Nuclear Throne, the coolest Bullet Hell/Roguelike I've ever seen

[Wingflier]

http://www.twitch.tv/vlambeer

If you miss the stream, go to the videos tab at the top right and fast forward to the battle portions of the last stream. This game seems like it has everything, multiple characters with unique abilities, a variety of awesome weapons, amazing, visceral combat, a semi-randomized level-progression system, finely-tweaked difficulty settings, and of course, it's a roguelike. When he pulled out the beam sword I nearly had a nerdgasm.

I'm really excited about this one.

[orzelek]

Looks explosive - did you play it already?

[Wingflier]

Nope just watching it, I'll probably wait til release but man it looks fun.

[Shrugging Khan]

I played an earlier version for a bit, and for some reason I didn't like it as much. Don't remember why, though...maybe just didn't click with me.

[Misery]

I might get this one.... not sure. 

I'll wait to see some more of it in videos and such.  I've seen lots of it so far, and so far it looks.... easy.  I've played a similar game before, which STARTS OUT much nastier, and goes from there.  Even in that one though, I'd hit a point where the difficulty maxed out, but I still didn't die.  A great game it was, but I got bored with it.  Cant remember the damn name now.

Granted, my own standards for the difficulty of anything whatsoever shmuppy are a little.... warped.... but still, that was my impressions of it.

[madcow]

My question would be how does it compare to Binding of isaac, which lets be honest all rogue-lite dual-stick styled shooters are going to be compared against.

[Wingflier]

I might get this one.... not sure. 

I'll wait to see some more of it in videos and such.  I've seen lots of it so far, and so far it looks.... easy.  I've played a similar game before, which STARTS OUT much nastier, and goes from there.  Even in that one though, I'd hit a point where the difficulty maxed out, but I still didn't die.  A great game it was, but I got bored with it.  Cant remember the damn name now.

Granted, my own standards for the difficulty of anything whatsoever shmuppy are a little.... warped.... but still, that was my impressions of it.

Good lord, that looked *easy* to you?

[keith.lamothe]

You mean I'm not dead before the main menu finishes fading out?  Cakewalk

[Misery]

I might get this one.... not sure. 

I'll wait to see some more of it in videos and such.  I've seen lots of it so far, and so far it looks.... easy.  I've played a similar game before, which STARTS OUT much nastier, and goes from there.  Even in that one though, I'd hit a point where the difficulty maxed out, but I still didn't die.  A great game it was, but I got bored with it.  Cant remember the damn name now.

Granted, my own standards for the difficulty of anything whatsoever shmuppy are a little.... warped.... but still, that was my impressions of it.

Good lord, that looked *easy* to you?

Just for a bit of perspective:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuOQBL1T2o8

Skip to 1:43.   Watch the first pattern the boss does, the one that makes the music choke on itself.   That attack?  Easy enough, I never get hit by that one.  Always forget the trick to the second one though.   It'll come to me eventually.  Hate THAT pattern type, where it's all about remembering a specific trick, but fortunately that sort is rare.

There's other, more chaotic examples, but that one will do.


That sort of thing is what I'm used to in this genre, though granted that mode of that game is a bit of an extreme example.

Arena shmups of any sort are easier than scrolling types, as a rule, so yeah, that upcoming game does look easy to me.

On the other hand, Vlambeer is such a good developer.... I still play Super Crate Box frequently, though it's usually the iPad version.  The mode where the enemies just spawn in random spots is hilarious. 

[Cyborg]

Have you ever played Twinkle Star Sprites, multiplayer? That's my kind of shmup. Absolutely hilarious.

[Misery]

Have you ever played Twinkle Star Sprites, multiplayer? That's my kind of shmup. Absolutely hilarious.

Only a bit.  It was set up at an anime con I was at one time, one that had a game room that actually didn't suck, and I musta sat there for like 4 straight hours just facing anyone that would sit down and give it a go.  Easy to learn, and then hilarious chaos afterwards.

Sadly that was really the only chance to do that.  Would NEVER get anyone I know to try such a thing, not a chance.   A shame, that.  That one really is much fun.

