A Relentless Rush of Rock-Hard Boss Battles
Many combat based video games share the same structure regarding their gameplay loop, starting by introducing the player to weak enemies with simple attack patterns so that the player is able to learn the mechanics at a leisurely pace. Oftentimes this is done through an initial tutorial area filled with small groups of these basic enemies, before culminating in a final boss fight that takes those basic mechanics and puts them together for a final test before the game begins in earnest.
But other games pose the question, what if we skip all of that nonsense and just focus on the boss fights? And even fewer games take it a step further – let’s also make every single one of those boss fights rock hard.
NanoApostle finds itself in that camp.
Boss Rush Brutality: Unique Encounters and Demanding Combat
As a “boss-rush” game, NanoApostle places all its emphasis on, you guessed it, boss fights. Instead of fighting through waves of weak enemies, the game is focused on individual encounters with mechanically deep and unique bosses. Each fight features a unique boss with its own set of attack patterns and gimmicks. One boss may rely on applying status effects to slow you down, while another may go all-in with ranged attacks. Each one is a unique encounter that needs quick response time and strong pattern recognition skills to overcome.
The story is framed around a young girl, Anita, trapped in a strange facility that is used for combat training. Anita has also been implanted with nanomachines that are the source of her combat prowess. The plot itself is rather unremarkable, which is partly due to the format of the gameplay. Since the game relies solely on boss fights, every story beat needs to occur between those fights. Too much exposition can drag the game down, while too little exposition can leave the story feeling rushed. NanoApostle is a victim of the latter, but the overall experience doesn’t suffer too much.
The Art of Combat
This is because the combat, graphics, and sound design are all fantastically done. The combat is tight and responsive. There is a strong emphasis on the parry and dodge mechanics, so timing and memorizing attack patterns is essential to making progress in each fight. This also means that players should expect to die repeatedly in each boss encounter. There are only a handful of bosses to fight, but you can still expect NanoApostle to take several hours to play though.
This is because each boss fight is incredibly challenging and unique. The first fight feels like it’s the biggest challenge because not only does it have a wide array of attacks to learn, but it’s also when the controls are still new.
Not only that, but it’s here where your arsenal is at its most limited, new abilities popping up after each fight, including new movement and combat mechanics. There are also combat modifiers that become available as you progress, as well as trials that allow you to unlock new skill points to equip more of these modifiers.
These are purely optional, but they can help if you are really struggling with fights. However, they aren’t going to be drastic changes, so learning how enemies move and attack is still going to be your best bet for progressing.
Pixelated Glory
Artistically, each combat situation is uniquely designed, from the character art, to the animations and move sets of each boss. Every battle feels like a new experience and challenge to overcome. The animation is also beautifully done, with complex pixel art helping NanoApostle come to life in spectacular fashion.
Each fight ends with a surprisingly brutal finishing animation that really leans heavily into the darker tones that the plot tries to establish between encounters. It feels a little out of place considering the main character is a small girl who has no memory of what is actually going on or why she is there.
Again, the plot itself is a bit lacking and the exposition that is delivered between fights feels blunt with its world building. Instead of using the pixel art style, these scenes switch to a more traditional “anime” art style. It also uses a slide show and text boxes to tell the story.
I’ve nothing against stories told via text boxes, in fact, a lot of games would benefit from relying a bit more on text based storytelling, but the art style for these scenes feels a bit disconnected from the rest of the game and the plot advances too quickly for any satisfying character development to occur. This is an issue with trying to fit the story beats between a handful of boss fights, as any more exposition and NanoApostle starts to run the risk of losing its players’ attention completely.
Addictive Defeat: The “One More Try” Mentality
However, while I don’t recommend picking up NanoApostle for its storytelling, I do recommend it for its gameplay. It is addictive.
Each death feels like a step closer to beating the boss and it is the epitome of the “one more try” mentality. Whether it was my closest fight yet, or one that I absolutely bombed on, every fight felt like I was learning a bit more about the boss and what I needed to do to win.
But even when dying, NanoApostle offers its players a reward. Each boss has a list of challenges that can be used to earn points to unlock other abilities. Progress on these challenges can be made even if you die to a boss, and involves tasks like parrying a certain number of attacks, or making it to the boss’s second form a specific number of times.
It rewards the attempts so that even when failing, it feels like progress is being made. It’s a great system that makes a fun and engaging game all the more better.
A Spectacle of Boss Battles
Boss rush games are not super common, and even those that are full of memorable boss fights often pad themselves out with weaker enemies to grind. Every once in a while though, it’s nice to play a game that just focuses on the spectacle, one that makes the entire experience exciting, via a good boss fight. And that’s NanoApostle.
Your Links
Brutal Boss Rush NanoApostle Brings Dark Sci-Fi Action to Xbox – https://www.thexboxhub.com/brutal-boss-rush-nanoapostle-brings-dark-sci-fi-action-to-xbox/
Buy NanoApostle on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/NanoApostle/9P3RPVRMKV8W
