Nitro Express

Metal Slug by way of alt-Tokyo

Nitro Express, released 18 May 2025 by developer Grayfax Software and publisher PLAYISM, wears its influences openly. It is a 2D side-view run-and-gun in which, according to its own store description, "cute pixel-art girls shoot assault weapons with 360-degree free aiming in the streets of Japan," a premise that immediately invites comparisons to Metal Slug, and the review sample makes those comparisons constantly and favourably. One reviewer describes the overall vibe as "the game feels like finding a random 10-episode anime made by studio Trigger back in 2012 and that stuff is the bomb," while another, more measured comparison notes it evokes "Metal Slug vibes meets Gunsmith Cats attitude, but with a modern hub, unlock grind, and 360-degree stick-flick aiming." The art direction is consistently the single most-praised element across the entire review sample, described variously as "gorgeous," "charming," and full of "pixelated charm and personality."

Beyond presentation, reviewers who click with the game's mechanics describe a genuinely thoughtful design underneath the throwback aesthetic. One reviewer with substantial playtime frames it as "a methodical game, where proper control, positioning and choice of weapon is the key over trying to run through with guns blazing," praising how the game's persistent weapon-unlock system, funded by money earned through story and mission play, gives runs a sense of build progression rather than pure reflex-testing. Another reviewer draws a more niche but telling comparison, positioning it within "a subgenre of run and gun you might call '2D Mecha,'" citing Cybernator and Assault Suits Leynos as genre touchstones, and arguing that players who understand that lineage's slower, more deliberate aiming style will find Nitro Express clicks rather than frustrates.

A frame-rate cap that reviewers cannot get past

Despite that goodwill toward the art and underlying systems, the review sample converges overwhelmingly on one specific, largely unavoidable technical complaint: Nitro Express is locked to 30 frames per second, and reviewers report this single decision does substantial damage to how the combat actually feels to play. One reviewer states plainly the frame-rate lock "makes the gameplay really choppy, the aiming is not that smooth either," while a more detailed negative review argues the 30fps cap combines with "incredibly slow gun reloading" and enemy attacks that "can knock you down for several seconds" to make combat "generally feeling pretty bad and not fun." A third reviewer, who says they had followed the game's development for years and was excited for release, describes the actual experience as "miserable to play at the moment," specifically citing how the frame cap "can make precise dodging frustrating" when combined with "choppy, slowed down aiming" and an aggressively fast camera-snap when aiming toward screen edges.

Several reviewers report attempting workarounds, with one specifically trying third-party frame-generation software: "Even having 'Lossless Scaling' (a tool on steam) to upscale and frame gen this game to 60 frames or higher... The experience is still jarring." That a meaningful share of the negative-review sample independently reached for the same external fix speaks to how central this single technical decision is to the game's reception problems, and how little control individual players otherwise have over it from within the game's own settings.

No remapping, and a screen that gets too busy to read

The second major, heavily corroborated complaint concerns control customisation, or the lack of it. One reviewer, attempting to play on Steam Deck, reports the game has "two fatal flaws," the first being that "you cannot remap controls at all," describing the default gamepad scheme as "quite frankly terrible" even after adjusting analog stick sensitivity, and states outright "M+KB is REQUIRED" to have a reasonable experience. That complaint is echoed by multiple other reviewers independently, one simply advising "please save ur money" over the combination of a frame-rate lock and unresponsive-feeling default controls, a pointed recommendation given the visual and conceptual goodwill those same reviewers otherwise extend toward the game.

A related, separately corroborated complaint concerns visual clarity during combat itself. Several reviewers describe firefights becoming so visually cluttered with explosions, effects, and enemy sprites that incoming attacks become genuinely difficult to track, with one writing bluntly that the game "throws swarms of enemies at you, to the point that it can be pretty unreadable, making it easy to often not see enemy bullets headed at you," and another separately noting "the saturation and brightness is the same for everything, so it's easy to miss enemies and bullets." Combined with the frame-rate cap, this cluster of complaints paints a consistent picture of a game whose core combat loop, however smart in concept, frequently asks more of players' pattern-recognition than its own visual presentation and performance profile can reliably support.

Verdict

Nitro Express is a genuinely difficult game to summarise cleanly, because its strongest and weakest qualities sit directly on top of one another rather than in separate, easily weighed compartments. Its art direction, weapon-unlock progression, and aiming concept earn real, specific praise from reviewers who clearly wanted to love it, and several who ultimately can't recommend it still take care to note the underlying ideas are sound. But the frame-rate lock and total absence of control remapping are corroborated across a large enough share of the negative sample, including from players who otherwise liked what they saw, that they read as structural problems rather than a matter of taste. Anyone drawn to its Metal Slug-inspired premise should go in aware that the default experience, particularly on gamepad or Steam Deck, may fight back harder than its enemies do.