For the Xbox Live Indie Games paltform anyways. I won’t lie, there are definitely better adventure shmups out there, but if you’re looking for a quickie, cheap-entry, XBLIG adventure shooter there’s little to complain about with Dysnomia.

Released late last week, by a small indie duo called Team Mango, Dysnomia is a top-down adventure shooter that takes place on a Human colony on a moon called Dysnomia (it’s a real place!). The game plays a lot like a kick-ass combination of Gauntlet and Alien Breed. Here’s a synopsis of the story:

Stranded with a failing ship and a lack of supplies after narrowly escaping certain death, a lone space marine must find his way home.

The closest sign of civilisation: a remote mining outpost on Dysnomia, moon of the planet Eris. Forced to make an emergency landing and with all attempts to make contact with the outpost failing, the marine must scavenge what he can to refuel and repair his ship – and perhaps discover the fate of the outpost’s inhabitants.

Now on with the review:

Gameplay

The first thing you’ll notice with Dysnomia is the controls. The game controls very similarly to games like Geometry Wars. With the left stick you move around and with the right stick you aim. The only different here is that you don’t auto-shoot with the right stick, instead you aim and press the right trigger to shoot. It’s a very fluid movement system and one that works very well for an adventure shmup like Dysnomia.

Now some of you may be put off by the fact that you have to use the right trigger to shoot instead of having everything just auto-mapped to the right thumbstick, but I assure you there is a reason for this. In Dysnomia, you have 5 weapons (starting with just one and finding news ones as you go on). Each weapon only has a certain amount of ammo, hence requiring the right trigger to shoot so you don’t blindly waste ammo.

Carrying on with the weapons, each one is fairly different and has it’s own uses. For example, your first weapon is a straight auto-rifle type. Point and shoot until the ammo’s out. The second type, however, is a slower weapon, but is also a spread weapon. Which means your area of target is now much larger than with the first weapon. Both are still different, but each has their uses in various situations.

Of course, what would an adventure shmup be without some quality exploration, and that’s something that Dysnomia definitely has. I wouldn’t classify Dysnomia as a large game, exactly, but it’s certainly a game where you must explore to find out where to go next. In this way it’s actually a lot like a Metroidvania (aside from the fact that it’s top down, not platformer).

Of course, the games goals seem a bit weak. Your primary goals are simply finding fuel rods to re-power your ship so you can leave. While this, invariably leads you to fighting all the games bosses, I feel like this could have been handled a bit better. I mean, why do each of the bosses have a single fuel rod, especially since most of them are insects/mutants? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense other than to serve as the means to get you to fight all the bosses.

Of course, that said, the bosses are actually kind of fun. The very first boss you fight, actually, is a huge worm-like thing that, if your not careful, can send you packing really quickly. Other bosses are usually giant, more powerful versions of normal monsters which may sound boring, but can actually be pretty challenging.

Speaking of challenging, this game is not easy. At times you’ll find yourself running from, literally, hordes of enemies. While it starts off simple enough, fighting simple mutated worms and insects that die quickly, once your at the mutant and dysfunctional security robotics stage you’ll notice a sharp increase in the difficulty. Luckily for us, however, the devs decided it would be a good idea to include a quick-easy save where ever you are. You just gotta remember to actually do it every now and then or you’ll pay the price (during my first play through, I had to completely restart the game over when I died).

Furthermore, the game has a lot of fun enemy variations and a decent map layout. There’s not much to complain about, honestly.

Style

At first glance, Dysnomia might seem to have a fairly crude style to it, but it’s actually a lot more detailed than you’d think. In fact, after about an hour or so I was damn impressed with the level of depth in the game. For example, when moving through the halls of building that is lined with lights, you can visibly see the various shadows that are cast by each light. Additionally, the detail in some of the larger monsters is astounding for this style of game. So, again, early impressions aside, Dysnomia is actually a fantasic looking game.

The music, on the other hand, is fairly bland and generic. Not bad, mind you, but it’s basically the same loop over and over again with no real substance. Occasionally, it will tick up in a moment of distress, but that’s all.

Finally, I give +1000 points to the team behind Dysnomia for creating a fairly decent cover game. Too many XBLIG games have crappy covers, so it’s nice to see one that actually tried (and succeeded!) to make theirs appealing.

Story

Dysnomia’s story is an interesting one. On one hand there isn’t much of one because you’re just a lost space amrine trying to fix his ship and go home, but on the other hand, the game does lay out plenty of PDA computers where you can read journal entries to find out just exactly what happened to this moon. When all’s said and done, the story behind the colony is pretty interesting… it just takes a while to find all the PDAs.

Everything Else

The game supports local co-op for two players, which is great. This game is amazing with two players. There’s only two things I’d have changed, one would be the inclusion of online multiplayer and the other would be to increase the co-op from 2 to 4. At 4 player online co-op I could see this game being outrageously fun. But 2 player co-op is still a great addition, and one that certainly didn’t need to get added to the game.

Dynomia is a great XBLIG game. I had very little to complain about, in the end. Plus, at oly 240 MS points ($3) you’re getting a hellofa deal on a great game that will certainly last you a few hours. Which is great for those of us out there who really love the idea of “dollar gaming”.