, it seems to sink into the horizon. This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if there weren’t hard boarders along the angles the screen is tilted. The boarders follow what would be vanishing points in a perspective drawing. Enemies aren’t hindered by these boarders, and neither are your bullets, so if an enemy drops a power-up out side these boarders, you won’t be able to manually get to it. Holding R sucks up any power-ups, but with no penalty for holding R indefinitely, lazy players can ruin the challenge of the game since they won’t have to move to get anything.

Full Speed Ahead

Included in the game is a wireless multiplayer mode, and for the most part it gets the job done. You’ll be able to play against a friend and compete in original levels. While the presentation of this mode seems unfinished, the actual act of playing works as flawlessly as it is fun. Playing through the game co-op would have been a nice touch, but I guess the developers had to save something for the sequel.

Nanostray is one of the recent games that Majesco was wise to pick up. After years of putting out nothing but sub-par shovelware, it’s good to see this company begin to change directions and put out something worth a gamers time. It’s also good to see a game like this come out on the Nintendo DS; there aren’t enough games on the system that produce such an up-front exciting experience. Despite it’s short length and iffy touch-screen usage, this is one most people will enjoy. It might take a little effort to track this one down, though; I know I had a tough time finding it, but it’s well worth the search, and you won’t be disappointed.