Dopamine is a hell of a drug. When I was little we could entertain ourselves with a janky NES game without a manual. And we liked it. Nowadays, I need constant stimulation of a very specific subset of dopamine receptors.
For some people it means optimizing their builds in an ARPG, for others it means managing an entire city or a colony. For yours truly it’s the old “What if I combine this with that?” hook.
Twin-stick shooters and Vampire Survivors-likes tend to tickle that particular niche in my brain. And Nova Drift may have me in its addictive clutches long after this review is published. And if I’m completely honest with you, dear reader – I’d rather be playing it instead of writing about it. Don’t tell the editor.
NOVA DRIFT
Developer: Chimeric
Publisher: Pixeljam
Platforms: Windows PC
Release Date: August 12, 2024 (1.0)
Price: $17.99
Nova Drift was developed by only a couple of people (mostly Jeffrey Nielson, with audio by Miles Tilmann and support from Kenneth Miller) and yet the level of polish is beyond anything we’ve come to expect from AAA studios. Funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2017, the modest sum of a little over $7,000 enabled Chimeric to develop this little gem.
And it is a glistening gem in the void of space. Using simple shapes and neon lights, the game space is densely populated in both positive and negative space. While the player may want to keep an eye on the state of the game, the negative space is nothing to sneeze at either. The gorgeous interplanetary backdrops range from serene nebulae to bleeding red giants.
The action can oftentimes become too hectic for the uninitiated. A single lapse in concentration can cost you a run (2 seconds and you’re gone, kiddo). While the actors may be relatively simplistic, the combination of control scheme and the sheer number of projectiles will make even the most seasoned Touhou veterans take up the gamer pose.
The game can be succinctly described as “Asteroids on Steroids”. You control your little spaceship by turning and applying thrust. Flying into the edge of a screen only brings you back out on the opposite end. Same goes for enemies and asteroids, but not projectiles.
You have to be aware of your momentum and the fact that this is not really a twinstick shooter. Even after getting some control upgrades, you are never completely in sync with your ship. This adds a significant bit of tension to gameplay.
Now you may be saying “Oh this is not for me, I can’t stand floaty controls” and I was the same way until I went through a couple of runs. It grows on you.
Using the mouse can be cumbersome whenever you fly through the edge of a screen. Since you’re flying towards the mouse pointer, whenever you come out of the other side, you’re bound to change trajectory.
Using a controller is a completely different ballpark. Instead of aiming at an absolute point (i.e. mouse pointer), you control your ships direction with the left joypad. I urge players to try out both control schemes in order to find an option that suits them.
Now assuming your hand-eye coordination skills have gotten you far enough to survive your first encounter with a trash mob enemy ship, you’ll notice the game uses an experience system. Gaining enough XP will level up your ship and let you customize it to your hearts content. The first 3 upgrades determine your starting weapon, shield system and ship hull configuration.
These play a major role in determining your build, but worry not: you can always swap any of these three for something else any time you level up. At the cost of an upgrade point, of course.
This is the core of Nova Drift – experimentation and not having to re-roll an entire character or restart a playthrough just to fix one mistake. Changes are applied instantly and considering each standard run only takes about 20 minutes, even the biggest of mistakes can be mended quite easily.
With every level-up, you can pick 1 out of 7 offered mods, alongside changes to the core ship mentioned earlier. Generally these mods are all straight upgrades – some are flat, other are percentage-based. The more these progress, the more they turn into trade-offs instead. Your job is to figure out how to turn these synergies into a net positive for your survival.
Made your shield too weak? Pick a mod that triggers a damaging nova upon shield break. Your weapon projectiles no longer reach their targets? Pivot into a summoner build and trade your personal firepower for improved allies.
The upgrade paths are very reminiscent of 20 Minutes Till Dawn, another great Garlic-like. Every mod can be upgraded twice, with a split in the middle. The splitting upgrades are not always mutually exclusive, so you can go ahead and pick both once you run into them.
And if you thought you were done after beating the Star Eater, think again. “Endless” and “Wild Metamorphosis” challenge modes await. Not to mention the “Daily Challenges”.
While “Endless” mode speaks for itself, “Wild Metamorphosis” is a long way of saying “Rogue-lite”. The core gameplay loop remains the same: you fight through the same 120 short waves of enemies with semi-randomized bosses and elites. The main difference is the mod composition. In addition to the same old upgrade mods, you are just as likely to run into the so-called “wild mods”. These can be picked up more than once, thus incrementally increasing their effect. Problem is, these are rarely flat out upgrades.
A run can be scuffed by a single ill-picked wild mod. These scale in rarity and effect, thus one has be very careful while reading the fine print at the bottom of each mod description. A simple “constant propulsion” effect can make a simple early boss nearly impossible on account you being unable to keep your ship steadily in place.
But even in your defeat, the modern game developers keep you addicted to the dopamine hustle. After each run your score is added to the total unlock pool, drip-feeding you new weapons, ship configurations and powerful mod combos. Making you want to do another run straight away.
As mentioned earlier, dear reader, yours truly shirked writing this very review to go back and play a couple of rounds instead. More than once. At the time of writing, over 6 hours have been sunk into Nova Drift with only 6 out of 26 powerful mod combos unlocked (there are plenty other parts and game modes that have been unlocked, but that’s too much to get into in this review).
Howlongtobeat.com suggests it would take 48 hours to completely unlock every feature in the game. I think most people will be fully satisfied with the 6-10 hours this game offers in terms of becoming familiar with the control schemes, game mechanics and some good ol’ college experimentation.
NOVA DRIFT is highly recommended to fans of twinstick shooters, even if it may not seem like their cup of tea. And for those of you with a Steam Deck – oooooh boy is this a perfect fit. It’s slick, it’s stylish, it’s polished. It’s cheap too. Go get it.
NOVA DRIFT was reviewed on Windows PC using a code provided by Pixeljam. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. NOVA DRIFT is now available for Windows PC (via Steam).
