Whilst the idea of using pretty fireworks in a game may not be entirely new (Fantavision and Eye-Toy Fireworks on the PS2 to name but two), Big Bang Mini is the first fireworks-inspired shoot’em up I’ve played. At its core, BBM is an undeniably pretty, fast-paced shoot ‘em up and uses the DS’s unique dual screens and stylus to their limits - and beyond. You control a ball-shaped ship and fire your shots from the bottom touch screen to try and hit and blow up a cavalcade of bizarre targets on the top screen. As you play various objects drop down to the bottom screen and can either just distract you or damage your ship, so things soon get hectic as you have to fire your shots with quick flicks of the stylus and also move your ship to dodge falling objects with lightning fast reflexes – a relaxing game Big Bang Mini ain’t.
As you shoot stuff you need to collect stars that drop from the destroyed objects, these fill the Star Meter up and when full, this completes the stage. Bonus zones in which you have to guide your ship over the numbered dots in the right order to launch a beautiful fireworks display. At the end of each of 10 stages you’ll get an extra-tough boss level to beat before you unlock the next level, in this respect I found BBM rather annoying as too many things seem “locked” at the outset – when will developers learn that gamers hate having everything locked at the start of a game? You have to beat Luxor’s boss to unlock “Challenge” mode (this mode keeps scores), finish all the bonus zones to unlock “Relax”, and beat the entire Arcade mode to unlock Mission mode, you unlock something else when you beat Mission mode but I doubt I’ll ever discover what it is. There’s also a handy tutorial and a single card versus mode.
I started by mentioning Fantavision, and much like that game, once you get over the pretty fireworks there’s not much here to see with nothing but different backdrops and increasingly odd enemies to distinguish the levels. But the real problem is that the gameplay is badly flawed with a steep difficulty curve and repetitious, overdemanding gameplay. On one stage you get a couple of enemies that have a cloud that blocks your shots, and you have to curve guided missiles around the cloud to hit them, meanwhile the side walls are squeezing on to crush you and tons of objects are dropping that you have to avoid! The only thing that could have made this stage more annoying is someone like say, Johnny Vegas flicking you on the forehead and telling you one of his crappy rambling shaggy dog stories while you played it. I don’t think this game opens up its best parts until well beyond the point where most gamers will have given it up as being too hard, because there’s not much here for you unless you get completely addicted, and I don’t think that’s likely. DS games shouldn't be annoying, challenging yes, but not annoying. This pretty little game was spoilt by the fact that it's just too demanding to play.
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