Since I re-subscribed to Xbox Game Pass earlier in the month, I figured I might as well get around to trying that Nier Automata game everyone was crowing about a couple of years ago. The quality put into this was obvious, but it feels like there might be too much game (and too many kinds of games) in Nier for its own good. The prologue alone switches from the styles of Radiant Silvergun to Devil May Cry to Robotron: 2084 to StarFox, and while the constant shift from one genre to the next is exhilarating, it's also confusing. Could you give me a little time to learn which of the many buttons on the Xbox controller does what before- okay, I'm surrounded by robots, all taking their anger out on me for their unfortunate resemblance to a park garbage can. Fine, I'll wing it.
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| Hey, don't get mad at me! I didn't design you! (image from Home Depot) |
What came to me much more readily is The Messenger, a game from Quebec which does its best to rekindle the long-cold Ninja Gaiden flame. It's better than Ninja Gaiden, as far as I'm concerned... the gameplay is unmistakably similar, but there's less of that being tackled into bottomless pits nonsense, and your empty-headed hero has powers Ryu Hayabusa would have given his left ninja nut to possess. A wingsuit that lets you catch blasts of wind and glide safely down to nearby platforms, rather than leaping for solid ground and hoping you reach it before an eagle reaches you? Yes, please.
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| Sounds like that gum with the gooey stuff in the middle. (image from Steam) |
On the Switch side of things (and returning to the subject of robots), there's Mighty Gunvolt Burst, a revisiting of the critically panned Mighty No. 9 with 8-bit graphics and redesigned levels. There are two other things worth noting... the first is that the "burst" in the title happens when you kill enemies at point blank range. This is normally not wise in a game like this, but you get bonus points at the end of the stage if you keep giving robots a colonoscopy with your arm cannon. The other thing is that instead of giving you pre-made weapons, the game scatters parts in each stage, which can be used to put together your own. Want five bullets onscreen instead of three? Want to angle your shots instead of having them follow a straight line? The world is your cyb-oyster, as long as you have the "cost points" to spare.
Cost points can also be used to augment your hero, letting them jump in mid-air, dash away from danger, and most importantly, increasing their defense so they're not crumpled like a piece of paper by the bosses. I absolutely hated this game until I understood how the customization system worked, and found enough parts to make good use of it. It's a lot like Mega Man X in that the game starts out brutally difficult, but eases up on its chokehold after you've found enough power-ups. Actually, that inverse difficulty slope is a lot more pronounced in Mighty Gunvolt Burst, because once you get all the items and the cost points to use them, the action that started out infuriating becomes utterly trivial.
The only thing stopping you from turning your character into Mecha-Godzilla is your pride (nope, sorry, fresh out) and the bonus points you receive at the end of the stage if you keep him wimpy. You can play the game that way if you want, and it does seem tailored to speedrunners and point-scummers, but nah, I'm quite happy with the handicaps. I just wish I'd gotten them sooner... it would have saved a lot of wear and tear on my throat.
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