[Cyborg]

Have you ever played Twinkle Star Sprites, multiplayer? That's my kind of shmup. Absolutely hilarious.

Only a bit.  It was set up at an anime con I was at one time, one that had a game room that actually didn't suck, and I musta sat there for like 4 straight hours just facing anyone that would sit down and give it a go.  Easy to learn, and then hilarious chaos afterwards.

Sadly that was really the only chance to do that.  Would NEVER get anyone I know to try such a thing, not a chance.   A shame, that.  That one really is much fun.

A shame. Back when gametap had a client, there was multiplayer twinkle star sprites every single night, along with a few other titles. It was great fun, never got tired of that.

[Misery]

So, I've gotten Nuclear Throne from Steam now, had some goes with it, and....

This so much potential, but then it gets certain things wrong that kinda dampen the experience a bit.  It didn't take long to do this.

As a list:

1.  Controller support.  This is YET ANOTHER PC developer that offers it, and DOESNT KNOW HOW TO DO IT.  Ability to change controls?  Nope.  Ability to adjust sensitivity?  Nope.  Option for rapid-fire in a game where you have to push the fire button WAY too many times?  Nope.  Well thought-out default controls?  Nope.    As for mouse controls..... a shmuppy game with WASD?  Ye gods, no.  I'll throw it into a bonfire before I'll touch a game that forces me to do THAT.   And it's not like rapid-fire would hurt the game balance;  no matter how fast you press the fire button, each weapon has a set delay between shots, just as you'd expect, so you can only ever fire so fast.  Mostly, pistols of any sort are the big problem as this control issue goes.

Oh, and you cant change the keyboard/mouse controls either.  Just think about that for a second.   

And if you use the controller, and want to go to the menus in the titlescreen?  Time to reinstall, because it aint happening!

And I cannot use the mouse for this, even if I found a keyboard setup that didn't blow goat chunks.   I do not know just how one goes about blowing goat chunks, but it describes the problem well enough.

Now, I can FORCE the game to control exactly as I want (d-pad for movement, dammit!  And a button that does rapid-fire!), but.... it's super-irritating to set up, and it's the sort of thing where I shouldnt be having to do it to begin with.

2.  The level exit.   Holy funky pickles, Batman.   It's been a long time since I've encountered a game mechanic that I hate THIS much.  But this one has managed it.  This alone is nearly enough to outright kill the entire game for me.  This is indeed a roguelike.  One that has shmup elements, but a roguelike nonetheless.  One very important thing in a roguelike is that when you're ready to leave the level, you make absolutely bloody certain to retrace it first and check for any items you missed.  It's a NECESSITY.  This game is no exception.  So when you kill the last enemy in the level (usually without knowing that it's the last one, because you often CANT know that, with the way the level structures work) and a black hole with the ability to grab you and suck you in that is big enough to get you from 3/4ths of a screen distance away just super-abruptly spawns and pulls you to the next level, well.... that gets old fast.   This one is a BAD idea.   You NEED to be able to get ammo to keep playing, and it's scarce enough as-is.   It doesnt help that enemies tend to sit on top of treasure chests in tiny rooms.


3.  Level-ups.  When you level up, you get to choose from 1 of 4 randomly selected perks that then become attached to your character.  This is a mechanic seen in many games, and usually works out well.... when the perks actually have effects that really DO something.   The vast majority of them do not, or are so absurdly situational that they may as well not be there.  Typically, in most runs, you end up picking just the same ones each time simply because they're the only ones that have a real effect (and often not a very strong one), which is very boring.   I still need more time experimenting with this though.


4.  Screen-shake.   Turn this to 50%, or turn it off.  Just do it.  You'll regret it if you dont.


5.  Some levels have too many moving sprites (and not in a "tons of bullets" sort of way" so that it can be hard to actually spot things that are not bullets.  Enemies can often blend into the background a bit too much, like the bird things in world 3, which makes it hard to see just what they're doing at times.  The actual bullets, fortunately, shine with the force of a thousand stars, but other things tend not to.   This isnt THAT much of a problem, but it's still annoying.



