Many games ride on a flow, a sense of progression and control that feels natural and conducive to the game’s environment. P.N.03 is a game which depends on such, but it also forces it out there in such a way that I fear most will not see it for what it truly is. The game first appears as a typical action game, an idea not supported by the method with which the lovely Vanessa controls and will outright contradict how most will expect her to react. She resides on a flow that must be found by the player, and once grasped she becomes an unstoppable force that cannot be touched but if forced will little more then die as the game goes on.

Vanessa first comes across as unnaturally stiff and unresponsive as her movement and attacking are built up of completely separate moves that are strung together. Freeform playing as a whole does not work here since our heroine cannot initially fire while in motion nor does her movement work like one would expect. Strafing is composed of two animation cycles; one is a pirouette that can be followed by the second, a flip. Activating the side twirl robs one of the ability to do anything else at the time while giving a new position and the ability to dodge laser blasts if timed right. From there she can continue into the second strafe motion, fire, jump, duck, or strafing back but no combinations of any of the above. It’s a rigid move-to-move progression that at first feels like she’s just unresponsive and slow but learning how she works turns her into an elegant fighter that dances her way through danger.

This is a game with an old-school style of thought in that it is built on patterns that must be learned or else the character will do nothing but die. The selection of enemies is not very diverse and each depends on a set pattern based on the circumstances. Because it’s so set in stone one would think it to be overly easy and when going against small numbers it really is when your goal is nothing but survival, yet there’s far more to it then that. In order to get more powerful new suits can be purchased and built up in between missions with any cash earned during then or in training. Simply running through picking off enemies won’t earn a lot of money, much like the patterns needed to kill the enemies the order in which they die needs to be felt out. Every enemy gives off a set amount of time when killed that tells how long until the combo dies, which is how long Vanessa has to kill the next mechanized creation. If all enemies in a room are destroyed in one long chain then a bonus based on the difficulty of the enemies is multiplied by how many total were destroyed, with another bonus given if no hits were taken. This is what means the difference between leaving a level with 1,000 credits and 50,000 credits, and the prices on some of those suits and what’s needed to power them up is so astronomical that the former amount just won’t do.

One nice thing about all of Vanessa’s many suits is that they provide color, something in very stark contrast to the rest of the game. P.N.03 is always either in the desert or in a white steel futuristic structure, both having essential a single color as far as the eye can see. Not counting laser beams and Vanessa’s outfits the game gives off a very drab color scheme on many similar looking rooms, although there is a reason for such that works in gameplay. Every new mission also comes with a set of five training levels, each one progressively harder then the last and giving larger increments of cash for completing. The training levels are composed of randomized layouts, built up from the sectional look-alike pieces of the regular missions and also signify one of the few times random dungeons didn’t annoy the hell out of me. Would it have been nice to have something different here and there and change the scenery? Sure, but I’d be lying if I said it bugged me.

There’s the chance that the environments won’t bother most as the regular mission-to-mission portion of the game isn’t very long; if one wanted only to beat it they could so in a weekend. However, to see all there is and obtain everything means beating it multiple times and completing all the training levels, which basically equates to quintupling the playtime of the game. A daunting task at times, but I rather enjoy the extra incentive to beat everything. Considering the focus on score and perfection having the main portion of the game overly long would just be an annoyance and I’m glad they took the route they did. Padding the game in unnecessary ways would have only hurt it and the training missions provide all the extra levels one could possibly want.

Something I forgot about - something you’re supposed to forget about if it works perfectly - is that the camera is a beautiful thing. The rigid game design also helped the camera as rarely is any shot needed besides the default one; I had forgotten the game even had manual camera control because it worked so well by itself. This is especially nice considering that as time has gone on we seem to be getting crappier cameras in action games instead of better ones, like our most recent offender from the same company with Megaman X7. There are occasional areas where you’ll need to tap the C-stick when you enter otherwise Vanessa’s head will be head in the way when you walk in, but that’s needed for all of one or two room setups in the entire game and are easily worked around anyway.

I certainly hope that anyone who buys this game will actually give it a chance, instead of immediately damning it because of the control response or setup. It is not meant to be played like Devil May Cry or the like, it moves at its own pace that must be learned and once you do it becomes very rewarding. P.N.03 is an extremely rhythmic action game that takes a chance at doing something different and succeeds. If you’re in the mood for some old-fashioned pattern-based gameplay that survives on timing and planning far more then twitch then I know a certain rump-shaker that demands your attention.

· · · MechDeus