NanoApostle – PS5 Review

There aren’t that many boss rush games out on the market. NanoApostle comes from 18 Light Game and offers a sci-fi setting with a half-dozen bosses to slay. With responsive controls and a very interesting skill tree, this short but tricky experience manages to deliver a kinetic and deep gameplay loop.

The story isn’t a big pull for me. You play as Anita, a girl who wakes up inside a suspicious research facility. She’s got some curious origins and has been implanted with a nanomachine known as an Apostle. With the aid of Lenny, an AI sidekick, she has to conquer six bosses in attempt to break free from imprisonment.

It’s told with a mix of in-engine text scrawls and visual novel style cutscenes. The latter focuses on the world building and, specifically a war from a bygone age. The presentation in these scenes aren’t spectacular but there is a sepia tone that helps imply how far back in time it is. This also helps separate it from the pixel aesthetic of the main game. Unfortunately, it’s a little forgettable. It feels so segregated from the action that it can be hard for me to feel invested.

As a boss-rush game, the action centres around six boss fights that escalate in difficulty. I don’t consider it a smooth ride but NanoApostle does lay out the key mechanics in a couple of helpful tutorials. From an overhead perspective, you dish out damage primarily with light melee attacks. Damaging the opponent builds up absorb which, as the name suggests, allows you to trigger a stunned state and regain some lost health.

You also have a ranged attack which does more damage but can only be used when a meter is filled. It packs a punch but it’s limited use makes it more of a sideshow. Lastly, you have a grappling hook which also has a specific use. If an enemy is downed whilst you’re far away, it can be triggered to close that distance and keep the pressure on. There’s more tricks to uncover like a charged melee attack that can deliver heavy damage. I find this antithetical to my style of play and it does take a while to charge. However, some of the more damaging builds make great use of it.

Despite the small number of bosses, the variety is relatively strong. They all rely on second phases but it’s a fact that’s telegraphed in the list of challenges for each boss. It can make for encounters that feel a little long-winded. By default, you’re dishing out death by a thousand cuts and, whilst some skills can boost your output, the limited number of slots make for a lot of compromises. That said, the second phases are typically modified versions of the first, so you’re not going to encounter any unusual attacks.

Throughout, there’s a real emphasis on timing parries. The window is tight enough to make each one feel earned but I do tend to mash them out. Overall, I get a great sense of aggression from these battles. There are moments where keeping a distance is preferable but, for the most part, I aim to keep the pressure on. The sheer amount of attacks that can be parried makes the gamble one worth paying.  The controls feel responsive and fluid and Anita feels very mobile.

Often these bosses stayed on the right side of frustration. Even if one held me up for a couple of hours, I’d summon up enough focus to get the job done. That’s a very strange quality to master and that does help me persevere with the game’s tougher challenges. Of course, the flexibility of the skill system allows for experimentation and I did tinker a lot. There’s the potential for some wildly different builds that make use of charged attacks, invincibility and building up status effects.

It’s very forgiving and allows you to freely chop and change your setup. Skills can be cashed in or out until you find a few that fit. Some compliment each other greatly and offer passive benefits like damage reduction or increased damage with certain attack types. It’s very well considered. At its best, NanoApostle would place me in that flow state where a fight was over before I realised it. To get there required a lot of practice. They all have readable attacks with some carrying a very real peril to them. Grab attacks became the bane of my existence and the random elements meant I could face them several times in a run.

The boss challenges also encourage you to keep at it. Not just for the skill points but for the time on the clock. Any progress you make towards them is kept between attempts so I could get most of them through shear persistence. It feels rewarding, even in small doses and it did provide a real checklist for progress during a boss.

I think the variation in skills helps give NanoApostle more road to run. Aside from the main bosses, there isn’t much else in terms of gameplay. If you’re skilled enough, you can probably see credits within a few hours. From then on, you can chase challenges for more skill points or trophies. It helps that the encounters are repeatable and fun and it does visually offer a lot of action. It deals in repetition but that’s primarily there as a teaching tool and I do think this game earns it.