With its spectacular visuals and hardened veteran-style scoring system, Nanostray won over the scrolling shooter crowd on the DS upon its release. The lackluster touch screen implementation aside, Majesco’s original title was otherwise a success. Nanostray 2 fixes the control problems and delivers more of everything to make it a compelling and varied shooter experience.

Carrying over the gorgeous graphics of the original, Nanostray 2 doesn’t wait to make an impression. A pounding soundtrack delivers some intensity to the action, and the texture work is superb for the hardware. Enemy bullets are easy to see on the small screen, making each death a fair one.

For some, the overwhelming difficulty may take its toll. Nanostray 2 is both longer and harder than its predecessor. While not on the level of “bullet hell” shooters, the limited room to maneuver and oversized enemy fire provides a fair yet tough selection of levels.

The story mode delivers a wealth of stages, each bringing a variety of locales. The addition of horizontal scrolling stages is an excellent way to both make the game feel fresh and keep down the repetition. Levels tend to put too much stock in environmental hazards at times, and it’s not always clear if you can touch something or not until death happens.

Customization options go well beyond selecting one of the six secondary weapons. Two pods are earned near the beginning of each level. These can take three positions around your ship for extra firing power. However, the key here is that they can be set in thousands of different formations with an easy to use system that allow for intricate set ups. Swapping between the three chosen formations is simply a matter of using the triggers.

While Nintendo Wi-Fi is on the box, it’s leaderboards only. Multi-player comes in both single and double card play, though the single option is only the lackluster Duel mode where players compete for points on a single screen. Having two cards allows for a play through of the adventure mode cooperatively.

Nanostray 2 stands a top a sadly limited selection of shooters for the DS. It’s a notable improvement over the first game, and thankfully, Majesco listened by eliminating the touch screen controls completely. Unless you’re simply not a genre fan, Nanostray 2 ranks amongst the DS non-first party elite.

Nanostray 2 is rated E (Everyone) by the ESRB for Fantasy Violence.