Assault Spy

So When I first started up Assault Spy by NIS America I wasn’t really sure what to make of it as I was going in pretty blind without having seen any trailers or anything of the sort and mainly just thought the art style was awesome and said what the heck lets give this a go and the rest was history! In Assault Spy you play the role of either Asaru, a Corporation type spy, or as Amelia whom is a CIA operative. With the game being in Steam Early access you’re currently only able to play the game as Asaru and given that this game is in Early Access there is only so much of this game that I can cover in this review or should I say preview? So with that being said there may be aspects of the game which may not work perfectly or be complete so going forward do keep that in mind.

When it comes to the story that we are presented in the current Early Access build we are basically shown that Asaru is a corporate spy that has a mission of sneaking into the Negabot corporation and stealing their secrets, as to what those secrets are have yet to be revealed as of yet. After a few of the initial cut scenes and gameplay you come to find out that there is a terrorist organization that have taken over the Negabot corporation and then you’ll be given the task of saving the Negabot corporation from these baddies. I am looking forward to the story being fleshed out more as it comes out of Early Access.

We’ll jump right in to one of the things that I found that really stood out to me and that’s the graphics and artsyle. They are in the standard shonen style of art however they fit perfectly within the style of game that this is, true its not going to come across as blow your mind or anything and it may at times look rough around the edges or a mixed bag but one thing you cant take away from this game is that with what it has to work with it does so incredibly well. On the other side of the coin, the in-game models for the characters look and feel a bit stiff and their animations aren’t exactly fluid and while the attack animations do like nice, the character models themselves leave a lot to be improved upon. All that being said, the character portraits have an incredible shonen anime-style to them that give each character their own distinct charm and charisma.

When it comes to the gameplay, Assault Spy is very much a hack and slash style of game: there’s a lot of running around and fast-paced movement, and you learn to make use of the dash feature if you wanna stay in one piece. Whenever you enter a new arena, all enemies in the room lock onto your character at all times, regardless on whether they’re melee or ranged. With the ranged units their shots are particularly fast and quite damaging as you only have 5 hit-points, so a great way to avoid the damage is to take cover.

In nearly all of the arenas you enter there will be plenty of cover for you to duck behind, allowing you to avoid damage. Add in double jump and air dash and you have a movement system reminiscent of arena combat titles like Dissidia with the much more precise and fluid combat of Devil May Cry. It also has some nifty features; If you beat up enough baddies, you get Overclock mode, which lets you toughen up and get even more ridiculous. With the general gameplay, however, you start off doing the same couple of moves for a little while, as there’s the option to buy new skills, just like in a Devil May Cry game. Just like in any good hack-and-slash game, you can create your own combos and extend them as much as you can manage, but unfortunately, as of right now there aren’t too many extra moves to pick and choose from, which is a shame. As of right now the whole combat system does seem rather basic.

There are some bugs in the game that appear and affect the ability to move and the frame rate which could be due to the in progress optimization. Overall Assault Spy is shaping up to be a very fun character driven action game with an interesting narrative. I definitely say that this is something to keep an eye on and pick up!