If you're looking for an 8-bit nostalgia ride, Dark Void Zero is a game for you.
For something that was advertised as a lost NES game, Zero fits the bill pretty well. From upbeat to really fast paced chiptune music in the blink of a boss fight. The graphics are also an impressive mockup of the old NES days with the game being delivered all in 8 bit glory, even the cutscenes. Zero also has a rather short campaign featuring 3 different levels in which you go around as a jetpack wielding hero named Rusty that saves the world by stopping the watchers from opening a portal to Earth. While most of the game is a simple get from point A to point B so you can destroy objective C the game throws enough at you to make sure it isn't as easy as it sounds. Zero has plenty of traps, enemy spawns, and instant death obstacles to keep anyone on their toes. As well, each level also has a special side mission that you can complete as well as finding each level's 100 tech orbs and 1ups. Many of these tech orbs and 1ups are hard to find if you just go for the objective so exploring is a necessity if you want to complete Zero 100%.
Zero does have a few problems however and one of them being controls. While moving around is tight and responsive on either land or air, shooting while moving isn't. Once shooting comes into play the game starts to feel stiff and hard to maneuver because your gun locks into the position your pushing for direction; which means if you're moving up with the jetpack you're also shooting up, moving right, shooting right, and so on. This often leads to a lot of missed shoots when really you were just trying to move out of the way of enemy fire. It certainly isn't a deal breaker by any means, but this kind of input for shooting leads to a lot of annoyances throughout the game. As well, all the bosses for each level are simply the same boss over and over again, but become harder each time; while this isn't much of a problem it is rather disappointing.
Final Thoughts: Dark Void Zero really shouldn't be as good as it is, but for what it is, a small venture through a couple of levels for a few bucks, it works. While the controls can often be stiff and the game itself short; it still works well to capture the rough and tumble days of NES gaming with its wonderful chiptune music, graphics, and challenging gameplay.