| NanoApostle | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay & Story | Release Date | Pre-Order & DLC | Review |
NanoApostle is a fast-paced boss rush action RPG where you take on the role of a bioweapon trying to escape confinement. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
NanoApostle Review Overview
What is NanoApostle?
NanoApostle is a dark, visceral boss rush action game set in a top-secret bioweapons research facility. You play as Anita, one of many experimental weapons being tested, who takes the form of a young girl. She’s accompanied by a state-of-the-art nanomachine weapon she named “Kuro,” programmed to protect her at all costs. Together with the remnants of a fellow bioweapon named Wenny, they must survive the facility’s combat trials to set the stage for a daring escape.
NanoApostle features:
⚫︎ Six main bosses with multiple phases
⚫︎ Obstacle courses and mob gauntlets
⚫︎ Playstyle customization via the Module system
⚫︎ Healing off of items and aggressive actions
⚫︎ Parry and Dodge mechanics
 Steam |
$19.99 |
 Nintendo eShop |
$19.99 |
NanoApostle Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Feel Like A Real Weapon Epic And Distinct Boss Battles Actually Helpful Achievements |
Could Use A Few Missing Features Has Major Balance Issues |
NanoApostle Overall Score - 80/100
Despite the name, there's nothing nano
about NanoApostle—except for its pint-sized hero. This boss rush game packs a punch, delivering fast-paced action that'll have you feeling like a weapon of destruction. But it’s not all blood and guts flying around. The game stays grounded in its emotional core, crafting a heartfelt story of friendship and survival between two friends who will never be together—as well as a third. If you’re after a solid, no-nonsense action RPG that gets straight to the point, NanoApostle should definitely be on your radar.
NanoApostle Story - 9/10
These types of boss rush games typically don’t have much story woven into the regular progression, instead cramming everything into some optional log. However, not only does NanoApostle have a narrative to accompany the gameplay, it’s actually a good one. It makes great use of foreshadowing, a bit of slice-of-life, and even short flashbacks to shape the world and the characters it features. Unfortunately, the game missed an opportunity to achieve true excellence by forgetting to flesh out the protagonist’s companion, Wenny.
NanoApostle Gameplay - 9/10
NanoApostle strikes a perfect balance between being newbie-friendly while still offering a good challenge. The gameplay may seem straightforward at first, but mastering it is another story. Sure, there's plenty of mechanics to manage, but once you fine-tune your character to match your playstyle, everything clicks, and your character feels like an extension of yourself. The catch? The game’s difficulty can take a hit. With highly specialized builds—fully supported by the game—the bosses can end up dying a bit too easily.
NanoApostle Visuals - 8/10
Just from a glance, it’s clear that NanoApostle was crafted with a lot of love and attention by its developers. The bosses look absolutely epic and menacing, and each character’s personality practically bursts out of their design. But while the illustrations might not have that polished, Pixiv-level finesse, they’ve still got enough charm to carry the emotional weight of the story. That said, the stage designs are a bit of a letdown. They’re so bland that I honestly thought the game was set in a post-apocalyptic world instead of in a high-tech civilization. A few more futuristic touches could definitely help the setting live up to the story.
NanoApostle Audio - 7/10
Action games rely heavily on strong audio to pull players into the action. NanoApostle absolutely nails this on the head. The sound effects hit hard—like they could punch straight through metal—especially during the brutal execution scenes where your character dismantles bosses into morbid pieces. However, the background music? Just okay. Nothing to write home about. And the lack of voice acting really stands out, leaving the emotional depth of the story feeling a bit undercooked without that extra vocal accompaniment.
NanoApostle Value for Money - 7/10
NanoApostle doesn’t offer much in terms of post-game content, but it’s priced low enough that you might be willing to overlook its front-loaded content structure. However, it’s definitely on the short side. I managed to finish the base game in about four hours, and trust me, I’m not very good at these types of games. So, for most players, it’s likely to take even less time. And for a game that’s just under $20, the limited playtime might feel like quite a deal-breaker.
NanoApostle Review: Cute And Deadly. Mostly Deadly
A great way to make a game pop in a thumbnail is by playing up the contrast. I mean, look at the splash art—a large, menacing, fully-armored enemy with giant axes facing off against a small, fragile-looking girl with rags as clothing and a menacing green tentacle with an eye. What’s not appealing? Well, at least it looks nice for me.
… What?
Anyway, as someone who loves the whole keep trying until you finally dunk on the enemy
thing (that's how the saying goes, right?), I naturally gravitate toward the boss rush subgenre of action games. They're like action games but without all the filler of mowing down a bunch of lesser enemies just to get stronger. Sure, games like Vampire Survivors and HoloCure make mob-slaying fun, but there's something special about diving straight into boss fights that really gets me excited.
