Noitu Love: Devolution

Genre: Action-Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Noitu Love: Devolution, released on PC in 2008 and ported to Wii U and Nintendo 3DS eShops in 2016, is an Action-Platformer where players fight hordes of robots attacking society. This is the second game in the Noitu Love series, following the 2006 release of Noitu Love & the Grinning Darns on PC.

The presentation in Noitu Love features colorful 2D pixel art visuals with potential for a lot of characters on-screen, and some really creative large boss characters. This is backed by an energetic synthesized soundtrack that works well for the fast-paced action of the game.

While this game was released first on PC, this is a game that feels like it was made for a platform with a touchscreen. Tapping a target on-screen causes your character to zip to that target to attack it, and tapping repeatedly makes for a satisfying combo attack. Players can also swipe in any direction to perform a special attack in that direction, and they can move and jump using the D-Pad, as well as placing shielding bubbles on-screen by holding down and tapping the touchscreen where you want the bubble placed.

The result of all of this is that players feel empowered by a pretty versatile move set, making movement and combat pretty satisfying. What’s more, the stages and bosses this game throws at you are nicely varied, and at times will push players to make good use of these moves.

This game is constantly aiming to make you feel like an overpowered force of nature, absolutely blasting through hordes of enemies at a time. In some areas, you’ll even find you have to ignore enemies and just continue to press forward, not because fighting them would be more difficult, but because there’s really no point to fighting them – they’re just fodder that’s easy to take down, and more will respawn in their place.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, when you face a boss or some other strong enemy that isn’t stunned by your attacks, it can be easy to get lulled into a false sense of security and take damage from their counter-attack. What’s more, some boss enemies have attacks that seem like they’re impossible to avoid, and it feels like the best way to power through these battles is to just attack them as much as you can when they’re vulnerable and just tank the damage.

While the challenge level here seems to fluctuate and the unrelenting swarm of enemies makes the game frequently frenetic, Noitu Love: Devolution is nevertheless a delight to play, and fans of fast-paced Action games would do well to give it a try.

tl;dr – Noitu Love: Devolution is a fast-paced Action-Platformer where players tap on the screen to make your player jump directly to enemies to unleash a flurry of attacks. The action here is frenetic, and the difficulty seems to fluctuate all over the place, but overall this is a unique and immensely satisfying entry in the genre that’s well worth checking out.

Grade: B+

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