Nitro Express Review Summary

Appealing and detailed pixel art: The game features a charming and well-executed pixel art style, with detailed characters, animations, and backgrounds. Many reviewers highlight the cute character designs and the overall aesthetic appeal, contributing positively to the game's presentation.

High-quality music and sound: Reviewers consistently praise the game's music and sound design, noting its quality and how well it complements the action and atmosphere. The audio elements contribute significantly to the overall enjoyment and immersive experience.

Balanced difficulty and progression: The game balances difficulty with options for progression, such as learning enemy patterns, using healing items, and mastering evasion. While challenging, the game provides tools and incentives for players to improve and overcome obstacles.

Flamethrower is very effective: The flamethrower is highlighted as a particularly effective and fun weapon. Its ability to deal damage over time and bypass certain enemy defenses makes it a reliable choice for many situations, though some find it essential for boss fights.

Humorous and enjoyable story: The game features a lighthearted and humorous story with self-aware dialogue and funny interactions. While not deeply complex, the story is enjoyable and adds to the game's overall charm.

Clunky, unresponsive, unintuitive controls: The game's controls are frequently described as clunky, stiff, unresponsive, and unintuitive. Specific issues include awkward camera movement, difficulty aiming, poor keybindings (with lack of remapping options), and sluggish character movement. These control issues make it difficult for players to react effectively and enjoy the gameplay.

Overwhelming visual clutter, low FPS: The game suffers from significant visual clutter due to excessive effects, similar colors for projectiles and explosions, and backgrounds that blend with foreground elements. This is exacerbated by a low frame rate (30 FPS), making it difficult to track enemies and projectiles, leading to player disorientation and eye strain. This combination of factors makes dodging and aiming challenging.

Awkward, disorienting camera movement: The game's camera system is problematic, with issues such as sudden and disorienting shifts, awkward movement when turning, and a tendency to lock onto the character during jumps. These camera issues make it difficult to track enemies, aim effectively, and maintain spatial awareness, leading to frustration and motion sickness in some cases.

Sluggish movement, frequent knockdowns: The player character's movement feels sluggish, and they are easily knocked down or staggered by enemy attacks. This, combined with long knockdown times and limited recovery options, disrupts the flow of gameplay and makes the character feel weak and vulnerable. This leads to frustration as players struggle to maintain control and avoid damage.

Overwhelming enemy numbers, enemy spam: The game features a high density of enemies, often overwhelming the player with sheer numbers. This enemy spam, combined with their durability and frequent knockdown attacks, makes it difficult to manage threats and maintain control of the situation. This can lead to a feeling of being constantly overwhelmed and unable to progress.

Varied weapons, strategic loadouts: Players can equip and switch between multiple weapons and gadgets, each with unique characteristics and usage scenarios. Experimentation and upgrading are encouraged to overcome challenges. However, some weapons are considered weak, leading to players gravitating towards specific, more effective loadouts.

Metal Slug-like, strategic, difficult: The game is a side-scrolling shooter reminiscent of Metal Slug, blending arcade-style action with strategic weapon usage and level memorization. It features short stages with high difficulty, requiring players to adapt to enemy placements and optimize loadouts. The game's world is inspired by titles like Patlabor, creating a unique tone.

Tactical elements, posture affects damage: The game incorporates tactical elements such as reload management, dodging (rolling/jumping), and posture-based damage modifiers. Crouching often increases damage output, while movement can decrease it. However, some players find the character's movement limited and the stance mechanics poorly explained.

Story and mission modes: The game features both a story mode with conversations and boss battles, and a mission mode for replaying stages to earn currency. This currency is used to unlock more gear and experiment with different loadouts. The mission mode is primarily used for farming money.

Reflecting bullets, regenerating sub-weapons: The game features stages with reflecting bullets, and players can use a shield to deflect them, damaging enemies. Sub-weapon ammo automatically regenerates over time, encouraging their frequent use.

Locked 30 FPS hurts gameplay: The game is locked at 30 FPS, which many players find unacceptable for a fast-paced action game. This limitation is due to the Pixel Game Maker MV engine and results in a sluggish feel, mouse unresponsiveness, and stuttering, especially during intense action sequences with many enemies or projectiles. Some players also report frame rate drops below 30 FPS, further exacerbating the issue.

Steam Deck: Remap controls: The game is playable on Steam Deck, but the default controller settings make aiming diagonally difficult. Remapping the controls is recommended for a better experience.

External fixes worsen performance: Using frame interpolation software or lossless scaling to address the 30 FPS cap introduces new issues. Frame interpolation causes erratic game speed, while lossless scaling increases input latency, both negatively impacting the player experience.

Adjustable screen and control settings: Players can adjust screen size, screen shake, and button configurations via an in-game menu accessed by pressing F1. Disabling screen shake is recommended to improve visibility during gameplay.

Shotgun/Claymore weapon synergy: The 6-shot pump shotgun can be used effectively in sustained combat when paired with the claymore special weapon.

Enjoyable, but needs refinement: Many reviewers find the game enjoyable despite its flaws, citing its fun gameplay loop, art style, and potential. However, some suggest waiting for updates or a sale due to concerns about price, content, and difficulty. The game is recommended for players who enjoy a challenge and are willing to experiment.

Wait for sale/updates: Several reviews suggest the game is not worth the full price in its current state. They recommend waiting for a sale or for the developers to address issues such as optimization, content, and difficulty balance before purchasing. Some reviewers even suggest that the marketing may be misleading.

Controller is highly recommended: Several reviewers recommend using a controller for a better experience. Some request a more streamlined control scheme, such as a one-stick option for movement and aiming. This suggests that the default keyboard and mouse controls may be less intuitive or comfortable.

Incomplete, but has potential: Many reviewers see potential in the game's art style and world-building, but feel it is currently incomplete. They express hope for more levels and content in future updates. This suggests a strong foundation that needs further development.

Learn from similar games: The reviewer suggests that the game could learn from similar games like "Saving Countryball: Sona-chan", which addresses pain points well and provides a more comfortable experience. This suggests that the game could benefit from studying and implementing features from other successful titles in the genre.

Good content volume for price: The game offers a reasonable amount of content for its price, including a complete script, excellent design art, and challenging gameplay. The main story can be completed in approximately 2 hours, with a total playtime of 4-5 hours.

Paperwork reward diminishes continuously: Players can earn money by completing paperwork, but the reward decreases with continuous use. The reports themselves are interesting, but it's unclear if there is only one pattern, and button mashing does not change the content.

Charming characters, divisive art: The characters are charming, but whether the art itself will carry an entire game is up to individual. This suggests that the game's art style may be divisive, with some players finding it appealing while others may not.

Bullet color causes visual confusion: The similar color of enemy and player bullets creates visual confusion, especially when enemies have reflective armor. This makes it difficult for players to track projectiles and react accordingly, negatively impacting gameplay.

Unclear campaign/mission progression: The game features separate "Campaign" and "Mission" tabs that unlock simultaneously, but the logic behind their progression is unclear. This lack of clarity can confuse players and make it difficult to understand how to advance through the game.