Nano Assault Neo

Genre: 2-Stick Shooter

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Nano Assault Neo, released on Wii U in 2012 and ported to PlayStation 4 in 2014, is a 2-Stick Shooter and sequel to Nano Assault on the Nintendo 3DS. This game ditches the On-Rails Shooter stages from its predecessor to focus solely on its 2-Stick Shooter stages where players blast away microscopic bugs while moving around an asteroid-like cellular object.

As is the norm for Shin’en Multimedia games, Nano Assault Neo is absolutely gorgeous. There’s some incredible detail in everything, superb lighting effects, great textures, nice hair effects – everything in this game looks alien in a distinctly “microscopic” way. These visuals are sharp and continue to run smoothly, with no hits to the game’s performance. This is backed by a catchy synthesized soundtrack that does a fantastic job backing up the action of the gameplay.

When it comes to that gameplay, I feel like the decision to make this game all about the 2-Stick Shooter stages (with brief bonus stages) was a wise choice. This seems to have allowed for the game’s creators to fix what I felt was the biggest problem with these stages in the previous game, the camera. Make no mistake, the camera still makes it a point to challenge players by showing the action from all sorts of perspectives, highlighting that no way is up or down in this game, but at least this time you never feel like it’s hiding enemies just off-screen. The result is delightful, fast-paced action with some clever stage design due to the game’s weird 3-dimensional battlegrounds.

This isn’t a carbon copy of that game’s experience, either. The game replaces the former game’s DNA-collecting by simply making players scramble to reach an exit after reaching a quota of enemies defeated. In addition, players can now spend points in-between stages to purchase extra lives or power up their ship.

I should note that one of the delightful surprises of this game is the co-op multiplayer mode. In this mode, one player uses the screen on the Wii U gamepad, while the other player uses the TV screen. While this game could have easily worked with split-screen, the decision to give both players a full screen to play on really makes for great use of the Wii U’s unique hardware.

All told, Nano Assault Neo is a phenomenal 2-Stick Shooter that addresses the issues I had with this game’s predecessor to deliver an all-around great entry in the genre. And I’ll note that while this game will technically live on after the Wii U eShop closes down in the form of its PlayStation 4 port, there’s an argument to be made that the Wii U version’s unique multiplayer features using the Wii U gamepad mean that this version of the game has enough to offer in its own right to make it worth a purchase. Definitely don’t pass up on this game – you’ll want to pick it up before the Wii U eShop closes in March 2023.

tl;dr – Nano Assault Neo is a 2-Stick Shooter where players shoot bugs on a microscopic cel. This game is not only visually-stunning, but it addresses the biggest issues I had with the game’s predecessor, and it adds some fun new features as well, particularly a new co-op two-player mode that makes excellent use of the Wii U gamepad. This is absolutely a game you’ll want to pick up before the Wii U eShop closes in March 2023.

Grade: A

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