Nightmare Reaper - A story about a girl who went crazy after playing DOOM

Once upon a time, as if in a past life, there was a game called Nightmare Creatures II. Nowadays only a few of old-timers would remember this game, but back in the year 2000 it was a real sensation, but not the way it was supposed to be. In those days they were not ashamed of anything: they told the most absurd stories, there were gallons of blood spilled on the screens, and sometimes they showed what we have to veil these days. Nightmare Creatures II was that kind of game - bad, bloody, infantile in places, but not without its charm. No one had ever heard of a "culture of cancellation". Now it is hard to believe that the game, where the player first met the protagonist in a madhouse, was published by Konami. Rob Zombie worked on the soundtrack of the same game.

What does Nightmare Creatures II have to do with the Nightmare Reaper? The first one brings back memories of the second one. Nightmare Reaper is reminiscent of a game of a bygone era, when violence in video games was considered normal and protagonists lay in houses with padded walls and it didn't embarrass anyone. But does Nightmare Reaper have anything to offer other than a forbidden amount of forbidden stuff? Oh yes, it can...

The plot in a retro shooter is something new...

I understand that it is bad form to draw conclusions in the beginning. But in this case the intrigue about the quality of the product will not be preserved. Often retro shooters stakes only in one direction: exorbitantly tough and meaty Prodeus; atmospheric Forgive Me Father, offering a stroll through the universe of Lovecraftian works; cyberpunk Turbo Overkill, a dizzying pace game; simple arena shooter-rogue-lite - Impaler. All of these retro shooters as games aren't bad, but they all tend to bribe the player with one thing... Nightmare Reaper is both bloody and fast and Rogue-lite, but that's not what surprises most. Nightmare Reaper is the first retro shooter with a sane story with an unconventional composition and original delivery.

As is the case with many ingratiatingly written scenarios, the plot in Nightmare Reaper begins in the middle of the story. The game doesn't care about exposition at all. Only a black screen, someone's velvet voice, as if in the middle of a thought, half-whisperedly calls out: "Open your eyes." The first thing the player sees is a mental hospital ward... somewhere behind the wall the anxious silence is broken by the cries of the mentally ill, and the main character looks through the bars at the purple sunset outside the window.

After looking around the ward, the player gradually realizes that the protagonist, probably for more than a year, has long passed the point of no return. The nameless girl is tormented by nightmares, in which all the black underbelly of her traumatized psyche emerges. All those monsters that the player will henceforth be stuffed are psychological trauma or mental illness, and all the action of the game takes place in dreams...or not all of them?

The plot setup tells us that we're not in for another DOOM on the vast expanse of another space station with a weakly motivated hero in the lead role. Nightmare Reaper is a finely crafted story with a storyline hidden from the unattentive eye. Only by delving into the story can one understand what is going on here at all. In this the player is helped by subtle hints in the levels and diary notes, which appear on the table after each passed level...or pseudo-death.

So what are the mechanics of losing? The protagonist does not die, but wakes up in his room. At the same time, the pseudo-death of the protagonist not only does not penalize the player, it also pushes the story forward...

The deeper the protagonist sinks into the realms of reason, the more pages of the diary will appear on her desk. It is unclear whether the pages are planted by the attending physician or whether they are all the consequences of dementia, but the content of these notes is...frightening. After delving into the protagonist's life story, nothing surprises you anymore.

But, as well as in Nightmare Creatures II, in Nightmare Reaper the protagonist won't live in the ward until his old age - he will have an opportunity to escape. However, not only the patient, but all his inner demons will escape from the ward. That is, the entire plot of Nightmare Reaper is a scenario that develops in three time segments at once: we learn about the past from hints of the present, slowly progressing to the future, to which we find hints in the past. In short, the plot of Nightmare Reaper is American McGee's Alice, starring Doomgirl in the middle of a story as if written by Palatnik or Irvine Welsh.

Why the mentally ill are so difficult to treat

That is why not everyone can truly go insane, and mental illness makes a sick person somewhat special. Moreover, the mentally ill see illness as an integral part of their personality; a personality they lost long ago, but are still afraid of losing. This truth applies to the protagonist of Nightmare Reaper as well. She doesn't want to get better, hates her attending physician, and will revel in the madness of her dreams.

To begin another run, the protagonist lies down in bed and has bloody dreams. Run, for Nightmare Reaper is not only a retro shooter, but also a Rogue-lite. Each new level is randomly generated on five different biomes. In dreams can take you to mines and acid swamps, as well as to a fairy-tale expanse with squat, cute houses.

But the basic question remains unanswered: why does the module have such a title? Because in girls' nightmares, it's obscenely fun to slay all sorts of evil things. Since we are in a dream, the authors have their hands free, they don't have to care about logic. That is why the weapon in Nightmare Reaper is falling down like from a horn of plenty: from crates, from enemies, in secret rooms. Perhaps only in Nightmare Reaper a grenade launcher, a railgun and a nuclear bazooka can fall down on a player during the first half an hour of the game. Weaponry in the game is infinite: starting from cold steel weapons - knives, daggers, swords and chainsaw - ending with magic trinkets - various books of spells, wands, etc. At the same time there is no need to pick up special ammunition for each type of weapon. Pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles use light ammo; grenade launchers and all sorts of heavy barrels use heavy ammo; magic weapons use magic, respectively. But it's not so much the variety that surprises, though it's the same, as it is the feel of the fire. Large chunks fall off the body of any foe as it receives another lead gift. Headshots are fraught with a fountain of blood, and you can navigate on the map not even by the mini-map, but by the bloody remains left on the ground.

At the end of the level, the player is given a rating, all but one weapon is taken away, and is transferred back to the chamber. Surprisingly, as the story progresses, the interior of the chamber takes on more and more disturbing contours, and the moment of escape turns the retro shooter into a full-fledged, pixelated horror.

The label "looter-shooter" is also justified. All weapons have quality and unique affixes. The higher the quality, the more affixes. So, for example, an ordinary gun just kills, while a legendary gun reloads itself, hits elemental damage, and ricochets off headshots - the simplest example. The spread and choice is one of Nightmare Reaper's strongest points.

The protagonist Nightmare Reaper revels in madness, offering the player a plunge into her violent worlds. The developers have cleverly caught the point that madmen often have only one outlet. In this case, this outlet was the main character's console - the Super Game Boy. It is where everything happens that can not be masked under the native game actions: the game menu, inventory and progression.

Pumping was implemented in an interesting way. To get the cherished +10% to health at the beginning of a level, you have to pass an old-fashioned mini-game on the Super Game Boy.

And even the minigames here are not just one, but three. They all hark back to the early days of the game industry and subtly play on nostalgia. Fortunately, if you don't like this kind of boost, you can ignore it. Without the boost, the game will be harder to pass - just for those who like to play DOOM on ultra-mega-maximum difficulty.

Is Nightmare Reaper worth buying?

Just knowing that Nightmare Reaper exists is already a great fortune. Nightmare Reaper is probably the biggest and highest quality retro shooter of the last three years. Nightmare Reaper costs about $6, which doesn't really suit an indie game, but trust me, this game is worth every penny, every minute you spend on it.

Fans of retro shooters Nightmare Reaper is a must-read, not to play illegally.