Pretty damn awesome! Intense shmup bullet hell in the form of a twin-stick shooter, Nex Machina is pure arcade fun that delivers a challenging and solid experience, alongside a nice set of extra incentives to go back to.
Controls are smooth and tight, whether you're playing on a gamepad or a keyboard and mouse. Moving around feels highly responsive, which makes it ideal for the game only giving you a single health point alongside the challenging enemies and bullet patterns you have to face throughout the game.
The basic tools in your arsenal come in the form of a rapid-firing gun and a dash. Your main gun can be upgraded with extended damage range and bullet spreads through pickups located in various boxes throughout the levels, as well as random spawns. Dashing allows you to phase through most enemies and projectiles, save for a select few special types. Dashing is under a cooldown, meaning good timing and quick thinking is required to make the best use of it in avoiding enemies.
You also have a secondary weapon that can be picked up throughout levels as well. Each secondary weapon has a different style of firing and projectile alongside varying cooldown periods. They're not only all unique to each other, but also are all viable which gives room for freedom in your playstyle.
There's the Sword which is a one-hit kill for enemies and can also destroy projectiles within a close-range arc in front of your character, coupled with an extremely short cooldown.
The Laser provides longer sustained damage while slowing you down, ideal for a long row of enemies or dense groups and durable enemies. The slowdown also helps in finer movements during heavier bullet patterns.
The Smart Bomb explodes around you killing enemies and destroying projectiles within a small circular area.
The Power Shot is like a railgun that charges up for a couple of seconds and penetrates through enemies in its direction, alongside a small blastwave in front of your character.
Finally, the Detonator, which is a ranged bomb that can phase through enemies and be detonated at any time.
They all feel great to use, with some working better for certain situations, which also provides another layer of challenge in which the player has to memorize and decide what is the best secondary weapon to pick up and use for the next encounter.
On top of the upgrades for your main weapon and secondary pickups, you also have powerups that give you the ability to dash three times before the cooldown kicks in, as well as an explosive effect that damages enemies where you dashed from. Finally, you also have a shield that can give you an additional health point regardless of the enemy or projectile that hits you.
The game runs on a lives and continues system, similar to most shmups. You have a maximum of five lives and differing amounts of continues depending on the difficulty level. Anytime you die, the level fully resets to its original state, alongside the loss of one of your powerups or secondary weapons. You have the opportunity to pick up what you dropped on the subsequent life, but it will disappear if you die again before picking it back up. And when you use a continue, everything resets to your default state.
This provides another layer of challenge that encourages the player to play well to be more effective as each level goes. Because if you don't come equipped with most powerups and a secondary weapon, it becomes tremendously challenging to do recovery and fight through the later levels, especially the boss fights.
While this does mean dying during boss fights can create a rather harsh experience, this element provides an incentive to keep the momentum going and encourage mastery of the game's mechanics and levels.
There are a total of six worlds, with each world containing different levels and a boss. Alongside are secret levels that can be unlocked by shooting hidden arcade cabinets. On top of that, there are hidden enemy types, beacons, and humans to rescue.
The humans in particular are also a major element in the scoring system. Each human rescued adds a timed multiplier to your scores. The way they're laid out on each level gives the player a challenge in finding the best routes and timing their movements alongside dealing with enemies. Especially since each human can die at the hands of the enemies.
Overall, all these systems create a pretty exciting gameplay loop, where everything is chaotic on-screen and pulling off feats at the last second through skill and luck.
Coupled with the systems are the great enemy designs and beautiful bullet patterns from the boss fights. All are distinct from each other and are pretty fun to go up against, with each requiring a decent amount of memorization and planning to overcome efficiently.
Alongside the fun gameplay, the game is presented with nice visuals that are filled to the brim with satisfying particle effects, and varied environments that keep the game looking fresh through each world.
Topping off its nice presentation is an energetic electronic-synth soundtrack that fits the game's setting and gameplay rather well.
After you finish the main Arcade Mode, you also have a set of challenges through the Online Arena that provides unique conditions and challenges for familiar levels. Not only do you have a leaderboard to compete for higher ranks and scores with, but you also earn points that can unlock various cosmetics for your character. With various difficulty levels and unlocks, Nex Machina offers quite a lot to incentivize replays.