That all being said, the game also gets alot of things right.  The weapons are alot of fun, though they still need some balancing done.  The variety of them is very good.  It also has the Disc Gun, and if you've ever played Super Crate Box, well.... you know what THAT one will do to you.  Which can be pretty hilarious.  You can carry two weapons at any given time, and it's not like in Super Crate Box where you pick up a weapon crate and then BAM you have some new thing wether you wanted it or not.  The new weapon will lay there on the ground, and you can decide to switch out one of your current ones for it.  The one you drop will then lay there, so if you decide you want it back before exiting the level, you can go do this.   There are also 6 ammo types, which is something to keep in mind when deciding on weapons.   Certain weapons dont entirely make sense though, such as this funky energy gun that fires a big fat bolt..... and uses shotgun shells.  Just like in real life.

Also melee weapons are awesome.   To me, anyway.  They can do some interesting things.

Enemy designs are creative, and nothing seems outright unfair or badly made as far as those go.  Level layouts are usually pretty good, though every now and then the generator will do something really wonky that can be a real problem;  that's likely to get fixed as development continues.   Enemies have set patterns of course, and obviously you must try to learn these to deal with them effectively.  There are some creative patterns here with those.   There are bosses, but.... they need to be stronger.  I've killed a few without actually noticing that they were there....

There are also many characters to pick from, and each one has a unique special ability that you can use;  there's no limit on how often you can use these, but you have to learn how and at what times you should do so.

The game's difficulty is about where I thought it'd be.   I dont get hit much, at least not by bullets.  If I'm going to take a hit, chances are I've just crashed into something while attempting to point-blank it.  A habit of mine from all the shmups.   Often in those, it's not the boss's dense bullet patterns that'll get me.... it's the fact that I managed to ram into the boss.  Which always gets alot of giggling from anyone watching at the time.  Your health in this is quite limited, but not enough to feel unfair or anything.  There are ways to heal and ways to increase your max health.

Walls are also destructible, though only certain specific things can do this.


And finally, game updates are going to be frequent.  According to the devs, the game is about half-finished yet (....really?  But there's already so much stuff!) so there's alot yet to come, and I'm hoping some of the screwier balance problems will get dealt with soon. Updates once a week. If you can put up with that aspect, as well as the inevitable bugs that are bound to appear sometimes as the game gets patched, it's pretty good in it's current state.   It cost me about $15, I think?


EDIT:  Okay, there';s hidden levels, which I discovered by falling in a hole.  I dunno how many there are, but the one I found contained no enemies, and this crown thing that gives you a list of things to pick from.... I'd call them "perks" but all of them are there to make the game MUCH harder.

I do suggest not picking the "more enemies" one if you find it.


EDIT 2:  Did I mention the melee weapons?  Because they're great.  I just love those things

Give me a sledgehammer and a maniacal rampage ensues.  Other weapons?   Screw those, I have a sledgehammer.   Works out well since in most shmups I tend to point-blank everything anyway.

[Misery]

Okay, so, figured I'd do a bit of an update here.


Testing with this game continues, as it also continues to update, and, well....

After a big pile of hours with it, my current thoughts are as such:  This is quickly becoming the best game of this sort that I've played since Binding of Isaac and Spelunky.


Now, it does still have a few wonky balance issues.... bullet-based weapons are pretty bad right now, and the character "Rebel" is all sorts of terrible.... but other than that, this aspect continues to improve. Some of the oddness with the controls seems to have vanished, though the ability to CHANGE them up is still not there.  But the aiming and such is less.... all over the place, which had been my main issue.

A few of my previously-made complaints:


Level Exit Portal:  Okay, this hasnt been changed, and likely isnt going to.... I still generally dislike the way this works.  That being said I've at least found a way to keep it from thwarting me and preventing me from missing out on items, which is to leave one enemy, probably a bandit (this game's version of Goombas, basically) alive back near where I started the level, and kill everything ELSE, and then make sure to get items, and THEN go pop that guy and exit.  It's pretty easy to do this (usually) so that works out well enough.


Level-ups:  These have gotten better. Much better. There's still a couple that are just outright useless (like the "stress" one) but all in all, this mechanic is now coming along nicely.  It aint perfect, but balance tweaks continue to be made.


