Nomis: Legacy Islands Hot

Nomis: Legacy Islands is a 2D side-scrolling action game. You can play through 20 levels and fight in many boss battles, play the local co-op mode, and upgrade your character and weapons in the shop in the pause menu.

This game is a lot of fun, but the thing is you die easy, and some of the jumps are difficult to make. The enemies shoot you and beat you down extremely fast, and you seem to die right when they jump on screen. But this game is a good challenge! The bosses are so much fun! The levels and enemies have good designs, and the gameplay is actually decently fun!

Overall, this game is pretty fun, but I do suggest watching videos of gameplay for this game before making your purchase!

Nomis: Legacy Islands is a 2D action platformer starring a Nathan Drake-esque character. The game consists of moving your hero to the end of the levels while defeating enemies and gathering resources enemies leave behind to upgrade your weapons. It is not the most polished game on XBLIG but it has a certain charm. The soundtrack is fairly simple and the 'pyew, pyew' style sound effects elicit a chuckle throughout the game. It terms of challenge some of the robots can pose a significant threat and bosses can be challenging if you have not upgraded your weapons(or run out of ammo). All in all this is pretty fun title and well worth your 340 MSP.(Allards)

Nomis: Legacy Island is an exciting story about exploration through exotic worlds, innovative combat, and intuitive upgrading and treasure hunting. Unfortunately, despite a stellar game design, everything falls apart artistically, and the lack of polish on this title will indubitably scare you away. Call me shallow if you will, but games ARE rated and ranked on their art assets as well as their gameplay, and Nomis does not rank so highly on this half of its production.

First, the good news: Nomis: Legacy Island is a 1-2 player (local only) sidescroller where you travel through 6 unique worlds, each with their own stages, environmental designs (and hazards) fighting robots of various makes and models. Your goal is to collect as much treasure and as many artifacts as possible while doing so: treasure, resources and artifacts not only serve as an in-game 'goal', but also an in-game reward, as resources are used to either upgrade your weapons or purchase new powers for yourself (such as more health or extra lives). You are given a very minute amount of ammunition for each level, so you are forced to rely upon 'stealth', a slowly-recharging invisibility (and invincibility) ability that allows you to move through levels quickly. The Stealth ability works well with your one-hit-melee instakill, so with a little patience, you can dash between safe spots on the map, shooting very rarely. The stealth function is rather unique, and definitely adds a layer to the game beyond regular platformers.

With 6 worlds, each made of a few levels, and a boss at the end of each world, you have a large amount of game at your disposal, and each boss offers up a power-up inventory item to be added to your collection, starting with an underwater rebreather, climbing boots, a double jump, and more. The inventory items not only make future levels easier, but also are useful for retracing your steps, as worlds and levels can be replayed at any time and in any order from the world map - this allows you to farm up more resources, as well as try to hunt down artifacts, found hidden in each level and worth primo cash. In each level (whether the first playthrough or a re-run), you are given 10 lives to get to the end of the stage. While more than a little generous in its count, I liked the fact that you aren't constantly counting 1-ups or trying to farm more in easier spots: Each new level gives you a fresh new 10, which means that the odd mistimed jump isn't a game over. If all this content sounds a little too much for you to handle in one sitting, the game comes included with a save/load feature, or you can always use that extra co-op buddy to help you out.

On the negative side of things, there are a few small glitches that seemed somewhat random (the odd jump that wouldn't allow you to move left or right, bullets disappearing a tad too quickly), but my two main gripes are the very low production values (If your entire Voice Actor budget is "Me with a Mic", then your game doesn't need voice acting) and the lack of replayability, or dare I say, playability. Because the game gets relatively repetitive relatively early on, there is little incentive to play beyond World 3 or 4, especially with no overhanging rewards (the only unlockables are the upgrades, and playing a game just to upgrade your gun is hardly incentive).

I'm glad that the dev is still taking an active hand in updating and bug-fixing, and maybe I'm just shallow, but every book is judged by its cover, and this is no exception: Strong gameplay and horrible art equals an overall average delivery.

After recently winning a free copy of this game in a Twitter giveaway, I thought it would be nice to give it a quick review!

