The Metroid-Vania style continues to be one of the most prolific gaming genres—a style known for well-paced action and a hefty dose of nostalgia. B.I.O.T.A successfully delivers on these tropes, and while it doesn’t do anything groundbreaking, it’s a welcome, sufficiently unique entry.

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Undoubtedly, B.I.O.T.A’s most striking feature is its visuals. Evocative of the 8-bit, dot-matrix style graphics of the original Gameboy and fused with the essentialized color pallet of the NES, the game’s graphics are earnestly rendered for maximal nostalgic effect. I often look back at old games and find myself amazed with the level of detail artists could glean out of the most basic of hardware, and this game elicits the same feeling.

With only a few different shades of the primary and secondary colors and a rough approximation of scale and dimension, B.I.O.T.A convincingly conveys depth, shadow, and lighting, and it’s great to see such detailed work actualized with such spartan graphics. While I did appreciate the graphics from an aesthetic point of view, I find them to be a bit busy at times; however, on occasion, it was difficult to see what I was doing — to distinguish platform from setting or enemy from geometry. For the most part, though, things went smoothly. I was impressed more than I was frustrated. It’s also worth noting that you can change the way the colors render and add CRT effects, and playing around with these settings can help the game look a little less confusing.

The game has three separate modalities of play: story, arcade, and time trial. Naturally, the story mode is the main event: a fairly standard tale following a group of mercenaries that face a biological threat. B.I.O.T.A offers several different characters to choose from, each offering their unique weapons and abilities, and each is an affectionate tribute to the personalities seen in your classic 1980s action movies.

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Despite its paper-thin narrative and a relatively standard script, I appreciated the effort that had gone into realizing at least some semblance of a story. The game had a classic, 8-bit cutscene opening that was really well done, and the narrative frame itself did help to solidify the game within a cohesive world beyond just running and shooting on an alien planet. As such, the game's world somehow gives off the air of being a longstanding series from the era.

Gameplay-wise, things are solid. The controls are unsurprisingly reminiscent of the original Metroid, but with mod cons like the wall jump that modernize the gameplay. Shooting is tight and satisfying, and I had a lot of fun trying out each weapon; more often than not, different weapons barely function differently, but here, each necessitated a unique approach to the game's level. In this sense, it added an extra layer of replayability, as playing through the story as one character was quite different from playing through as another.

There are even several vehicle sections that were all great fun and that I won’t spoil; they were welcome additions to the standard Metroid-Vania gameplay loop.

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One of my main gripes with Metroid Vania’s is that their worlds can be confusing to navigate. Sometimes, the map design is overcomplicated: a labyrinth of corridors and mazes that become laborious in lieu of the third dimension. Thankfully, B.I.O.T.A doesn’t have this problem.

Not only are the game’s levels well designed and easy to follow, the ability to teleport to the surface, whereby you can replenish your health and change characters on the fly, is an extremely useful feature. Each level even has its own dedicated teleportation system to get you back to the start. It takes the panic out of getting lost in a cave somewhere, unable to retrace your steps, and allows the player to avoid the associated excessive backtracking.

The game also explicitly clarifies when you possess the item you need to progress. Gone is the fumbling ambiguity of collecting something and not having a clue what to do with it or how to use it.

Its quality of life features like those detailed above make B.I.O.T.A a joy to play; it takes the guesswork out of the Metroid-Vania without spoiling the intrigue, allowing the player to just get on with progressing and enjoying the game.

Special attention should be given to the soundtrack — a wonderfully produced chip-tune overture with a running theme and a unique style. In a similar way to the visuals, retro music can be hard to replicate authentically, but the team undoubtedly pulled it off in this case.

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I can’t exactly convey the excellence of the music through a written review, so go have a listen for yourself. It isn’t often I wish to listen to a game soundtrack outside of the game, but the tracks in B.I.O.T.A stand out solidly in their own right.

Ultimately, the main feeling you get from the game — whether through the visuals, gameplay, or music — is that the team truly understood what makes the Metroid-Vania style work. It provides a sufficient dose of nostalgia without being simply more of the same, and it tightens mechanics that can often become tedious with modern amenities.

I mostly only played through the story mode, but the edition of an Arcade and Time Trials is an inclusion I think all games of this style would benefit from. These titles are perfectly tuned for speed runs and high scores, and considering the arcades they bloomed from are long gone, it’s great to see this competitive element alive and well.

True, this is another Metroid-Vania — one that doesn’t conjure anything particularly out-there or avant-garde — but there’s nothing wrong with that. What is here is a faithful, action-packed blast through a series of satisfying levels and cool bosses, and really, that’s all I need from these sorts of games.

Linden Garcia (@garcia_linden)
Editor, NoobFeed

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