Nano Breaker

by Konami

Product Features

• Intense hack and slash 3D action with hordes of enemy units
• Transformable Plasma Blade offers a myriad of attacks
• Combo based fighting system with simple and expert techniques
• Multiple gameplay modes, including Story and Time Attack

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0007LY40O
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches ; 5 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: February 16, 2005
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,197 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com

I rolled my eyes so much throughout the course of this miserable release that I should probably be fitted for contact lenses. Video games should never deliver the feeling that someone has run over your puppy with a truck. Thanks to Nano Breaker, I now know what that feels like. Castlevania: Lament of Innocence creator Koji Igarashi can be applauded for the conceptual idea of allowing players to customize their combos and build longer, more complex strings as the game progresses. At the same time, however, you have to wonder how a game that is riddled with so many flaws actually made it off of the development floor.

Even the thickest fogging that video games can provide can't hide the fact that the level designs are atrocious, the texturing resembles the smear on a baby's dirty diaper, and the Liquid (blood) effects that gush like geysers from enemies are just too ridiculous to be taken seriously. As painful as it is to look at, playing this game is like running naked through a thorn-infested briar. Not only will you find yourself combating the same foes for hours on end, the boss battles demand exhaustively repetitive techniques, the platforming exercises are incredibly sloppy, checkpoints are too infrequent, and you'll even have to endure some of the most asinine box puzzles to date.

Descending to the bottom of the video game barrel, then busting through it and plummeting at great speeds toward Hell, Nano Breaker also falters in epic ways in the storytelling department. So let me get this straight, the government is working on top secret nanotechnology on Nanotechnology Island. This is really the setting of the game? You gotta be kidding me!

The combo system is definitely cool, and the controls are fashioned nicely, but the remainder of the game is just downright appalling.

Concept:
Customize your own combos in this mindless and poorly designed hack n' slash

Graphics:
Vast amounts of fog blanket the ugly texturing and bland level designs…but not enough. This game needs more fog!

Sound:
Decent, but quickly drowned out by your angst-filled agony

Playability:
Stringing together combos is enjoyable, but every other action leads to frustration

Entertainment:
Even the Stink Monster would think this game reeks. Misery on a disc

Replay:
Low

Rated: 5 out of 10
Editor: Andrew Reiner
Issue: March 2005

2nd Opinion:
Nano Breaker does two things right: the main character has a pretty neat selection of hack n' slash moves, and some of the FMV cutscenes look very good. Everything else sucks as hard as Star Jones inhaling a plate of hot dogs. Horrid level designs, boss battles that are as tedious as they are frustrating, and an inexcusable degree of fogging combine to form yet another generic, boring action title. Don't even get me started about the terrible platforming.

Rated: 5 out of 10
Editor: Matt Helgeson


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Product Description

In the distant future nanotechnology goes awry and nanomachines start to harvest the blood of humans in an effort to construct an army of monster machines. To defend the world from this certain apocalypse players control a military cyborg who wields a powerful shape-shifting Plasma Blade. Using a variety of fighting techniques hack and slash through hordes of enemy units to save humanity!Features:Intense hack and slash 3D action with hordes of enemy unitsTransformable Plasma Blade offers a myriad of attacksCombo based fighting system with simple and expert techniquesMultiple gameplay modes including Story and Time AttackFormat: PS2 Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: M - Mature UPC: 083717200994 Manufacturer No: 20099

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What year is it? How did this get out?, March 2, 2006

By 

Some Guy (Redwood City, California United States) - See all my reviews

= Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Nano Breaker (Video Game)

Wow, is this game horrible. I'm a big 3rd-person adventure/action game fan and bought this on a whim when I saw it. Bad mistake. I usually try to be balanced in my reviews, but Nano Breaker is desperately bad.

Except for the cut scenes, the graphics are really low-rent. The blood splatter borders on the comical, and the map design is poor.

As for gameplay, it's the combo attacks that really bothered me. They're easy to set up (you gather crystals, plug them in to a combo "flowchart," and then the combo is available to use. Problem is, I had to try dozens of times before a combo would execute. The button flow is commendably easy (R1 and square, then triangle, for example), so I was baffled as to why the combos wouldn't execute.

The game is kind enough to have the first miniboss hover there harmlessly while a screen tip suggests using the "finishing combo." I added the combo and tried over and over and over to make the combo work. No luck. Then on the umpteenth attempt it suddenly worked. A little while later, I tried the same combo (still set up, so it wasn't that I was trying a deactivated combo) and again, it refused to execute.

