NEPHENTHEOSIC EUTHANASIA
TRASHSTORM IS NOT A REAL STORY.
IS NOT EVEN GOOD FICTION.
IS TRASH GAME REVIEWS.
ALL OF THE GAMES FEATURED WOULD CAUSE A PERSON DISAPPOINTMENT,
ANGER, FRUSTRATION, DEPRESSION, MONEY LOSS INCLUDED.
TO PUT IT ANOTHER WAY: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME.
Back to reviewing an Indie shmup. This time is Nephenthesys by Let's Dev Studio and published by EastAsiaSoft.
Before entering the main game, you can give the tutorial a try, but if you're too lazy for that I'll sum it up to you in XBOX based controls (PlayStation and Switch is up to you to figure out). To shoot your regular weapon you just push the A button, and summon the Drone Attack with the X button. More basic this game can't be.
Now that you're familiarized with the control scheme, you have to pick your ship. Each one has unique weaponry and Drone attacks. You will start up with a selection of four different ships.
Marco Rossi's personal jet.
RED FLASH: A fast type, full frontal firing aircraft. Its main weapon is the Heavy Machine Gun (I know you want to shout it like the Metal Slug announcer, MS fans) which shoots an initial 3 bullet wide firing that becomes a 6 bullet wide shot. Its Drone Power is the Smart Bomb which unleashes a screen wide coverage of explosions.
BLUE STING: The Laser type aircraft. For its main weapon, it utilizes the Laser Beam which fires a thin frontal stream of energy as long as you hold the button, and its Drone Power is the Hyper Laser which is the "Ninja Beam" of the game, the murder-laser that pummels anything infront.
GREEN DRAGON: The Spread shot type. The main weapon of this fighter is the Scatter Gun which fires a three way shot that becames a 5 way spread fire and its Drone Power is the Tornado Bounce which summons two Drones that spins across the screen.
YELLOW WASP: The Defensive type. It utilizes the Phase Cannon as its main weapon which fires a chevron that passes through enemies. One each power up it ads a chevron behind the bullet making its wave properties more effective, and the Heavy Shield is its Drone Power which covers the ship with a temporary barrier that provides protection from bullets and avoids collisions, but they don't destroy the enemies. Despite that issue, its Drone Power makes this ship worthy of the title of "Defense" type.
While having default aircraft, there is special ones which requires you to complete specific objectives to obtain them.
WHITE PRISM: The "You Don't Know What You'll Get" type. Its main weapon and Drone Power are randomly decided by the game, and picking power ups will change the weapons you're using. To unlock this one you only need to complete the game with any aircraft.
PURPLE NEEDLE: The "Don't Power Up This Ship" type. This is an unique aircraft since can be destroyed by picking "Death" power ups, but you can use the standard "P" items to regain a drone or its strength. Its main weapon is the Needle Cannon which is a variation of the Red Flash's Heavy Machine Gun and for its Drone Power it utilizes the Orbital Laser that fires a "Rear-Frontal" laser attack that spins around de ship, justifying the "Orbital" of its name. Obtaining this ship requires you to reach a score of 40,000 points.
BLACK SPEAR: The "Brittle" type. Its fragility comes from the fact that the ship only has a restricted life bar giving you one hit point. Its main weapon is the Spread Laser which is a complete lie since it utilized the frontal Laser Beam like Blue Sting combined with Green Dragon's Scatter Gun's spread bullets. Its Drone Power is the Triple Laser which changes the four spread bullets into laser beams becoming a 5 wave spread laser fire. This unit requires two specific objectives to unlock: Finish any stage without taking a hit and without using Drone Power.
ORANGE BARRAGE: The "Homing Missile" type. The main weapon of this ship is the Missile Cannon which fires missiles with homing capabilities, keeping you away from danger while hitting enemies from a distance. For its Drone Power, it utilizes the Missile Barrage that increases the firing rate of missiles and allows you to fire a 5 missile firing instead of three for a short while. This is another "Double Objective" to unlock requiring you to unlock Purple Needle and then finish Stage 3.
PINK BUBBLE: The "Bouncing Shot" type. Its main weapon, the Bouncing Bubbles fires a spread array of bubbles that bounces across the screen. The Bubble Avalance is its Drone Power, simply fires bubbles in full circle. This is ship is another "Two Conditioner" to unlock. You have to unlock White Prism first and complete Stage 2 with it.
Simple, dull, boring.
Nephenthesys gameplay is basic in all terms: Basic weaponry which is mostly full frontal rather than having a varied configuration (think Vapor Trail and its varied spread fires and back fire) which requires two power ups to fully power up your ship, because the last one only adds the Drone to your arsenal. While the Drone is useless as subweapon, it is actually your bomb and this is where I ask this: ¿Why the bomb couldn't had a separate item indicator like any other shmup?, Isn't the power level meant for your shots rather than leaving 1 slot for the bomb? Second basic aspect is the enemy attack patterns, While being simple 3 way shots and streams of single and twin bullets, these have slow to mid-speed, making them easy to avoid. While the enemy attack patterns are ranged from easy to normal in terms of bullet patterns, the worst enemy here will be your ship's speed, making you prone to collisions unless you play with the Analog Stick which controls the speed based on the sensibility rather than using the D-Pad which pushes the ship at full speed. But like in Natsuki Chronicles and many other XB1/Series/PS4/5 shmups, looks like there's calibration issues with the Analog Stick because when you move left or right it slightly moves up or down. Compare that with Ginga Force where the analog control is perfectly functional without the mentioned issues.
