Nova Drift

Product received for free early access review dusting asteroids, this is the crazy challenge that Jeffrey "chimeric" Nielson has been launching now four years ago starting to work on Nova drift. After a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2017 (of which I have to my great shame never heard of), the game has just landed in early access, the opportunity to make a quick tour to see what it offers. I was very pleasantly surprised by Nova drift. From the screenshots and videos I was expecting a twin stick shooter all that there is more classic but finally no. The handling clearly changes our habits because the ship controls itself as in asteroids. You have a propulsion key and you can only rotate to the left or right. It's fun to realize how much we no longer have the habit of this maneuverability and personally it took me a long time before I felt comfortable with traveling. Being able to shoot in front of either when we can't back up changes a lot and forces us to totally rethink his approach to managing enemies. The game area fits on one screen but is not closed. Leaving the left edge of the screen will make you reappear mirrored to the right and it is the same for the top and the bottom. The goal is simple, pushing away endless waves of enemies to score as much points as possible. Graphically the title is really pretty. The space funds are beautiful and the stylized vessels allow an excellent reading of the game even when the screen is filled with explosions (which happens very quickly). The music is relatively discreet but accompanies the action perfectly. Each enemy destroys a few points of experience (in the form of fragments to be harvested) that will gradually raise you level. Each new landing will be an opportunity to strengthen your power and speciate your ship. The first level will ask you to choose a weapon among three drawn by lot (missiles, explosion around the ship, laser...). The second will allow you to select a hull, much like the class in an RPG (bonus for the body-to-body, possibility to summon more allies, big resistance but low mobility...). Finally, the third level pass will allow you to recover a shield and again the possibilities will be incredible (teleportation in case of damage received, burn when the enemies enter the zone of effect, attack of response...). From there, each new landing will be an opportunity to acquire an additional passive effect. The stroke of genius here is that these liabilities are organized by trees to allow you to specialize and get more and more devastating effects. I was puzzled when the author said he was a fan of path of exile and was inspired by this type of game to allow players to create custom builds. After a few parts I could only acquiesce. I did not do two similar tests. Once I was a kind of engineer assisted by an impressive amount of drones and other allies of all kinds, another time I had a totally crazy rate of fire with effects applied to the touch, another where each attack was accompanied by dozens of missiles, etc. As you move forward you will get reminders to allow you to have more chance of falling on what you want and tweaking your build little by little. The more waves of enemies you decide, the more powers you will unlock that may appear in the following games. Very clever thing, you will be able as you advance to Corser the basic difficulty to avoid the first levels too soft. Once you have mastered the game you will be able to get back into action directly by getting more than a lot of bonuses (but the waves will be more dense, contain more elite enemies, etc.). The first time I launched Nova drift I was going to play it for 30 minutes "to see". Two hours later I chained the parts to test a maximum of builds and unlock all the progress trees. It's been a long time since I had played a game as simple in appearance and yet also addictive. The combinations are totally insane and I look forward to seeing the continuation of the development because the author has already published the roadmap 2019 packed with content. I almost never recommend a game before its final release but in the State Nova drift is already a gem and if you do not take it now, I really encourage you to add it to your wish list not to pass by. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZvurDbvx0U