Boss rush games live and die by their bosses—no question about it. Since the bosses make up 95% of the gameplay, you obviously want them to be top-notch. So, the big question is: are NanoApostle's boss fights up to par? Well…
Each boss fight in NanoApostle offers a fresh challenge. Take the second boss, for example—she throws some bullet-hell chaos into the mix, making her stage a unique challenge. Meanwhile, the third boss forces you to stay on your toes, dodging area-of-effect attacks as you sprint around the arena (which is pretty much all it does, but hey, it works).
The bosses don't just fight differently; they act differently too. You’ll need to tweak your loadouts, not just to handle new attack patterns but to counter their unique behaviors. So, yeah, the boss fights are good. Actually, they're awesome. Because behind all that technical talk is the real thrill of facing them head-on.
NanoApostle’s boss battles feel like genuine fights for survival. These enemies aren’t just going through the motions—they’re out for blood, using everything in their arsenal to land hits on you, no matter where you are or what you're doing. It's a far cry from bosses that just follow a predictable pattern.
But, here’s the thing: you can sometimes bait bosses into repeating certain actions, which makes the fights easier to predict and exploit. This can turn a tough battle into something more manageable, maybe even a little too manageable.
That said, even if you can mess with the bosses’ tactics, it won’t matter if you don’t have the tools to counter them. In NanoApostle, your toolkit includes Light Attacks, Charged Attacks, Parry, Dodge, Heal, a Grappling Hook, and the most powerful weapon of all: a gun. Plus, you can infect enemies with a status effect that lets you Absorb their health after certain conditions are met, adding some extra damage while healing yourself.
To win these fights, you’ve got to use every tool at your disposal. But you can also customize your moveset with modules—basically passive skills that boost certain aspects of your kit, sometimes with trade-offs. Even if a module weakens one of your moves, trust me, they’re all designed to improve your performance in some way.
These modules are split into seven categories based on their effects. For example, Survival Command modules boost your survivability, while Polymerized Power modules enhance your Charged Attacks. And if you equip modules from the same category, you get Adaptability Bonuses—massive, no-strings-attached boosts that, honestly, feel a bit overpowered right now.
Yes, you can customize your character in tons of ways with these modules, but once you stack enough of them, they can make even the toughest bosses feel like pushovers. And that leads to my second issue with NanoApostle: the balancing takes a hit, especially in the latter half of the game.
Look, just because I enjoy action games doesn’t mean I’m great at them. I’ll admit I struggle with games that demand precise timing and limited healing. But in NanoApostle, the difficulty drops off a cliff after the third boss—right when you get access to more than half of the modules. For context, it took me eight tries to beat the first boss, five tries for the second and third... and only one try for each of the rest. All I did was focus on Charged Attacks and Absorb damage.
While that sense of power fits the story—after all, you’re playing as a bioweapon named Anita—it does take away from the gameplay when even the bosses can’t keep up. Still, it’s fun to steamroll bosses, even on your first run. It’s like watching a show where the main character unlocks a cheat skill and starts dominating everyone. A guilty pleasure, sure, but satisfying nonetheless.
Pros of NanoApostle
| Things NanoApostle Got Right |
|---|
|
Feel Like A Real Weapon Epic And Distinct Boss Battles Actually Helpful Achievements |
Feel Like A Real Weapon
NanoApostle doesn’t have levels, status points, or gear—there’s only one way to boost your battle performance: modules. These handy little software mods (virus-free, too, according to Wenny) give you powerful passive buffs, but usually at a cost. You wouldn’t mind taking them, though, because they are so impactful that they pretty much force you to shape your entire playstyle around them.
On top of the buffs stated on the tin, you can also obtain Adaptability Bonuses if you stack more than one of the same types of modules. These bonuses give you extra perks that fit the category without any of the usual downsides, and the more of the same type you stack, the stronger the bonuses get. This pushes you to specialize in a specific playstyle instead of spreading yourself thin.
It’s impossible to overstate how massive the effects of modules and their appropriate Adaptability Bonuses are. The viability of your build and your ability to make good use of it can easily mean the difference between being able to beat a boss after a dozen attempts, or being able to do so in your first run without even having to learn about their movement patterns. When you nail the right setup for you, it’s like Anita transforms into the cutting-edge bioweapon she was designed to be—and trust me, that power feels amazing.
Epic And Distinct Boss Battles
Boss Rush games live or die by their bosses, and NanoApostle is no exception. It’s pretty much a 95% non-stop brawl, except instead of bar stools and cue sticks, you’re dealing with guns, eldritch tentacles, and massive swords.
Take the third boss, for example (pictured above). I refuse to believe that the things it throws at you aren’t weaponized toilets with “payloads” inside.
