Hold Right to Move

So I was watching my housemate play Nier the other day, and I was surprised to find the manly Square Enix game had a plethora of 2D game modes, much akin to the scrollers or vertical shooters. One Level especially got to me, it took place in an underground bunker, it was full of robots and what not doing their "I'm going to kill you" business, while watching my housemate skilfully dispatch these bots she hopped onto a mine cart triggering a top down view and the game proceeded to play like a virtual shooter, even the projectiles enemies shoot are so simple looking that you swear that you've entered a weird amalgamation of an adventure game and Ikaruga.

"The only damn screenshot I could find of 2d nier"

While that did surprise me then, in hindsight it's not that odd, developers have started to really take a liking towards 2d scrollers once again. With the dawn of networks like Xbox Live Arcade and PSN, smaller developers have used the size limit to create truly inspiring side scrollers, even larger companies have used this to their advantage, such as the Retro 2D Megaman 9 and 10 games and the upcoming Sonic 4, even Lara Croft is taking a step towards the world of side scrollers.

"Old Nu skool?"

In a world where gaming has gotten awfully complicated and complex (looking at you heavy rain) it's no wonder that they would return to a more simplified state, though I suspect that it really is just a phase the industry is going through much like that cool hat you use to wear with Megaman 10, despite being quite good, has begun to make gamers clamour for a departure from the retro world. Which I hope results in Megaman Legends 3, which I need...BAD!