Welcome to the first installment of a little something I like to call “The Plot Thickens.” This will hopefully become a monthly piece here on Negative World focusing on underappreciated plot elements of video games. I plan to range in focus from the nuances of grandiose narratives to the backstories of games whose plot is often completely ignored (how did Peach get kidnapped THIS time?).
So to kick things off, let’s look at a recently released Nintendo 3DS game I’ve been playing lately, Nano Assault! “What?,” you say, “there’s plot in those scrolling shoot-em-up games?” Well sure there is! Let’s take a look …
For starters, Nano Assault is the third game in a series. That means its backstory is the continuation of the events of Nanostray and Nanostray 2 – released for the Nintendo DS in 2005 and 2008 respectively. For me, those games were really good, but not great. I’ve borrowed them from people at various times and only managed to summon the motivation to play through the first few levels before returning them. Thus, my understanding of their stories is a little spare but I think I can manage.
Basically, “nanostray” is the term for a techno-organic virus which has infected computer systems all over the galaxy and turned military tech against humanity. This first two games chronicle the struggle of the last untainted ship in the fleet, the ESS Ariga. It is from aboard this massive supply ship that Officer Diane Stewart coordinates mission objectives for the ship’s lone fighter pilot (played by you!). Through the usual method of blasting anything that moves, that pilot manages to acquire a core sample of the nanostray virus. This is where the events of Nano Assault begin on the 3DS.
The plot of Nano Assault is rather different from the previous two entries in the series. This results in very different gameplay and is a likely explanation for why it’s “Nano Assault” and not “Nanostray 3.”
Instead of continuing to play the role of the unnamed fighter pilot, the user is now playing the part of Officer Diane Stewart aboard the ESS Ariga. In Nano Assault, Officer Stewart identifies herself as part of the ship’s bio-analysis department. Why that qualified her for coordinating missions during the two previous games I’m not really sure! (It probably has something to do with the developer, Shin’en, worrying more about awesome gameplay than story… or
box art for that matter).
This is the setting of the game.Regardless, I’ve seen and heard some confusion about this next, fundamental aspect of the game’s events. Perhaps because of the game’s name, the organic-looking environments, and past cinema such as
Inner Space, some people assumed the game took place inside the body of a human or an alien or some such creature, and that a shrunk-down human was piloting this nanoscopic ship. However, none of this is the case. The real story is that the nanostray virus core was isolated in containment tubes; Officer Stewart (played by you!) then uses remote controlled nanites to examine DNA strands and eradicate the viral infections in these samples.
Speedy air-superiority fighter.Conveniently for the programmers, and for the sake of the game’s fun factor, these nanites control just like your classic space fighter ships. But the foundations of this fiction don’t end just there. Another tidbit that largely goes unnoticed is revealed during the brief cutscene just before stage 1. As it turns out, during Nano Assault, you pilot not one but two different nanite ships. The speedy vessel used for the StarFox-like, rail shooting levels actually harbors a second, smaller ship inside of it. This second ship is much more agile but slowly patrols the Mario Galaxy-like spheroids used in the majority of the game’s levels.
Nimble low-altitude fighter.Sadly, this is basically where all narrative elements of the game not only begin, but end. I won’t spoil the game’s final scene, but let’s just say it barely qualifies as such. Obviously, that’s not really a complaint. Certain genres simply don’t place an emphasis on story. It is likely due in some way to the fact that when genres like shmups (shoot em ups) and platformers became popular, the time and place was very limiting to story telling. The time being an era of relatively weak technology and the place being an arcade where no one really wanted to stand around reading or watching cutscenes.
This is why, when a game from one of these genres, at least initially makes an effort towards a unique and interesting story, I like to stop and appreciate whatever it is. I mean, we’ve all blasted aliens in shmups before. And I think many of us have even played shmups that take place inside organic creatures. But how many take place on the nanoscopic cells of a techno-organic virus?! Just one - the game that finally lives up to its series’ prefix, Nano Assault.
Well hey, that’s all for installment #1. What do you think? Have you played the game? Did you take notice of these story elements or learn something new? Did you care? Should anyone? Is there a game whose plot you really enjoyed but went largely ignored? Tell me about it and hopefully I’ll see you again right here next month!
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