Screen-shake:  This.... I dont even know, just stopped being a problem.  I left it on 50%, and now it just BUGS me if I turn it off.  100% is still a bit too much though, and certain very specific things make it go berserk (good luck seeing what's going on when firing the minigun! Or when the "Big Dog" boss explodes and blows up the universe).



The things that were good about it continue to be good and get better.   The character variety really adds alot to this, and each character really is very distinctly different.   For example there's one, Robot, who can actually eat weapons.   When you do this, you either get a big blob of ammo, or more rarely, you might get some health refilled.  He can really get quite the advantage by using this well and making good choices with it.  Or "Melting", a character that is.... well, clearly melting.   He's a really odd one;  he gets a whole 2 HP max.... anything other than a maggot (least damaging enemy in the game) will kill him instantly unless you get the Rhino Skin mutation, but his ability is.... well, crazy.  What he can do is simple:  Hit the button for his active ability, and any corpse or broken object on the screen explodes.   Violently.  These blasts are POWERFUL.  You can seriously kill the funky hell outta things with these, and you can explode the entire screen at once if you're doing it right.   It gets even loopier if you get the stupidly-named "Throne Butt" mutation, which is the mutation that has an enhancing effect on your character's active ability, different for each character but generally always good.   With him it just makes the explosions even bigger, and REALLY damaging.   So he ends up being the perfect example of a very high risk yet very high reward character. 


And what's interesting about the special abilities is that there are never, ever any limits or cooldowns as to how you can use them.  If you use Melting's uber-blast, there isnt like some silly 20 seconds that you then have to wait to use it again.  You can use it again as soon as you are ready to.   This applies to every character, and goes a long way towards enhancing the feel of "freedom" that you get when playing this.  It really makes me think of alot of older games; games like Super Mario Bros and alot of those older ones, when your guy had a special power, chances are you could use it as often as you wanted in many games, no silly cooldowns like there are in today's games, which can often feel very arbitrary.   The lack of cooldowns in this really just help alot, and the different abilities vary wildly from one character to the next. 


And what i'd found before that I'd thought was a hidden level was not actually a hidden level, but a "crown vault".  Crowns are interesting.  When you grab one, it brings up a screen similar to the "choose a mutation" screen upon levelling up, except that in this case, you select from a list of things that for the most part all seem to be.... well, bad for your health, I'll put it that way.   Stuff that makes things harder.  Right now, the crown mechanic is not entirely in the game yet, so the crowns will do these things yet have no overall purpose, but it seems there's alot coming to this bit later on.


ACTUAL secret levels though, are indeed in there.  I wont spoil these, but I will say, good luck figuring out how to get to them.   Just like in Spelunky, the methods of reaching hidden levels in this can be pretty funky, and you have to know just what you're doing in the same way that you had to know in Spelunky.  The hidden levels are worth it though.  One of the two is pretty easy, and can be a great way to heal up a bit, get some additional ammo, and maybe another weapon choice... while the other one is, well... the other one, I'll just call "MURDER DIE HAHAHAHA", because that's what happens to you when you enter it.  I've managed to beat that level, but it's very.... very hard.   The specific reward for that one is only half-implemented right now, but I'll say that the level is very fun.  And the method of GETTING there is VERY quirky.  You'd have to check the Wiki for the game to find that one out.  I dont think it can currently be figured out otherwise, there's no hints to the screwy method in the game right now. 


The ONE problem I have with the game at this point is that the worldgen can be.... wonky.   There's a recurring problem where, every now and then, you'll begin a level in a REALLY bad place, the sorts of spawns that tend to just make you immediately dead, with little you could have done to stop it.   This can be pretty frustrating, but unfortunately is just part of dealing with a beta.  The devs are well aware of this issue though, so that's good.


Overall though, yeah.... this one really is turning out to be meeting it's potential, and it's still got a long way to go until release.  There's a big list of features the devs want to add, and it looks like this should be something really special by the time it releases.

At this point, yeah, I can totally recommend it.



....also, that sledgehammer is still a superb weapon.  I just dont get tired of that.

[Wingflier]

What did I tell you. You guys have to listen to me ;p