Well, I'm kinda drunk (that kinda drunk where you feel mad articulate), and I miss being a games journalist (lol games journalism!), but I also played a sweet fuckin' game, so here's words on it!
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Noitu Love 2: Devolution
Developer: Konjak
Platform: Steam
Price: $4.99 ($2.49 during Steam sale)
In a way,
Noitu Love 2: Devolution makes me kind of sad. The game is a sort of spiritual successor to Mega Drive classics like
Alien Soldier
and
Gunstar Heroes, packing each stage full of as much action and as many boss battles as it possibly can. But not content to merely ape its
forebears, the game also injects just enough ingenuity to give it an identity of its own, all while ratcheting up the chaos even more than its
predecessors. So, lets be a little more clear: while
Noitu Love 2 makes me sad, its not because the game is bad. Its because I wish there were
more games like it.
The premise is pretty simple: you play as a ninja, and hack up hordes of robots at impossible speeds. To aid your death dealing, your
character has a dash that damages any enemies in your path, an upwards slash thats invaluable for getting out of harms way, and a shield that
can block incoming projectiles. A basic toolkit, but its all you need.
Noitu Loves real stab at creativity is that in addition to maneuvering your
character with the keyboard, attacks are performed using an on-screen cursor that you control with the mouse. Hovering the cursor over an
enemy and mashing away at the attack button causes your character to dash over to this opponent and begin attacking, even if they happen to be
in mid-air. In practice, this allows you to literally fly through stages, slicing up foes with reckless abandon. And thanks to the razor-sharp controls
that make doing it all a breeze, its truly invigorating stuff.
Where
Noitu Love really impresses, though, is in its boss battles. Each face-off with these monstrously huge and lavishly drawn baddies is exciting
and has some sort of creative hook to make it distinct from the rest an impressive feat, considering that a new boss is thrown at you every three
minutes. But even when youre not embroiled in one of these duels, the game remains thrilling and continues to toss new challenges your way at
every turn. Dont be fooled by
Noitu Loves humble origins the level design here is on par with action gamings best.
If the game has a major flaw, its its brevity expect to clock in at a little over an hour on the default setting. Its also worth noting that the
normal difficulty is entirely too easy, particularly if youre accustomed to the grueling challenge of yesteryears sidescrollers. Luckily, its not
a huge problem since the game also offers a hard mode from the start, which ups the ante significantly and is your best bet for more satisfying
slaughtering. The game also boasts a few unlockables for an extra bit of replay incentive, but even so, the fun still ends all too soon.
Ultimately,
Noitu Love 2 is an action game that just
gets it. Its fast, controls like a dream, looks great, and its really damn fun. Anyone with
even a faint fondness for the good ol days of 2D actioners will revel in what this title has to offer, and its relative simplicity means its still
accessible for those who missed out on that era. In either case, its hard to imagine anyone being disappointed.
9/10
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Guys, it's like $2.50. It's like half the price of a cup of coffee. Fucking stop being twats and buy it.
Also, GAF needs a reviews thread where people like me can rant about how sweet some games are, and how shit everything else in the world is.
