Nanostorm is a simple but addictive corridor shooter where you have to protect civilians on the ground from being abducted by alien enemies. The enemies come in waves, and the more you kill, the more money you gain, to then invest in your permanent upgrade tree. With an upgrade tree looking like it’s escaped from an incremental game, Nanostorm mixes 80s arcade action with modern-day one-more-go breadcrumbs.
It takes a while to get going, so persevere through the first 20 minutes. Nanostorm’s early levels see you protect a couple of citizens against only a few enemies, and your own firepower is often quite narrow and feeble. Initially, you’ll have to deal with gravity, making your movement a little floaty and unresponsive. You’ll have no radar to see where your enemies are, either. Thankfully, there are fairly early unlocks as you build up more firepower, movement speed, and a crucial dash that comes with an improbable dash length and recharge. Slowly, the difficulty creeps up, and so does the speed and power of your character. What first felt clunky smoothes out into a twitchy, reactive, visceral arcade shooter that reminds me of Resogun but housed in an ’80s arcade cabinet.
As the moment-to-moment gameplay ramps up and becomes exponentially better, it exposes a couple of niggles. The game freezes and slows down at the start of the later levels because it’s loading in so many enemies. Those enemies also tend to spawn on top of you with zero warning. The signal of an incoming enemy needs to be bigger, especially when there are lots of tiny bullets and background stars scrolling around. These are only small niggles but they often compound each other late game.
Talking of compounding things, how you earn currency to buy your upgrades also compounds over time. You can boost the number of points each safe civilian scores, how many enemies you kill and the combo meter scores, and a bonus for clearing a level score threshold. By the time you’ve unlocked secondary weapons, you’ll be cranking up these modifiers to gain more currency for future upgrades. The weapons you get to enjoy have some quirks in their prices and power, as the highest upgrades for your current weapon are more expensive and more powerful than the first couple of upgrades for your next weapon. Sometimes it’s better to level up your next weapon a few times before switching over to it.
Anyone who enjoys ’80s arcade action will enjoy Nanostorm. Simple, visceral, and at times twitch reactive to escape giant bosses hurling themselves at you, the longer you play, the better the game becomes. A hidden, cheap gem.
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