The guidebook is unclear and doesn't provide much information. There's some vague notion that the "wings" on your back have to be deployed before a combo will work, but they only appear when you're battling a hoard of enemies. So what about facing a single boss? I didn't notice them appear when the combo finally worked on that first boss. Plus, those "wings" look kinda like fairy wings, which is both kinda funny and kinda stupid.

To add insult to injury, you have to battle your way through huge sections before the game will save. Then, the next time I tried to play, I chose "continue" but there was no saved game listed! That's the point where I pulled it out and threw it in the "trade at my local EB Games" pile.

Simply avoid this game, or at least rent it first.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "Nano-Vania", May 22, 2005

By 

-- "--" (Gondor, IN) - See all my reviews

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Nano Breaker (Video Game)

Produced by the man behind "Castlevania: Lament of Innocence," "Nano Breaker" successfully takes that game's formula and carries it over into more absurd science fiction territory, complete with all of its parent game's problems and a few extra ones as well.

The story is more of the usual anime-style fluff that you're probably well accustomed to. It involves a cyborg named Jake, a rival cyborg called Keith, a crazy old scientist and his hot blonde of a daughter, genetic engineering, and military corruption - the usual, in other words, but done with less charm than other stories of this ilk. If the plotline is a deal-breaker, then consider this one broken. It's completely predictable in every way and lacks interesting characters that might have rescued it from mediocrity. At least the rendered cut-scenes are of splendid quality, and here and there offer some entertainment value (primarily the gory opening and the amusing but tonally inconsistent finale). At any rate, the catastrophe that forces you to kill countless monsters is your basic "Resident Evil" with nanomachines (instead of the usual viruses and plagues), and that's as creative as this one gets.

The game itself, however, does offer some repetitive fun of the hack-and-slash variety. Jake is armed with a powerful, shape-shifting plasma blade that, while generally in the guise of a broad sword, can, with the appropriate combos, transform into a scythe, an axe, or even a whip-like extension that can jerk enemies into the fray. Only the whip is ever truly useful, however, as attempting the more complex combos in the thick of things can lead to certain death - swift strokes or thrusts with the sword get the job done. Although the game hopes to encourage the player to really go full-bore with these combos (even allowing a combo upgrade system), it's never necessary to do so, and is sometimes even detrimental.

Fortunately, the combat is relatively fun, if not overly complex. Much of this is owed to the copious amounts of blood that gush from wounded and slain monsters, making the red geysers in "Kill Bill" seem realistic by comparison. Control over Jake is sharp and responsive, and it can be cathartic to hack your enemies to bits. Of course, at several points in the game you don't even have to do this, as you can simply run past your slow, dim-witted opponents and make for the next corridor or room without a backward glance. This was also true in "Lament of Innocence," and it's an inherent flaw in both games' design. There are points where melee is unavoidable thanks to barriers that dissipate only when all the area's monsters have been slain, but these circumstances are fewer and further between.

In "Lament of Innocence," lots of needless backtracking and enemy respawning crept up to detract from the experience, and these issues remain in "Nano Breaker," and, in fact, are amplified. The layout of the game is far more confusing than in the aforementioned, and there are several points where you'll have to run from point A all the way to point B without encountering anything new that wasn't there the first time - a recipe for tedium, as always.

"Nano Breaker" is, in a word, unremarkable. There's absolutely nothing about its design or presentation that makes it stand out (save perhaps the gallons of blood). Still, the hacking and slashing and overall goofiness of the concept keep it more entertaining than it probably should be, and there are the usual impressive Konami bosses to break things up and keep the game challenging - but can it be recommended wholeheartedly? Like "Lament of Innocence," absolutely not.

4.0 out of 5 stars Nano!,Nano!(Apologies to MORK and MINDY!), July 28, 2010

By 

Leon Alexander ""quick study"" (NY,NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Nano Breaker (Video Game)

I wanted a good,challenging game that got you involved right from the get go.Nano breaker does not disappoint!Lots of slicing and dicing your enemies(If you,re into that sort of thing,I know I am!)and lots of challenging levels.I still have not finished the game,(I'm in no hurry,i'm taking my time on purpose!)learning the combo moves is a game in itself!With all of these era games coming out,i'ts good to know there are still good highly engrossing genre games like NANOBREAKER still out there for our enjoyment.I hope there is a NANOBREAKER for ps3 in the future, and I hope that Amazon is selling it!Keep up the good work!