REVIEW : Nitro Kid (PC)
The pitch sounds like it came from an algorithm: Nitro Kid is a tactical roguelite deck builder with an 80s synthwave flavour. This latest offering from Wildboy Studios, distributed by tinyBuild, is a sophisticated, systems-dense experience lacking some anticipated bells and whistles, but deck builder veterans will find a handhold in its complexity and understand what it’s aiming to do.
The aesthetic is oddly daring and neon-hued, but Nitro Kid as a whole is surprisingly uninteresting. Outside of the game’s built-in lore codex, which gradually adds new content over time, there are no cutscenes or important narrative sections. The three playable characters—L33, J4X, and K31—are unlocked almost immediately and are blatant parodies of Mike Tyson, Bruce Lee, and Trinity from The Matrix.
It has the appearance of placeholder content, an early production shortcut that ultimately made it into the finished game, to mint these characters with such blatant likenesses. Even though each agent’s backstory is rather complicated, it’s difficult to view the strategy as lazy; at the very least, Nitro Kid’s agents have little to do with the 1980s aesthetic that the game’s graphics are based on.
In any case, gamers will control one of the three characters across a map that begins on the roof of a dishonest military technology business called Infinity. They will then descend each set of floors to fight three bosses and free the titular Nitro Kids in the process (think of them as Eleven from Stranger Things trapped in a high-tech aquarium).
A few cards and more difficult “security” levels can be unlocked for further restarts once bosses and mini-bosses/elites are beaten. New background information also populates the codex and can then be examined from the start menu.
At the beginning of Nitro Kid, L33 is immediately unlocked. This character intelligently adapts Bruce Lee’s agility to a card-based strategic RPG premise, utilising the abundance of cards to dodge and move around the battlefield in between strikes and kills. Similar to J4X, who is a brute, attackers must be destroyed before they can sufficiently deplete J4X’s health through counterattacks and first-strike initiatives.
For some reason, Nitro Kid’s levels are frequently in the shape of an “L,” are remarkably compact and even cramped, and are designed to prevent drawn-out chases in all situations. With the current systems and restricted movement options, this makes sense, but it does not provide the rigid fairness or surprise-level design of an Into the Breach grid or the tactical placement choices offered by something like Nintendo’s Advance Wars. The majority of the time, this design merely encourages push damage against the map’s edges or has players dash into a horde of obstacles and objects to eliminate them as quickly as possible as J4X.
Another problem is how inadequately described or tutorialized the majority of the game’s systems are. The visible reach of enemy assaults might be perplexing with the current UI, and elements like “daze” take trial and error to comprehend correctly. While this makes the experience seem impatient to newbies and devoid of razzle-dazzle, Nitro Kid has the sense of a game built by long-standing deck-building elites who decided to trim as much fat as possible.
Additionally, the unlocks in Nitro Kid are plain shoddily timed and conceived. Each character has a levelling path that they may follow to acquire new beginning cards and patches, which are the game’s version of relics and can only be levelled up once. However, the experience points required to fill that bar are pitifully few. After completing a full playtime with J4X at level 2, there were no awards at the end of a relatively lengthy 90-minute session, meaning that the game didn’t even reach the brim for level 3.
However, there are several standout moments scattered throughout. With varied energies and currencies that interact with various situations and cards, each of Nitro Kid’s three characters is as distinctive as those in Slay. The map’s architecture is similar to that of the fantastic deck builder Alina of the Arena from recently in that you can choose from three paths with randomised nodes rather than one single-threaded path at every time, with some small visibility at later nodes to influence your decision. Smart gamers will happily find ways to speedrun the game because the area bosses just require a few requirements to unlock the fight. Even if Jules Reves’ synthwave music wears out interest after 12 hours of continuous play, it is an entertaining companion to the action. This assessment applies to the entire game as well; Nitro Kid is devoid of the just-one-more-run elements seen in other roguelites, such as a variety of thrilling progressive unlocks or a startling gameplay surprise. The runs simply merge into one another very rapidly.