All in all, Nex Machina offers a very enjoyable experience for fans of arcade shmups and twin-stick shooters alike thanks to its well-put-together design and frantically fun gameplay that provides a lot of close-call moments.
Controls are smooth and tight, whether you're playing on a gamepad or a keyboard and mouse. Moving around feels highly responsive, which makes it ideal for the game only giving you a single health point alongside the challenging enemies and bullet patterns you have to face throughout the game.
The basic tools in your arsenal come in the form of a rapid-firing gun and a dash. Your main gun can be upgraded with extended damage range and bullet spreads through pickups located in various boxes throughout the levels, as well as random spawns. Dashing allows you to phase through most enemies and projectiles, save for a select few special types. Dashing is under a cooldown, meaning good timing and quick thinking is required to make the best use of it in avoiding enemies.
You also have a secondary weapon that can be picked up throughout levels as well. Each secondary weapon has a different style of firing and projectile alongside varying cooldown periods. They're not only all unique to each other, but also are all viable which gives room for freedom in your playstyle.
There's the Sword which is a one-hit kill for enemies and can also destroy projectiles within a close-range arc in front of your character, coupled with an extremely short cooldown.
The Laser provides longer sustained damage while slowing you down, ideal for a long row of enemies or dense groups and durable enemies. The slowdown also helps in finer movements during heavier bullet patterns.
The Smart Bomb explodes around you killing enemies and destroying projectiles within a small circular area.
The Power Shot is like a railgun that charges up for a couple of seconds and penetrates through enemies in its direction, alongside a small blastwave in front of your character.
Finally, the Detonator, which is a ranged bomb that can phase through enemies and be detonated at any time.
They all feel great to use, with some working better for certain situations, which also provides another layer of challenge in which the player has to memorize and decide what is the best secondary weapon to pick up and use for the next encounter.
On top of the upgrades for your main weapon and secondary pickups, you also have powerups that give you the ability to dash three times before the cooldown kicks in, as well as an explosive effect that damages enemies where you dashed from. Finally, you also have a shield that can give you an additional health point regardless of the enemy or projectile that hits you.
The game runs on a lives and continues system, similar to most shmups. You have a maximum of five lives and differing amounts of continues depending on the difficulty level. Anytime you die, the level fully resets to its original state, alongside the loss of one of your powerups or secondary weapons. You have the opportunity to pick up what you dropped on the subsequent life, but it will disappear if you die again before picking it back up. And when you use a continue, everything resets to your default state.
This provides another layer of challenge that encourages the player to play well to be more effective as each level goes. Because if you don't come equipped with most powerups and a secondary weapon, it becomes tremendously challenging to do recovery and fight through the later levels, especially the boss fights.
While this does mean dying during boss fights can create a rather harsh experience, this element provides an incentive to keep the momentum going and encourage mastery of the game's mechanics and levels.
There are a total of six worlds, with each world containing different levels and a boss. Alongside are secret levels that can be unlocked by shooting hidden arcade cabinets. On top of that, there are hidden enemy types, beacons, and humans to rescue.
The humans in particular are also a major element in the scoring system. Each human rescued adds a timed multiplier to your scores. The way they're laid out on each level gives the player a challenge in finding the best routes and timing their movements alongside dealing with enemies. Especially since each human can die at the hands of the enemies.
Overall, all these systems create a pretty exciting gameplay loop, where everything is chaotic on-screen and pulling off feats at the last second through skill and luck.
Coupled with the systems are the great enemy designs and beautiful bullet patterns from the boss fights. All are distinct from each other and are pretty fun to go up against, with each requiring a decent amount of memorization and planning to overcome efficiently.
Alongside the fun gameplay, the game is presented with nice visuals that are filled to the brim with satisfying particle effects, and varied environments that keep the game looking fresh through each world.
Topping off its nice presentation is an energetic electronic-synth soundtrack that fits the game's setting and gameplay rather well.
After you finish the main Arcade Mode, you also have a set of challenges through the Online Arena that provides unique conditions and challenges for familiar levels. Not only do you have a leaderboard to compete for higher ranks and scores with, but you also earn points that can unlock various cosmetics for your character. With various difficulty levels and unlocks, Nex Machina offers quite a lot to incentivize replays.
All in all, Nex Machina offers a very enjoyable experience for fans of arcade shmups and twin-stick shooters alike thanks to its well-put-together design and frantically fun gameplay that provides a lot of close-call moments.