Nomis: Legacy Islands itself is a ton of fun, having a lot of that platforming fun that has disappeared from console games in recent years. As one reviewer already stated, the main character is very much a "Nathan Drake" wanna be, which is apt: I found the game to feel quite a bit like the poor man's shadow complex - another game featuring another "Nathan Drake" like character (and, in that case, voiced by the same actor that plays Drake!).

The side scroller and platformer mechanics are fast and fluid. The game has an excellent pace to it, which helps when the levels seem to sprawl in a 'not-quite-linear' fashion. While all roads may lead to Rome, you feel like you have a choice in how to get there! The ability to angle your shots with the right analog stick makes the game automatically stand out from other shooters... it suddenly feels more like Contra III on the Super Nintendo, rather than a classic Contra rip-off.

I hadn't played the game before it's first 'overhaul' - but graphically it's very well done. Treated with a lot of care so that nothng disappears into the background or is not seen before it attacks you. Some of the 'backdrop' girders make me think I have to go around, from time to time, but that's a matter of learning the level design on my end.

The sound is well done, and the little extras like robots crying out when they kill you, or your character making comments at the end of a level add a great deal to the game.

My biggest complaints come directly from the combat system. If you do not hold down the right trigger when you fire, your shots disappear from the screen. You can't fire repeatedly as you approach a target, because you must wait for the first shot to hit them! The first boss battle also got very frustrating - if you ran out of ammunition, he was practically impossible to get to. I went to the in-game store to buy some 'extra lives' during this battle, but even after they ran out, I just kept respawning. Is there a mechanic where you're supposed to have unlimited lives during a boss battle that wasn't mentioned? Was this a bug? I may never know. The tutorial mentions how the Stealth does not work against bosses, however it certainly aided me in getting by certain parts. Tiny other things, like typos ("then" instead of "than") were evident, but as someone with a degree in English, proof-reading is a curse, sometimes!

From reading other reviews, it seems that the game has seen some enhancements since it first launched, and with a few more, this game will be undeniably fun. For $3, there's absolutely no reason not to pick this game up, it will bring back a lot of the fun that you haven't had since your last run through Contra! At the very least, give this Xbox Live Indie Game's free demo a shot!

Nomis is a 2D platforming adventure featuring a few fun RPG-lite elements. Upon my first play of the game, in single player, I ran into some unfortunate bugs, and the game felt loose overall. Upon my second play, this time with a 2nd player (local only) in tow, I encountered a load of unfortunate glitches, which had me ready to give the game an “ambitious, but unpolished!” rating. (But Read on! It gets BETTER!)

When I was preparing this review, the games developer contacted me through Twitter, and asked what bugs I had bumped into. He was interested in fixing and ironing them out! Taking criticism on things ranging from the colors of environmental pieces, to instant death glitches, and bugs in the weapon system, he modified all of these things, and released a patched up game, aiming to fix a multitude of the issues.

So how does this game stack up now?

Quite improved, I’d say! One of the worse things that can happen to an XBLIG, is for an ambitious product to be hampered by bugs that render it nearly (or completely) unplayable. Nomis had a host of glitches that prevented me from truly enjoying it, in the beginning.

I loved the scope of the world, filled with 20 stages that actually had different designs, enemies and good musical theme throughout. I enjoyed the different guns, (especially the shotgun, of course), and the fact that you could upgrade them was a very nice ability. The upgrade/item shop teems with personality, with a shop keeper that holds simple conversations while you purchase items from him. I especially enjoyed the power-up items that were obtained upon defeating each boss. As they gave out classic mainstays of the action-platforming genre (Such as Double Jump, and shoes to prevent slipping on ice floors), I found the feel of the game solidifying more and more.

And a special mention must be given to the stealth ability! This allows you to turn invisible/invincible, and perform single-hit melee sneak attacks on your enemies. At first it seemed a simple curiosity, but by the end game (with a bunch of stat buffing!) it became the ace in the hole, and a unique reason to play this game! (It might, even now, be a BIT overpowered, but that’s ok!!)

