Once the fight starts, the music is a desperate howl with frontier strumming, one final effort that begs to ask whether your fight was worth the pain.Īcross the board, Jukio Kallio's soundtrack hits this perfect note of post-apocalyptic western, heavy riffs settling alongside twangy guitars. The run-up to the Throne itself is a masterclass in scene-setting, a just-too-long walk up a long corridor while pulled strings ring ominously.

You'll often load into a map playing a more sombre piano variation of the level theme, maps feeling eerie when the dust has settled. It's a level of care that grounds this goofy world of mutants and monsters enough that, when it wants to, Nuclear Throne can pull off moments of real melancholy. Rhaäve'sho can be interpreted as 'our lives are hard', while the Nuclear Throne itself is a sharp, choked Fläisum. There's a whole language called Trashtalk for your mutant's guttural screaming-a selection of sounds representing actions, places, and objects.įor example, did you know that at the start of your run your character will often shout 'Fläshyn!', constructed of FL (do) Ä (me/we) SH (this) YN (now), loosely translating to 'Let's do this!'. But there is a truly astounding level of effort put into making this cartoon universe feel coherent and considered.

Yes, Nuclear Throne is a game about being a funky little guy blasting bandits and monsters in a wasteland. Hidden stages, hidden bosses, final endings and a world rooted in a more melancholic tragedy than you'd ever have suspected. But the more you poke and prod, scraping away at those wonderfully destructible walls, the more secrets you find. It's a deceptively simple game on the surface-shoot gun, mutate, don't die, kill god's chair, easy as. Horror will only show up if you avoid those tantalising rad canisters scattered about each stage.Īnd that's really the thing about Nuclear Throne. There are no levelling thresholds or unlocks-and while early characters are unlocked just for reaching certain stages or beating the game, you need to get creative to find others.

Unlocking these characters at all is also refreshingly old school in its strangeness. Rogue is on the run from her former extradimensional cop buds, and will be accosted by them from the offset-a small price to pay for being able to summon in devastating airstrikes at will. YV is a floating triangle from Venus, and you're guaranteed to crash his pad on reaching level 10 to pick from a literal pile of guns, while simple ol' Fish will always get a guitar on reaching Throne 2. They each have their own quirks, usually in abilities, but often in how the world responds to their presence. Nuclear Throne's characters are a wonderfully screwed up band of freaks, mutant fish and living crystals, and rebel bandits who turn their flesh into smaller, friendly bandits. Better health and ammo drops, shotgun shells that bounce further, crossbow bolts with aim assist, halos to grant you a second chance, each framed as another gross little mutation bursting out of your messed up little guy. Rather than synergising into weird and wonderful combos, 'mutations' tend to benefit stuff you're already doing.

Crowns nuclear throne together