Switch owners should definitely consider Nightmare Reaper if you're wishing for a retro shooter that successfully marries roguelite gameplay, fountains of 2D gore, and elements of the original DOOM games. The difficulty curve may be steep at times, but it's worth sticking with given its high replayability and fresh takes on chaotic first-person combat. I highly recommend Nightmare Reaper for those wanting a bloodbath or an adrenaline rush, as you'll definitely get it alongside some fun bonus content.
Several years after its release on PC, Nightmare Reaper has made its way to consoles to let more players participate in its chaotic yet engaging retro-inspired shooting and looting.
Nightmare Reaper places the player into the life of a seemingly nameless protagonist who is locked up in a mental hospital. When she goes to bed, she’s teleported to a land of her nightmares chock full of blood, demons, and all around terror. In between nightmares, you can explore bits and pieces of the mental hospital before returning to the Protagonist’s bed. All of this is done in a heavily pixelated 2D-plane reminiscent of classic DOOM games. For those wishing for a retro experience, Nightmare Reaper will offer you that retro visual experience and so much more.
Nightmare Reaper‘s gameplay loop leans heavily into blending DOOM-like FPS bloodsports with roguelike level designs and loot. Skeletons with shotguns, demonic slugs that shoot pink skulls, and venomous flying hellspawn stand in the way of the Protagonist and the exit to her nightmares. Obliterating an enemy usually results in an explosion of blood, guts, gold, a health pickup, and occasionally a new weapon for the Protagonist to use. All of this is happening while heavy metal guitar riffs are repeating in the background amidst a 2D-pixelated plane varying from half-destroyed villages to caves. It could, yes–it could be considered madness. You just have to get there.
Nightmare Reaper cements itself as a loot shooter by giving the player access to such a wide variety of weapons. Some weapons may be expected, like a pump-action shotgun or a simple pistol. Others lean into the fantasy side of things, like a book that shoots fireballs from its pages to a living wasp queen who shoots mini wasps from her mouth. Some tread into outlandish territory, like weapons that shoot random projectiles rather than traditional ammunition. The variety of weapons ensures that the lootin’-and-shootin’ aspects of Nightmare Reaper remain fresh yet chaotic, so long as the player is willing to swap weapons out.
I loved the variety of weapons present in Nightmare Reaper. I spent the majority of the early-game using a nailgun that shot random projectiles, thinking that the randomness would yield glimpes of mass chaos. However, as I proceeded into the mid game, I began encountering weapons that were much stronger and effective in clearing enemies, but there was a catch. To prevent players like me from finding a weapon in the first stage and relying on it throughout, more and more weapons are found in each new level but the player can only keep one at the end of the level so long as it meets a specific criteria. So, if you find something better than your current weapon in a later level, you’re subtly pushed to keep it, otherwise it will be sold upon level completion.
This method of encouraging weapon swapping was successful to a point given Nightmare Reaper‘s gradual difficulty curve. New enemies are introduced on a biome-by-biome basis to ensure that players become accustomed to attack patterns and other potential pitfalls. Of course, some levels can take anywhere between 15-20 minutes to complete, so this means that a new enemy (or pair of enemies) are added every hour of gameplay. Some may find this to be too predictable, but let me tell you: The game gets ridiculously hard out of nowhere. And it will be a frustrating experience on the Switch.
Upon reaching the Sulfuric mines at the halfway point of Chapter 1, the game’s difficulty spiked to a ridiculous degree. Enemies began spawning in greater clusters, the map layouts began to incorporate more vertical elements than before, and a crystallized enemy was introduced that could repeatedly spawn all kinds of enemies. I had made the mistake of swapping my tried-and-true weapon into something else in hopes that a new weapon I found was superior. This was not the case. If a player makes the mistake of swapping out a weapon and selling it, it’s up to RNGesus to bless you with a stronger weapon in the next level. In my case, my (not literal) pea shooter was simply unable to compete with the onslaught of crystals and their hordes of enemies.
Thankfully, should you not complete a level in its entirety, you don’t walk away with “nothing.” Sure, you lose the weapons you acquired and you’re forced to restart the level, but any gold you acquired in that unsuccessful run stays with you. This softens the blows of unsuccessful nightmares well thanks to the upgrade system. I’ll speak more on upgrades in a bit, but do know that your successful and unsuccessful attempts will let you walk away with something for your efforts.
