Blazing Bit Games’ retro FPS Nightmare Reaper had a successful launch on Steam and now has found itself on console thanks to Feardemic! So what made this “Boomer Shooter” (as some of you so-called 90’s kids are calling it) great on PC? We’ll have to take a look! I want to thank both Blazing Bit Games and Feardemic for sending over a copy!
The game follows a patient who is locked away in a sanitarium for unknown reasons to the player. The patient goes to sleep and is in a nightmarish world where she fights monsters.
Now onto the game itself. Nightmare Reaper‘s controls will have to take some time to get used to for controllers as some of the buttons you are used to using for traditional uses like jumping and interacting are mapped out differently with these controls, so time to get used to them is required!
The sound of Nightmare Reaper is pretty good and the soundtrack is awesome thanks to the work of Andrew Hulshult who drops the hammer with some heavy metal tunes! I just wish the music was playing more through the levels than when you’re in a fight.
The game’s 2.5D graphics are pretty to look at if you like the look of retro games, even down to the gore (that you can control through the game options to make it even bloodier!)!
When it comes to gameplay, you can tell and feel the inspirations from legendary retro shooters like Quake and Doom as you play through Nightmare Reaper. The level layouts are random, the weapons you can find are random (and each weapon has a secondary fire option, some even allow you to aim down sights). If you die you wake up in your room but can go back when you interact with your bed. The combat is actually quite fun, finding hidden rooms to find loot is rewarding as there is a skill tree you can unlock and use the coins you collect from levels to level up the patient. The one thing that bothers me about the game is that there’s no main menu it seems, you’re just dropped into the game with nowhere to go when you’re done playing for a time and there’s no indication that your game is saved.
Overall Nightmare Reaper is a fun callback to the retro FPS games I grew up on. Whether you like the look of retro FPS games or grew up on them and like to have a taste of the past, Nightmare Reaper is a fun choice to go with. With the random levels and weapons, it helps keep the gameplay interesting, the soundtrack helps with the fighting mood in-game, and the mystery surrounding the main character all helps the game rate decently on my scale.
On my scale of 1-10, I give Nightmare Reaper a 7!
Nightmare Reaper is coming out May 18th, 2023 for next-gen consoles (PlayStation and Xbox) and is out now on Steam.