Now, thankfully, every bar fight—I mean boss fight is uniquely enjoyable. Each one has its own flair, with specific fighting styles and wild gimmicks, like sniping you from a distance while invisible or changing the game’s genre into a bullet hell shooter.
This also means you’ve got to adapt. You can’t waltz into a gunfight armed with just a kitchen knife and expect to win. Well, unless you’re ridiculously good. In that case, be my guest.
Actually Helpful Achievements
In most games, achievements are just extra challenges that reward you with what is effectively a virtual pat on the back. But in NanoApostle, they’re way more important—completing achievements is the only way to earn skill points, which you need to unlock the all-important modules for your character builds.
This means you’ll likely find yourself replaying stages over and over, farming as many skill points as possible. Sometimes, you’ll even have to switch up your build to tackle specific challenges. It adds an extra layer of variety to the game, whether or not the devs planned for it to work that way.
Cons of NanoApostle
| Things That NanoApostle Can Improve |
|---|
|
Could Use A Few Tweaks And Features
Has Major Balance Issues |
Could Use A Few Tweaks And Features
NanoApostle’s gameplay is built on solid fundamentals and can be adjusted to fit your preferred playstyle once you unlock enough modules. Of course, it’s incredibly fun, fast-paced, and the bosses are just frustrating enough to keep you from wanting to throw your Switch or keyboard, while still feeling incredibly rewarding. Sure, it feels pretty button-mashy at first, but that changes quickly.
That doesn’t mean I don’t have suggestions, though. A camera zoom function, for one, would help a lot against bosses (really, about two-thirds of them) that rely on carpet-bombing the screen with projectiles. Another nice feature would be a slider to adjust the opacity of the Grappling prompt, or even a redesign. Since the prompt is a semi-transparent arrow stretching from Anita to the boss, it’s almost impossible to see if you like sticking close to the boss at all times.
As for gameplay, one minor improvement the developers could make is to reduce the unpredictability of the bosses’ moves. The difficulty of a fight can vary wildly depending on which moves they decide to spam. For example, when I was farming skill points in earlier stages, I had a fight against the first boss where I didn’t get hit once because it kept spamming the projectile move, which is easy to reflect. But in the very next fight, I lost almost just as easily because it kept spamming its melee attack (which I’m terrible at dodging).
In fact, you can bait bosses to use certain moves with decent success.
Has Major Balance Issues
While most games ramp up in difficulty as you progress, NanoApostle flips the script. The problem is that the synergistic bonuses from stacking similar upgrades get so powerful that they can steamroll bosses with brute force. Early on, this isn't an issue since you don't have access to these upgrades, but once you unlock them, they’re absolute game-changers.
Take a build that focuses on Charged Attacks and Absorb damage, for instance. It can practically nullify most bosses’ ability to hurt you, especially the ones that rely on projectiles or weaker attacks (which is about two thirds of them); Charged Attacks can destroy most bullets, and you can stack Absorb effects to heal any damage you do take. As reference, by the time I unlocked most of the Charged Attack upgrades after the third stage, I managed to beat the fourth, fifth, and sixth bosses on my first try. Wild stuff, right there.
Fortunately, this doesn’t make it any easier to complete most of a stage’s optional achievements. Objectives like “don’t get hit even once” or “reflect X number of projectiles” still require a good amount of skill (that I don’t have). And since skill points can only be earned by completing them, you’re still forced to learn the game’s mechanics and the bosses’ attack patterns at the end of the day.
Is NanoApostle Worth It?
Too Cute (And Good) To Pass Up
Boss rush games have a unique charm that no other genre can quite match. In a way, it’s like an action game where all the fluff has been stripped away. What’s left are only the exciting bits, designed to keep the action intense and engaging. And even among these, NanoApostle is sure to make a name for itself. The gameplay is top-notch, paired with gritty, dark, yet sleek audiovisuals. Plus, the story is emotional and well-paced.
You definitely won’t regret picking up this game.
| Platform | Price |
|---|---|
| Steam |
$19.99 |
| Nintendo eShop |
$19.99 |
NanoApostle FAQ
Can you customize your character’s appearance in NanoApostle?
Unfortunately, you can’t. You’re stuck with the rags on your back throughout the game.
How many bosses are there in NanoApostle?
There are six main bosses to beat in the story.
Game8 Reviews
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NanoApostle Product Information
 |
|
| Title | NanoApostle |
|---|---|
| Release Date | September 12, 2024 |
| Developer | 18Light Game Ltd. |
| Publisher | PQube |
| Supported Platforms | PC, Nintendo Switch |
| Genre | Action RPG, Bullet Hell, Hack and Slash, Soulslike |
| Number of Players | Single Player |
| ESRB Rating | Teen |
| Official Website | NanoApostle Website |
