When comparing Nightshade vs Metal Storm, the Slant community recommends Metal Storm for most people. In the question“What are the best obscure NES games?” Metal Storm is ranked 1st while Nightshade is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose Metal Storm is:
There is no save state for the game but there are passwords the user can utilize in order to get back to the last stage they progressed to. On top of this the game has unlimited continues, so when the player dies (of which this game is a one hit kill game) they are able to start back a the beginning of the stage as many times as they want. Which quite frankly will happen a lot.
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Pros
Pro Morality system
For being such an old game to see the framework of a morality system used is quite interesting and actually a really nice mechanic. Depending on how you behave in the game (helping people or choosing to not help people) means that your likeness meter will go up. The more this meter goes up the more certain things get unlocked in the game, which gives more access and allows the player to move forward in the story.
Pro Open world gameplay
For a NES game to feature something like an open world game is quite an accomplishment. The city in the game can take up to half an hour to explore and allows the character to pick and choose what they do. Want to save people from getting mugged, feel free, you can also just let the mugging continue. Want to explore a library, you can do that too. While of course the open world aspects will seem limiting by today's standards, just the fact that an 8 bit game accomplished this is something to behold.
Pro Fun humor
The game has quite a bit of dialog, and this dialog often has corny and amusing jokes in it. It is lighthearted but still done well in a sense that it doesn't go too over the top. For those that are fans of corny humor, this game should appeal.
Pro Unlimited continues and passwords
There is no save state for the game but there are passwords the user can utilize in order to get back to the last stage they progressed to. On top of this the game has unlimited continues, so when the player dies (of which this game is a one hit kill game) they are able to start back a the beginning of the stage as many times as they want. Which quite frankly will happen a lot.
Pro Great control
For a classic platformer the controls for this game are spot on, as they need to be since the game is tough. Platforming is responsive and switching gravity works great being that it is necessary for the whole game.
Pro Reverse gravity mechanic
One of if not the first game to utilize reverse gravity in a platformer. The reverse gravity mechanic is used in the game in order to solve puzzles in certain places in certain stages. By reversing the gravity the player is able to walk on the ceiling of stages and platforms, which is necessary in order to progress in the game. Later games like Megaman 5 also used a mechanic like this, but Metal Storm was released a year earlier.
Pro Faux parallax scrolling
The game features a unique mechanic for a NES game in that it fakes parallax scrolling. The NES was not capable of this technique, but what the developers did was fake it by redrawing the background every frame the character moves in order to make it look as though the background is moving.
Cons
Con Menu system and item management is clunky
The menu system can be tough to navigate as it is many boxes inside of boxes, on top of this the item management can also be a pain due to the clunky menus and how many items one needs to manage. While much can be forgiven due to the age of this game and how little was possible in 8bit, it still can be frustrating.
Con Can be difficult to figure out what to do
There is zero hand holding in this game meaning it will take a tone of trial and error in order to figure out where to go and what to do. This can also cause some frustration though is any single element to the game is being missed and may take a strategy guide online in order to get unstuck.
Con Brutal difficulty
This game is tough, extremely tough. Touching an enemy kills you, touching moving doors kills you, falling off the stage kills you, every bullet in the game kills you. Everything pretty much can kill you. It will take much practice to progress in this game, though luckily there are unlimited continues.
Con Enemies can re-spawn within seconds
Often in the game, when killing an enemy, i the player takes a few steps back the enemy they just killed will re-spawn back to the stage, which can be very frustrating as there are often times that back tracking is helpful.
Con Western release lacked story
Only the Japanese release had the story for the game, the western release lacked this story making the Japanese version the more polished title.