Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Highly addictive"

Fireworks are fun. They are flashy and mesmerizing, and they are set off to celebrate such holidays and events as New Year's or Independence Day. They're even used to defeat enemies. Well, maybe not in reality, but you'll definately be launching fireworks to save your life in Big Bang Mini.

Shooters on the DS are a dime a dozen, but Big Bang Mini isn't your average shooter. For starters, you launch fireworkers by stroking the stylus in the direction you want to fire. You'll want to aim carefully, because if your fireworks miss, they detonate in the upper screen and rain down debris into your lower screen. Your ship remains stationary until you actually drag it with the stylus. In order to clear a level, you have a meter on the left that needs to be filled up, and you do so by collecting stars distributed by defeated enemies. As things heat up, you'll find yourself overwhelmed at times by trying to defeat enemies, dodge their bullets and the bullets coming back to you from you missed shots, and collecting stars before they fall off the screen.

Big Bang Mini starts out with just one mode, understandably the Tutorial. Finish that mode and you're ready to play the Arcade Mode. In Arcade, you have nine worlds broken up into nine levels with a boss level at the end of each world. As you progress throughout the game, you'll be given upgrades that you can use to assist you in battle. Such upgrades include homing missles and devastating ricocheting fireballs. Some worlds also have exclusive upgrades such as creating a vortex to absorb enemy bullets, and being able to free time. Also, there is a bonus zone at the end of each level that has you connecting dots to form a constellation, and each world has you doing something different in each bonus zone.

Other modes unlock as you move forward through arcade. You'll get a challenge mode, which is a non stop onslaught of cascading enemies that you can shoot down to tally up a score that you can submit to a leaderboard via Wi-Fi. You'll get a mode called Relax, which is a very passive mode that just displays fireworks, or lets you shoot them at your leisure with no enemies to worry about. There's a versus mode that will work with one DS card, and a Mission Mode that has you meeting certain criteria in order to pass levels. There's even one more mode after that which you can only unlock after finishing Mission Mode.

Visually, this game's beautiful. It has a unique style, and at times it can be brimming with colorful effects. Neon bullets, explosions, beams. It's an assault on the senses. The enemy designs are also terrific bringing with them their own sense of charm. It's such a quirky, zany game that you just can't help looking at it.

Big Bang Mini is also accompanied with a great soundtrack. The music is catchy and can get in your head, especially in some of the later worlds like Rio De Jenairo, where you're actually encouraged to shoot based on the rhythm of the beat. The sound effects are arcady, even much more so when the random retro stage surprises you, and the final boss stage of the game has a wonderful melody of several arranges of well known pieces.

Big Bang Mini is an outstanding game. It's got that perfect pick and play feel to it. It's simple to learn, yet difficult to master. You can play it in short bursts, or become addicted to it for hours at a time. It has a great style and has interesting gameplay, and the best part of the game is that it's only 19.99, yet doesn't feel like a budget title. It's definately going to be an overlooked title in the DS's ever-growing library, so do yourself a favor and don't overlook Big Bang Mini.