Developer Arkedo Studio got off to a rough start in their career with Nervous Brickdown – the game scored well enough but nobody really played it (except in Japan). With their sophomore effort, Big Bang Mini, Arkedo is hoping to get more support from publisher SouthPeak Interactive than it did Eidos, says CEO Camille Guermonprez. He believes Big Bang Mini will appeal to more than just the casual DS crowd and stand on its own merits as a hardcore shooter.

Shooter? Fireworks? It makes sense in practices, trust me. In arcade mode, you appear as a little ship on the lower screen. You shoot fireworks at targets floating around in the upper screen. Hit the target, and a star-shaped power-up will drop. Miss and the firework will explode, raining down fiery projectiles that your ship has to dodge. You need to collect as many power-ups as you can to fill a gauge on the left hand side of the lower screen in order to get to the next level.

There are two dominant strategies for getting through arcade mode – a careful target-and-shoot approach and the all-out firework blitz. Target-and-shoot takes way longer and leaves more opportunities for the targets in later levels to hit you with their own projectiles that they drop into the lower screen. The blitz creates even more havoc down below as the bounce-back from the exploding fireworks will kill you as easily as it kills the targets you’re trying to hit.

In total, there are 90 levels in the whole game – 10 per world, 10 boss fights total. The worlds range in theme from Hong Kong to underwater; completing each grants you a special tactic such as a whirlwind that sucks in enemy projectiles, a charged-shot firework, or a homing missile firework. The design for each world is pretty detailed – even the music creates a distinct sense of atmosphere (I particularly liked the Paris rooftop level). And bosses like the Mohawk-sporting walrus or the secret last boss? I haven’t seen stuff that funky since Ren & Stimpy’s Powdered Toast Man.