Review: Nova Drift (Early Access)

Imagine if Galaga, Geometry Wars, Space Invaders, Rogue, and Borderlands all met up at an EDM concert inside of an arcade cabinet. If you’re scratching your head right now and rereading that sentence to try to comprehend what the glorious junction of all those games would look like, then clearly you’ve never tried Nova Drift. Chimeric and PixelJam’s latest title, Nova Drift, is a roguelite space shooter that blends arcade nostalgia with RPG progression. The end result is a satisfying and relaxing yet simultaneously challenging gameplay experience that is highly replayable. The game’s developers gave Qweerty Gamers a copy of their game to try out, which is currently in early access, over on our Twitch channel. And now that we’ve had some time to check out the game, we wanted to share what players can expect in the intergalactic and delightfully chaotic shoot-em-up Nova Drift.

As mentioned, Nova Drift is a roguelite shooter that takes the best aspects of multiple beloved genres and combines them all into one game. Players take control of an ever-evolving spaceship as they face waves upon waves of enemy organisms all while constantly upgrading their hull and trying to stay alive as long as they can. As you defeat enemies, you’re able to define your playstyle through gear alterations to your ship, your shields, and your weapons. Progressing through waves in addition to eliminating foes will also allocate experience points which allow you to level up and earn upgrades which can then be spent on a seemingly massive amount of mods to every aspect of your ship. Strategically building a kit for your ship with survivability and damage potential in mind is key to racking up a high score and putting your initials on a leaderboard at the end of a match just like a good old fashioned arcade game. But the roguelite aspect of the game takes shape in the form of permadeath when your ship is destroyed, however true to theme you will still retain unlocked abilities for upgrades during future runs as well as rerolls which can be used to roll for new mods and gears when upgrading.

The experience of playing Nova Drift is satisfying, simple fun. It feels like you could just boot up the game, jump into a match with no regard for all the different challenge modes, gear selections, or mod upgrades and you’d still just have a grand time playing an aesthetically pleasing twin stick space shooter. However you would be missing out on quite as Nova Drift’s gameplay as so much to offer. In my most recent play through I made it through 59 waves and I certainly could have kept going for 59 more without realizing how long I had been playing. Although each time you start a match you start over from wave one, there’s a great variance of enemy ships, singularities, and boss fights that keeps each run feeling fresh.

On top of that, you can try out different builds of your hull, shields, and weapons each time you play (or even change it up at any point in the middle of a run) which really help to prevent the game from feeling repetitive. Personally, one of my favorite gear builds so far was a Sentinel body with a classic split-shot weapon and the Shockwave shield which causes enemy ships and projectiles to ebb and flow around your ship like repelled amoebas. I also had a good time piloting the Firefly framed ship which allowed me to somewhat carelessly crash through enemies with stronger boosters and hull resistance on impact, in addition to having a perfect name for a spaceship. I haven’t even mentioned all the mods you can use to enhance your ship which really bring Nova Drift into the RPG territory, and with the seemingly endless amount of mods available it really evoked some good Borderlands memories. And still yet to come, the game promises a handful of challenge modes beyond what’s included in the early access version of Nova Drift including Draft mode, Mayhem, and Boss Rush. Clearly there’s still room for Nova Drift’s content to grow, which is impressive considering how much is in the game in its current state.

Nova Drift certainly falls under the category of games that have controls which are easy to pick up but difficult to master. Well, I should say the controls are mostly easy to pick up, though, as that was actually one of my most prevalent criticisms of the game upon picking it up for the first time. Going into the game for the first time, the controls seem as simple as any other twin stick shooter: move, aim, shoot. However, I wasn’t expecting “rotation speed” to be an upgrade that you have to obtain as the game goes on. And while I can understand and appreciate that rotation speed, specifically called “Agility” which increases rotation speed 30%, is something the player has to earn under the guise of Nova Drift being a roguelite game, I will say as a casual player just hopping on this made me feel like there was something wrong with my controls or my settings. I even spent a few minutes during my livestream trying to adjust sensitivity and control schemes, and eventually ended up switching over to using a gamepad which if anything made the base rotation speed more noticeable. Although, in Nova Drift’s defense, 30% isn’t substantial and so maybe it was simply a “me” problem? I am a casual player in this genre and I’m sure this wouldn’t be an issue for hardcore Nova Drifters. Other than this issue with the rotation speed, the controls were very fluid, especially after obtaining the “Agility” upgrade as well as several other mobility-based updates, and I found using a gamepad or a mouse and keyboard worked quite smoothly. 

Can we talk about sound for a second? We can? Good. The music in Nova Drift slaps. It’s, like, really good. The background music is a perfect compliment to the experience of the game. It's somehow relaxing yet upbeat which in all honesty is my favorite genre of music so perhaps I’m biased here. Partiality aside, the BGM of the game was truly one of my favorite things Nova Drift has to offer so far. I found the music to be satisfyingly cohesive with the gameplay itself, ramping up as the combat intensified and calming down as I had a break in between more difficult waves. At times I felt like I was playing an arcade shooter in the middle of my own personal EDM concert inside my headphones. And yet at other times the music was downright meditative. At one point in the game, I swear the BGM included a sound that was at least similar to that of a perfectly percussed singing bowl which genuinely created a level of focus in me while playing that I would never normally credit to a game’s background music, and yet Nova Drift pulls it off.
Hopefully by now I’ve made a strong enough case for you to give Nova Drift a try to fulfill your arcade twin-stick space shooter roguelite RPG needs all within the confines of one aurally pleasing game. The game is a modern day Galaga crossed with a retro electronic soundtrack and to get the best feel for what I mean by that, I definitely recommend you check out the game for yourself. And now’s a great time to do so, as Nova Drift is available to download now in early access through Steam or Itch.io. A huge thank you again to Chimeric and PixelJam for allowing Qweerty Gamers to try out the game and we’re excited to see how the hull of Nova Drift itself is upgraded as it continues to undergo development.