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Grey reviews "Nova-111"; Curve Digital Sale
Topic Started: Jul 28 2016, 10:21 AM (106 Views)
Greymon57
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So this is one of the games I picked up from Curve Digital's $1 sale.

Nova-111

Story: 2/10 Well there is a story, mainly told thru in game dialogue that is triggered by events. Essentially some scientists were experimenting with time and space manipulation and something went wrong. Some unnamed calamity happened and Dr.Science, that's his actual name, survived by seeking shelter in his spaceship 'Nova-111'. So he wakes up inside his ship to realize he is in some sort of odd limbo-esque parallel dimesion and must use portals to rescue his fallen colleagues and try to get home.

Gameplay: 6.5/10 The gameplay was solid, but not the best thing ever. It was very refreshing. If I were to label it, I'd say it's a Tactics/Platformer/spaceshooter. Yes I know that sounds very odd. It uses elements from those 3 genres. It's a turns based game. Where the map is overlayed with a grid, you are assigned turns to either move, attack, or take action. In each turn You and the enemies take action simultaneously. It's a nice thing to form a strategy as to where the enemies will be and use that to your advantage. But this game also has platforming elements. Gravity is a thing. While your ship and enemies may not be affected by it, certain things are. Like Stalagmites. Stalagmites will fall, IN REAL TIME. That's right, despite the turns based gameplay there are many real time elements in this game. At first it's subtle, but as you progress it becomes more and more frequent. To the point where you have to balance both turns and real time based hazards. Finally it is a spaceship and so you are given a short range laser.

For what the game was, it was very unique and fun to play. Did it hook me? No. But still quite fun. The main problem was the redundancy of the stages. But we'll discuss that next.

Level Design: 5/10 Each stage has 3 acts. At first, it's cool. Each act teaches you something different. But then it gets stale. The main problem is that each world uses the same art style. So really it feels like one super long level. And there are only 3 worlds. Each world does introduce new elements, but the worlds last so long that it feels that these new elements are miles away.

Putting that aside, each level's layout is amazing. There is a lot to do, secrets to explore, power ups to obtain. I could spend 20 minutes in just one act trying to find everything. I give them credit for that. They could have just made a linear stage and been done with it. But they went with a big world with puzzle-y looking challenges. Of course the exploration just makes the worlds seem longer, which brings us back to the first criticism. :P

Characters: 4/10 While Dr.Science is the main character, we see tons of other character show up very briefly. These other characters tend to be spoofs of real scientists, or pop culture icons. You see both Charles Darwin and Grumpy Cat show up, as well as many others. But that's all they are, cameos. Nothing more. Dr. Science gets many lines, and while we do get to know and love him, he is still just a 2 dimensional character.

Music: 4/10 I feel I give out this rating too often but "Generic sounding music. Not bad, but not great. Just Okay". I guess composing music isn't easy. The soundtrack was good, not the best, but like I said composing music isn't easy. They did create a nice soundtrack that matched the game's feel.

Bosses: 9/10 Only 3 bosses in the game. They all have a different feel to them. 1st Boss is just a giant version of a generic enemy, 2nd boss ends up being a puzzle-y challenge, 3rd version is a Shadow version of the protagonist. Each one feels challenging in it's own way. The 1st boss had a bit of a "horror theme" to it as I felt like I had to keep running away. The 2nd boss proved most difficult to beat because it did require a strategy. And simply having the strategy isn't enough, as many mini puzzles appeared along the way. The 3rd Boss was probably the easiest, but it did have several phases. Each phases posed a challenge until you figured out what to do.
So I give them credit for spicing it up.

Abilities: 3/10 The Nova-111 comes with a Short-range laser (2 units), a time delayed mine, phasing technology, and a time stopper ability. Despite all of that, moving along the grid is the main gameplay feature. Bumping into enemies is the main method of attacking.

Replay Value: 4/10 I might play this game again, mainly for the NewGame+ mode. But it really is a game you just play once. It does have secrets to explore, and even two types of speed running: Timed and Turned. But overall not a great game to write home about.

Average Sum: 4.7/10

Overall Experience: 5/10 The game itself is not bad, with a few tweaks it could have been great. Still for 1 dollar it was a great bargain. I'm glad I played it and I enjoyed my time with it for what it was. It would be nice to see more games like this but for now this game will do.

Edited by Greymon57, Sep 15 2016, 08:55 AM.
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