Nano Assault Review: Beautiful and Addicting 3DS Shooter

Nano Assault Review

Nano Assault is a shooter for the Nintendo 3DS system, and it also happens to be my latest addiction.

Nano Assault features a fun story mode to play in with wonderfully designed levels. The driving point of the game to get you to replay those levels is the arcade mode in which you aim for your highest score. Your high score will be placed to online leaderboards where you can compare your score to the top players or to just your friends. There are additional challenges for each level in arcade mode for you to complete. By completing these challenges you will gain Nano Coins which can be used to purchase songs to listen to in the jukebox or other items.

The gameplay in Nano Assault works pretty well, though if it had a second analog stick – it would handle even better. I don’t want that to sound like a bad thing though, because it still handles just fine without it. During the game you will have two ways of playing. It starts you out with ground-like missions, and then you will have your boss fights which you will take flight in. Each mission can be fairly short… though the boss fights usually feature multiple segments before the end.

The enemies and bosses in the game are well done and fun to go up against. You also have a nice scoring system to make your high score challenges more entertaining to play. That was my main addiction to the game – the arcade mode and challenging online for top scores. You will have 7 cell clusters to play in each with multiple levels. Cell cluster 1 has 4 levels for you to play in. You can get through that in probably 20 minutes if not less. I spent over 7 hours playing just the cell cluster 1 and working for top online scores. That says a lot. That should also tell you that the replay value of this game is incredible. It is so fun that you can go back again and again for more.

Visually the game looks really great with a lot of lovely colors that you will truly enjoy. It also comes with a fairly nice soundtrack. During those hours of replaying levels, I never felt I needed to turn the music off.

Nano Assault is a must have title for any 3DS owner. I should probably say that if you are not one for online competition with friends on the leaderboards – then you may not have as much fun with it as I did. I should also add that once you beat the game you will unlock boss rush which is another enjoyable game mode for you to play in. Nano Assault is an excellent title and I really hope we see more like it.

Score: 5/5