By Bobinator

There's a lot of doujin games over in Japan, with most of them being known for their surprisingly high quality, even with the fact it's usually one guy making them. The same kind of thing exists over in the west, where they're usually known as 'indie games', and even if quite a few of them aren't really that great, there's quite a few gems out there, if you look.

The two Noitu Love (that's 'evolution', if you didn't catch that) games are both made by Joakim Sandberg, who's done a little bit of work in the professional game industry, including some of the spritework for Contra 4. He did almost all the work on the games himself, which even then is a really impressive feat.

Noitu Love

The first game of the series is a pretty standard platformer, with the gameplay, graphics and sounds based on old NES games, even though the resolution and color pallete's a tad higher than the NES's limitations. The plot's about as cliche as you can get, even for those days: In the far future, a mad scientist known as Darnacus Damnation unleashes a robot army onto a peaceful city. You, Noitu Love, one of the city peacekeepers, are sent out to stop the robots, save the town, and impress your coworker Lori.

There's only two buttons involved in the gameplay, a button for a punch attack, one for jumping. Hitting both buttons together will make Noitu do a spinning kick, which hits everyone around him, but leaves him vulnerable for a second. The game controls pretty well, but the fact that Noitu stops for a split second can cause a small annoyance. One thing that helps makes things a little less boring are the Evomatics, machines Noitu can use to change his form. He can change into a monkey, which lets him move faster and jump higher, a bird, which lets him fly, and Brainy Noitu, which lets him activate control consoles and gives him a psychic shield attack.

The problem with the game is that it's just generally slow-paced and repetitive. There's not nearly enough platforming as there should be, and most of the time you'll be spending more times in sealed rooms fighting off enemies than exploring. Some of the level bosses are pretty interesting, like a Darn that attacks you with a long mechanical arm and an evil conductor you have to make attack you by stomping on his piano, but all the bosses tend to take way more damage than they should be able to.

There's 7 levels, ranging from places like a building under construction, a graveyard, and an airship. The last level is the real highlight, where you have to fight a giant robot piloted by Darnacus before you can get inside it and head to the final boss fight. There's also the standard boss rush before the last level, ending in a pretty tough fight with a robot clone of Lori built by Darnacus.

It's not too hard to reach the end on the easier difficulty, but on Normal and beyond, it can be a lot harder. While the games auto-saves between levels, it also keeps up with your current stock of lives, so if you run low near the end, it'll be a lot tougher to make it trough. In 8-bit tradition, you can't get to the final level on the Easy difficulty, instead getting an ending where Lori's robot doppleganger mocks you. 

There's a harder difficulty for beating the game, along with a Boss Rush mode. While it's not quite as much of a fun experience as the games it was inspired by, considering that the game is free, it's decent enough if you ignore its issues.

Noitu Love 2: Devolution

While the original game was clearly based on old 8-bit games from the 80's, everything in the sequel is more like one of Treasure's 32-bit games, like Mischief Makers and Shilleoute Mirage. The plot is slightly more complicated this time around: After 100 peaceful years since the original game, an army of Darns once again attacks the city, even though Darnacus Damnation has never been seen again since he was defeated by Noitu. Not only that, but somehow buildings and people from different eras of time are starting to appear in the city. The robotic duplicate of Noitu's girlfriend from the original game is also running around, and she takes a pretty important role in the plot.

The sequel is a completely overhauled game since the original, and it's a lot more fun to play. As Xoda Rap, (that's paradox backwards, if you need help) one of the city's new peacekeepers, you're much more mobile and powerful than Noitu was. You use the WASD/arrow keys for movement, and the mouse for pulling off attacks. Clicking anywhere on the screen will make Xoda fly to that location, and repeated clicks will cause her to go into a flurry of chops and kicks. You can also throw energy balls and grab enemies with the left mouse button, although you probably won't be using these attacks quite as much. Right clicking on the screen brings up a shield that blocks some projectiles, and holding down the right mouse button and moving the mouse pulls off a few special moves.

The visuals are a big step up, with the graphics being about comparable to a PS1 game. All the sprites were drawn by Joachim Sandberg, the same guy who did everything else for the game, and they've all got a pretty interesting style, especially the demented grins on the Darns. The enemy variety also has a huge upgrade, with the enemies dressing up depending on the time period you're in, like priest Darns who call down lightning, and pimp Darns who swing their oversized watches at you. The music isn't much of an upgrade from the bleepy 8-bit songs from the original, but the soundtrack is a little more memorable than the first game.

The pace has also been sped up quite a bit, and there's hardly a moment where you're not moving forward or something's not happening around you. There's hardly ever a moment where things get dull, as the levels are fairly short, and there's usually something happening to keep your interest, like running through a building trying to dodge a helicopter's shots, or trying to dodge missles while falling down a clock tower. The fourth level is also pretty neat, where you're flying across the desert on a hoverboard. You use a lightning cannon to draw and connect lines to enemies, which is a pretty neat gimmick probably inspired by one of Joachim's other games, Chalk.

In true Treasure fashion, there's a ton of boss fights, a few more interesting than others. The real highlights are the ones at the end of the level. They've all got their own interesting gimmick and silly name, like 'Mordecai Fluke', or 'Sleeper Brakeman'. One of the best ones is a control program who attacks you with different TV channels, and whatever's on the screen will burst out of the screen to attack you. There's also a secret boss in one of the levels, if you're playing on one of the harder difficulties.

The game is pretty easy on the lowest difficulty. Although you've got a limited stock of continues, the health pickups are so common and the boss patterns are so simple you probably won't die until near the end. The Hard difficulty, even though it gets rid of the continue limit, makes things quite a bit tougher. The game's pretty short, though, at about 7 levels which last for about 10 minutes, and it'd be nice to see a Boss Rush mode like an original game.

There are a few unlockables, though, like an extra hard difficulty for beating the game, along with two secret characters. Dopplelori, the robot double from the original game, is a lot more projectile-focused than Xoda, and she carries around a laser than lock onto multiple targets at once. Her story is a little shorter than Xoda's, but she gets a couple of different fights and a little extra information on the plot. Mr. Almond, Xoda's boss, has no actual way to attack, so you use the cursor to blast enemies and drag him to platforms he can't reach. One thing you have to watch out for is that your cursor can only shoot about 8 times before having to reload, so it's kind of like a light-gun game mixed with a platformer.

The game is pretty much an improvement on the original game in every way, and it's a great tribute to Treasure's best work, made even more impressive considering it was only one guy behind it. The only real problem with the game is how short it is, although it'll probably take a lot of playthroughs before you begin to get tired of it. You can buy the game for $10 from Joachim's website, and there's a pretty good sized demo to try out, too. There's talk of a Wiiware version in development, so hopefully that'll have some good extras like the port of Cave Story.