However, all of these positives were greatly weighed down by the shoddy aiming mechanics, and the once sloppy 2 player mode; The second character (A unique young lady, with her own voice work and everything!) would die after walking too far away from the first player, the camera was stubborn, and some how, after a death, characters had a chance to die over and over again, which was comical, but maddening.

But all of the major issues have now been cleared. We ran through the game as a pair yet another time, and found the looping deaths to be MOSTLY obliterated (it still happened maybe a time or 2, which isn’t bad), but the game felt much better as a whole. An arrow points to the second player, if they venture off the screen (Oh, and they didn‘t die!), and the stage presentation was made more readable to the eye, with better overall depth to the background work. The status meters where re-positioned, preventing them from being off screen, and even some boss A.I and tactics were re-made. I felt the jumping had better weight to it as well, and even some enemies were given more challenging, smart A.I.

With everything cleaned up, you’ll now find a pleasant adventure that feels above and beyond many other action-platformers on the service. It has the bells and whistles of a full game, but the simple independent charm of a smaller publication. It’s a pretty good game for 240 points!

It’s pleasing to see ambition, now met with a good level of refinement! Once a stone of questionable value, now an interesting gem worth inspecting!

There are plenty of platformers on the XBLIG service, and though it's definitely not the most common genre out there and one not marred much by avatars and zombies it has its shovelware cash-in games. When I first started up Nomis, I was afraid that's where the game was going to end up. Thankfully, I couldn't be more wrong, both with the quality and the heart put into the game.

Nomis is an action/platformer that stars the biggest Nathan Drake wannabe ever. Looks like him, talks like him, wishes he was him. (Hey, in all fairness, I wanna be Nathan Drake, so there.) The game actually has some interesting ideas, such putting some RPG elements in as far as upgrading your health and weapons or finding new abilities like a double jump. The main trick of the game, however, is its stealth system. While in your stealth mode, you can't be hit by enemies. Not only will their bullets miss you, the enemies themselves will walk right through you as you shoot or melee them to death. These are your methods of getting through twenty-plus levels and half a dozen boss fights.

As I played Nomis, I couldn't help but laugh a bit at what I saw and heard. There's a lot of heart in it and it's not really all that bad, with everything hand-drawn. The sounds, however, may very well be all human made. The guns, death knells from the robots (one cry is a metallic "LAAAAWLZ"), and even a "woosh" for the jump are all sounds made either with the human body or by said body slapping two blocks together or something. I was seriously annoyed for the first few minutes, but after a while I appreciated the genius of it and chuckled heartily. In addition to all this, the shopkeeper sounds like the creepy old grandpa from Family Guy, and all of it together provided quite a bit of character and humor.

The controls use practically every button on the 360 controller, so as with all games like that they take a little getting used to. I would've preferred access to jump, melee, and stealth all at the same time (all are on the face buttons), but aside from that the layout is pretty solid. The response, however, has a couple quirks. One is that jumping has only one height, something I thought Shiggy proved to be the less optimal choice back in 1985 and something I hate in my platformers. The other is that you can't shoot and walk backward or turn around by aiming. Doing so just results in you annoyingly aiming straight up. Minor quirks, but the former annoys me when it's in games 25 years after Super Mario Bros.

For an XBLIG platformer, there's actually quite a bit to do in this one. 20+ levels, boss fights, upgradable weapons and abilities, and co-op play round out the features on a somewhat decent game. Unfortunately, it has one somewhat large drawback: the stealth mode. It's an interesting idea and one that you need to use well during the first few levels. By the end of the game, however, that's all I was using. I'd hit stealth, melee (one-hit kill) everything, then let my stealth recharge and continue. With regenerating health, regenerating stealth, TONS of lives (10 to start the level, you can buy more), and nearly no use for the guns outside of boss battles, the game becomes a bit easy in addition to the one-trick pony that is the stealth button. I had more difficulty running through the third level (a few difficult jumps and blind falls) than I did the rest of the game.

Even with that, the game is actually a pretty full platformer. There are better platformers on the service, but with all the little extras Nomis is a fun and interesting game with character, and is worth the price of admission.