Nova Strike Review

Nova Strike is a vertical shooter that takes you on a journey to a faraway galaxy where you will be facing waves of enemies in procedurally generated levels that are constantly changing. This means you won’t be able to rely on muscle memory to help you out, so it will take some quick reflexes to learn how each of the different enemies attacks and how to avoid them. You will need to push yourself to the limit, increasing your high score to earn more points to use for upgrading your ship and giving you a better chance of success in your future runs. 

There’s not much of a story here, but all you really need to know are the specs of the craft that you will be piloting. Your ship’s shields regenerate automatically when you do not take damage. The health bar is filled by collecting Health Packs that defeated enemy ships drop — they look like the containers used to hold the baby Metroid aliens in that game. Fortunately, your primary weapon has an unlimited amount of ammo, so you will never have to worry about running out and being defenceless against your enemy. These shots aren’t the most powerful thing ever, but after a few hits, they get the job done until you start collecting Secondary Weapons.

Secondary Weapons, unlike your Primary, do not have a never-ending source of bullets. You will now have to worry about the amount of ammo that you have, so you will need to collect ammo crates to replenish your stash. These armaments are stronger, but they also have their drawbacks. Each has a cooldown period, and they require you to hold down the fire button to charge them before they shoot. This is not an instantaneous shot like your primary weapon, be careful and watch out for your enemy while your weapon is getting ready to fire so that you don’t take any unnecessary damage. There is a variety of these other guns to pick up, and Nova Strike makes it easy to cycle through the few you have or to discard any that you don’t want to carry.  

At the beginning of the game, Nova Strike does not feel like a bullet-hell type game where you are inundated with projectiles coming at you. The enemies and shots they fire move slow enough that you have a chance to dodge to avoid taking damage. As you progress, the difficulty increases, and the stages become more challenging. For my first run, I only managed to survive for five minutes, but even short runs are advantageous to your future success. You will be presented with a stats page showing how many enemies you defeated, the number of coins collected, and how many bosses you destroyed, based on this, you will earn points to spend at the Upgrade Hub.

The items that you purchase at the Upgrade Hub are permanent and will appear in all your gameplay sessions, unlike the weapons and other equipment you collect during your run. Those temporary upgrades will disappear as soon as you are destroyed and your session is done. In the beginning, your ship has three slots available to hold the items that you purchase, though you do have the opportunity to purchase up to three additional slots to increase the capacity. Some of these power-ups use only one slot, but others could cost two or more. Once you are finished shopping, head to the Equipment Centre to assign which will be the Active Chips that you will use on your next play. 

Nova Strike features vibrant, retro-inspired visuals that make the game feel like a title that you would play at an arcade. The title features a variety of enemies, each with a unique colour and weapon that they will use to try to destroy your ship. The green tanks take four regular shots to destroy and fire two blasts at a time. Purple vehicles are equipped with powerful lasers, but for a second before firing, a trace line is shown, so you know if you need to move to avoid being hit.

There is a variety of different music in Nova Strike that fits all the sections of the game. While you are flying around destroying ships, the music is upbeat and fits the neverending action of the level. When you are waiting in the hub before you start your run, the music sounds almost militant and serious, mirroring the feelings of the character who is about to head out for a dangerous mission. The tracks were completely different, but are perfect for the sections of the game that they are in. The sound effects that you hear from the constant firing of weapons vary depending on the type of gun being used. When you get hit, or when you land a shot on the enemy, you hear a dull thud.

The controls for the gamepad worked very well in Nova Strike. For the base controls, the A button fires your Primary Weapon, B button is used for your Secondary, and to swap which one you are using, press Y. If you want to discard the weapon, hit the X button to toss it away. The other controls you get to set yourself depending on what you buy from the Upgrade Hut and which of the remaining shoulder and trigger buttons you assign them to. If you set the buttons and don’t like what you have chosen, you can always head to the Equipment Centre to swap them around.

Nova Strike isn’t a very long game, especially once you start purchasing upgrades for your ship, making each of your runs a little easier than the previous one. In total, it took me about four hours to get through the full game, but even though I’ve completed it, I will surely come back to it. I still want to improve the amount of time it took to finish, along with getting a higher score and attempting to get through levels without taking any damage. If you are a fan of retro shoot ‘em ups with a variety of enemies and fun upgrades to unlock, Nova Strike is going to be a title you will want to look into, especially since no two runs will be the same with procedurally generated levels. The game also plays great on the Steam Deck if you want to play handheld or on the go. Will you survive the always-changing space levels presented to you in Nova Strike?