Nightmare Reaper is not all looting and shooting, mind you. The procedurally-generated levels contain bits of secrets for those with keen eyes and ears. Should you come across a suspicious wall with a crack in it, kicking the wall multiple times will result in a hidden passageway full of gold and possibly an Easter egg or two. Some rooms may lack enemies altogether, encouraging the player to test their platforming skills by jumping across pits filled with spikes and their dexterity by testing their abilities to dodge traps in narrow corridors. Should you succeed with these platforming sections, you’ll be rewarded with a weapon or some bonus gold.
Playing Nightmare Reaper on the Switch left me feeling like most of the platforming rewards and searching for hidden-secrets weren’t worth my time. The traversal can definitely feel stiff, especially when playing with the Joy-Cons. Pairing that with the possibility of losing a massive chunk of health to fall damage, fire damage over time, or spikes that suddenly emerged from the floors, I began to opt out of these optional sections simply because I wanted to conserve my health to stymie any possibility of needing to repeat a level. I wanted to progress through the game rather than retrace my steps!
I want to emphasize that my experience might not be the norm for you, should you decide to pick up Nightmare Reaper for the Switch. I would like to imagine that you may be more thoughtful when choosing between weapons and/or patient with its occasionally treacherous platforming. However, it wouldn’t be surprising to me if you ended up experiencing similar levels of frustration should you get stuck on a level for whatever reason, be it a difficult boss, multiple unsuccessful platforming gauntlets, or even making a weapon-specific mistake. Patience is key.
As you progress, you can level up the Protagonist through the use of three separate skill trees. These skill trees are presented in the form of retro-inspired minigames that incrementally improve her stats, be it starting health, additional gold value, to additional resistances. The first minigame (which is a 2D platformer — think Mario Bros!) costs gold, whereas the other two minigames, think Pokemon Gen I and Gradius, cost topaz and jade (respectively). I cannot believe I’m writing this, but I thought the implementation of these minigames was quite genius and offered me small breaks in between bouts of demon-slaying. Also, seeing what I could upgrade gave me something to look forward to, pushing me forward and encouraging my resolve to remain steady so I could unlock additional upgrades. These upgrades end up being worth it, too.
The Protagonist’s story is told in literal drips and drops through the use of one-to-two sentence doctor’s notes upon the successful completion of a level. Upon waking up in the mental hispital, the Protagonist can walk over to her bedside table to read the newest excerpt from the Doctor’s notes. I was hoping for something more than a few sentences at a time, especially since not much is shown to the player about the origins of the Protagonist, the nature of her nightmares, or why she’s confined to the hospital. Those questions are answered later, but the current implementation of the narrative drips and drops aren’t really enough to hook me into exploring the Protagonist’s origins. By the end of Chapter 1, you can explore more of the mental hospital, but I’m unsure if it was worth the wait.
Andrew Hushult’s heavy metal and guitar-heavy soundtrack is quite well done, as its grittiness sets the tone of Nightmare Reaper as hardcore and demonic. My single complaint about its implementation would be that I wished that specific songs weren’t tied to specific biomes. Given that some levels can take a good amount of time to finish, I found myself wishing for musical variety rather than listening to the same track for almost 45 minutes at a time. This is not to knock the soundatrack’s quality, though, as I personally loved listening to the songs when I had the opportunity to listen to more as I played further.
Before I conclude this review, it’s important to discuss how Nightmare Reaper runs on the Switch. During my playthrough, I am pleased to report that I did not encounter bugginess or instability. Given that Nightmare Reaper procedurally generates content and the Joy-Cons lacking precision, I was worried that I would encounter a less-than-optimal experience. Thankfully, this was not the case. Nightmare Reaper‘s aim assist is helpful enough to give players some leeway and agency in their aim, and levels are created with enough variety without visual artifacts. There were mildly long loading times and the occasional hiccup in handheld mode when enemy density was at its greatest and bloody explosions filled the screen, but these hiccups were visual in nature and did not lead me to make gameplay mistakes that cost me a run in any given level. My only recommendation would be to play with another controller if you want to complete all of the optional platforming portions.
Switch owners should definitely consider Nightmare Reaper if you’re wishing for a retro shooter that successfully marries roguelite gameplay, fountains of 2D gore, and elements of the original DOOM games. The difficulty curve may be steep at times, but it’s worth sticking with given its high replayability and fresh takes on chaotic first-person combat. I highly recommend Nightmare Reaper for those wanting a bloodbath or an adrenaline rush, as you’ll definitely get it alongside some fun bonus content.
A review copy of Nightmare Reaper was provided by the publisher for the sole purpose of this review.