Screen filling bosses? Doesn't look like one of them.
One of the game's ad statements is that you'll be facing bosses that fill the screen. Well, that statement is a lie. In a game like R-Type you face a screens long battleship, something that doesn't happen here unless we consider the width/wingspan, but that would be complying the statement halfway through. The life and power up system is another problem. Rather than being separated levels, the game behaves more like the "Arcade Mode" of Natsuki Chronicles, where any damage received will drop the power level of your ship. Dying and losing my power is A-OK, but when I take a hit, it sounds absurd. Also, if you die, you only have one life. One single fucking death is what separates you from the game and the Continue screen where you can only continue thrice before finally losing.
Another problem is your bombs. In Red Flash and Blue Sting's case, the screen fades to black and then unleashes the bomb before resuming the game, taking down the enemies that were on screen at the moment of the blast while Green Dragon's bomb is somewhat effective since it acts after the screen fading effect. Something like that is simply a fatal flaw on a shmup. I mean, if Raiden had this issue it would become a gaming failure rather than a hit.
Small bonuses all the time. "Motivational" on the lowest levels.
Even the bonus rewards feel incomplete. The idea of the game is to complete the levels unharmed and without using the boss granting you 1000 points for each category. This might imply that if you do it again, the bonus will gradually increase, but guess what? It remains the same 1000 points for all the levels and that gives more of the impression that not getting the bonus is the same as getting it. To sum it up, getting the bonus rewards is not worthy.
FOR NOW??
Are you telling me you're planning a "Part II"?
After completing the five missions you'll get this crappy ending where they tell you your mission is done "For now", hinting a Nephenthesys II. Well, shit. Looks like Let's Dev have plans for this project.
But you'll have to play the game four times or so to obtain all the achievements and uninstall it for good. That's the sad truth about this game, a waste of money just for the sake of Gamerscore points and Platinums. I feel sorry for Switch owners since the Switch lacks of trophies.
Graphic Description of Indie Development nowadays.
Like Hyper-5, RedRaptor and X-Force: Under Attack, this is another of those games which uses blatant false claims such as "Take-on screen filling bosses!" and "Experience old-school shoot’em up action inspired by arcade genre classics!" Looks like that's a horrible use of a statement just for the sake of selling a crappy shmup because we're facing another example of what happens when great ideas and expectations crashes with the harsh reality.
It's the Carnival Mask Edition of the Baykor Queen from Cybernoid!
Graphically, it is horrible. Let's Dev Studio's idea of classic shooting is "Doing crappy polygonal shapes" that looks like a mix between Atari Jaguar and the first PlayStation with a horrible corrugated plastic look in an attempt to be old school. Like I said on other reviews, being retro doesn't have to mean "Low Poly", 8-Bit or Atari-esque. Learn from CrossCode, Risk System and Sea of Stars, damn it. Pieslice gave us the best example possible with Crisis Wing when he homaged old school shmups (Toaplan's Truxton) and he made it correctly. The scenery in Nephenthesys is repetitive as hell. While the river-sea area of Stage 2 is at least long enough to cover the stage's length, the desert and city assets in Stages 1 and 3 are like 10 seconds of the same segment again and again as if it was a bad gif looping again and again, being the farm setting of Stage 4 the major offender in this aspect, repeating the "lines" supposed to be crop fields with very few buildings and cars. Compare that with the first level of Raiden. It had a farm segment as you leave the sea and beach, but the farm stays for a while as you fly your way to the urban areas. Nephenthesys has REALLY a lot of things that had potential but laziness ruined them. To make things worse, the screen is distorted trying to resemble the old TV screens, but its just horrible an unnecessary, and to make it worse, there's no way to remove the effect.
I have no words, just take a look.
Cutscenes are lame as well but in this case is worse as the background is blocked by a panel with the text, prove that nobody knows how to make basic introductory text cutscenes. Compare this with a Megaman intro cutscene, there's 2/3 of the screen showing the cutscene, and 1/3 is black space where the text goes. Sounds simple, but it is a basic, and most important, FUNCTIONAL solution.
The renders of Imaginext's cancelled Ace Combat "IUN Debriefer and Mage 2 Trigger" figure set.
Despite the crap factor of the game, it bothers to give some small lore to the game and add a general and a pilot which is supposed to be you, but...MY...GOD...the're awful, the debriefer looks like a bad Fisher-Price Imaginext toy and the pilot has too much aristas like a bad 3D printer model, and I'm not gonna say more since that would mean to be rude to the game staff behind this game.
As for the sound department, we have an assortment of the most dull and boring upbeat-techno soundtrack which is completely forgettable. The only "good" song is the level 2 theme which has F-Zero and Megaman X3 vibes on it, otherwise the music in the game feels pretty much the same. Boss themes are the same except for Stage 2 which has a ghost wailing-like sound before the electronic stuff plays.
CURIOSTHESYS
- Purple Needle takes cues from the Japanese Shinden plane.
- Black Spear is clearly based on the B-2 Spirit.
- The player death animation is clearly a nod to Megaman when he dies.
Sad but true.
Nephenthesys is one of the "Calamity. That's what this is" grade of shooting games where the game tries to offer a lot but fails on its execution turning out in another example of the classical story/tragedy about a group of indie developers making a game thinking they're Video System or Data East and end up failing catastrophically at the end. If you're looking "Old school shoot'em up action" don't bother here, find it in the arcade classics like Aero Fighters and Triggerheart Exelica. Forget this stupid thing.
Great!, Your ego driven stupidity made Eda cry.
Are you proud of yourself?