It can get exhilirating at times but I just wished platinum ranks where harder to get, because there was many time I got them on my first try and I wouldn't have any more reason to get back to the level, even considering the ranking system.

Maybe the level rush mode will make me feel better about the game, but for now I found it a tad bit uninteresting despite having really fun mechanics.

Also is it just my laptop or is the opening cutscene not in HD?

Neon White is a game built entirely around instinct. Each level of parkour and obstacles is designed in such a way that the player never hesistates. Every split second decision is made by pure instinct, making for a game that is equal parts tough and rewarding as well relaxing.

The zen line flow of the missions keep the repetitive soundtrack and environments from ever being a problem, just because the gameplay is so good. Neon White is a must play for anyone who enjoys fast paced video games. It's a little bit Meat Boy, a little bit anime, a little bit Mirror's Edge. And everything just works. Sure, the story is dumb and voices are overacted and irritating, mainly the shrill Violet, but it's a good type of campy dumb 2000s webcomic era edge. I loved Neon White and its probably my 2022 GOTY. Sadly it took me 8 months to actually come back and finish the last three sets of levels, so I couldnt vote for it on Backloggd...

God this game slaps so hard.

It was actually pretty difficult for me to decide what rating to give this game. I was stuck between a 9 and a 10 for quite some time. There were a few problems had with the game, so for a while, I just couldn't see myself giving it a perfect 10. However, by the time I finished the game, I ultimately decided that if I did give the game a 9, it would be so close to a 10 that the difference wouldn't even matter. So yeah, I give it a 10, as it rightfully deserves.

The gameplay is nothing short of superb. I'm not much of a speedrunner myself, but god do I love things that go really really fast. And that is what this game excels at. Every single time I mastered a level and glided through it to get that Ace ranking, I felt my blood pumping and dopamine pouring into my skull. It created a perfect feedback loop that I hadn't felt with a game in a while. It is so god damn good!

And on top of the main gameplay, I couldn't get enough of gift collecting. I loved collecting the gifts so much! They force you to look at the level in a completely different way; instead of just blazing through everything as fast as you can, you have to conserve your resources and/or look for a unique way around the level you hadn't thought of before. It works so well that they might be my favorite collectibles in video games.
Though its important to note that there are some BS gifts that I find just uninteresting at best, and downright unfair at worst. All of these are located in, I believe mission 8, where you first unlock the rocket launcher. Do to the huge amount of versatility the rocket launchers provide, the gifts have to be hidden in hard to reach areas to compensate. Unfortunately, this results in the gifts either being located so far away that the player can't even see them, or in a weirdly isolated area the player would never think to look. However, this criticism is entirely directed at one chapter in particular, every other chapter's gifts are basically perfect. So while my criticism still stands, it doesn't stand fully in the way of an otherwise phenomenal mechanic.

But now, it's time to address the most controversial aspect of Neon White: its story. A lot of people hate its writing, the characters are often criticized as being cringe and annoying. Plenty of players recommend just skipping the story entirely. I can totally understand this criticism, the characters can come off as embarrassing and cringe; but I strongly disagree with the notion that this is a bad thing. In fact, I'd argue it's one of the main points of the game. The two biggest themes of this game are identity (this is literally why everyone wears a mask, get it?) and forgiveness (for enemies, but more importantly, for yourself). The characters are cringe because they are themselves; free from the shackles of embarrassment and self loathing that restrained them in life. Characters coming to the realization of who they are and how they need to live for themselves, free of the expectations from other people, is a constant repeating arc that every character either goes through, has gone through, or needed to go through but couldn't. The characters being embarrassing losers is important to this, as it emphasizes who they are as people, free from the expectations of others.
And furthermore, I don't think it's fair to refer to the game's writing as cringe when the writers are obviously in on the joke. Like, there's literally a scene where White, the edgy katana wielding anime protagonist, sings the opening to "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" by Smashing Pumpkins, one of the biggest, edgiest songs of all time. Like, come on, none of these characters are meant to be taken seriously outside of their thematic presence. They're there for us to laugh with, not cringe at. Live a little and you'll probably learn to love them! (Though admittedly, I am a weeb, so these character traits were easier for me to deal with personally, as I've seen them plenty of times before.)

With that out of the way, I can say that in my opinion, almost everything about this game is pure perfection. Everything, except for a few levels. Specifically, the boss levels. I just do not care for these. They force the player to run on a direct path against an enemy that controls the entire time and flow of the level, and they just suck. However, just like with the bad gifts, there's so few of them that it doesn't really matter too much. 3 or 4 bad levels don't detract from the 96 other great ones.

Overall, Neon White is amazing. I kind of whish I played this game earlier. If I did, it would have likely been my GOTY for 2022. It hits all the things I really like in video games, especially when it comes to my love of things that go really fast. This game slaps so hard and you should definitely play it if you haven't already.

I have been intrigued by Neon White's existence for quite a while since I've heard it was one of the best games of 2022. After sitting down and playing through the whole game, it genuinely was one of the greatest games to come out of 2022. Mainly for its fantastic gameplay because I love the speedunning nature that Neon White provides. Each level, including the side quests, are genuinely super fun to blast through for best times. The soundtrack is awesome as well. The only downside to the game would probably be its corny narrative and characterization. The best way for me to describe it would be what if you blended your basic anime tropes with modern internet meme culture. I remember a line with Yellow saying something about John Cena or whenever you finish a level White will sometimes say, "No scoped it". Kinda corny and cringe, but I think that aspect somewhat gives Neon White some charm if that makes any sense. So yeah, fun addictive gameplay, an amazing soundtrack, and questionably cringe dialogue. Definitely one of the most games ever.

Neon White es un juego que junta numerosos géneros al mismo tiempo y de forma increíble los hace funcionar a todos como la seda; cartas, plataformeo, FPS, Dating Sim...

Su objetivo principal es hacer niveles cortos pero pulidos al máximo, con música cañera y un gameplay especial, en el que encadenar una acción tras otra se siente como un baile medido al milímetro, especialmente en los últimos compases del juego. El diseño de nivel, por ello, es maestral, da distintas formas de superar los niveles, tiene una curva de dificultad perfecta e incluso los pocos bosses del juego se sienten orgánicos.

La música del mismo modo es adecuada a los niveles, aunque hay algunos en los que... bueno, se siente un poco "goofy", es como que la compositora quiso hacerlo tan único... que peca de extraña, aunque la mayoría de temas son excelentes. Además, no se hace repetitiva, cosa a valorar teniendo en cuenta que los niveles son altamente rejugables, e invitan a maximizar tus tiempos y a sacar las medallas de más alta exigencia.

Más allá de ello, el Dating Sim no es la gran cosa, lo mejor que tiene son las misiones secundarias de los personajes, pero bajo mi prisma las conversaciones, tanto de la historia como las de las secundarias son... Cutres, diálogos que intentan ser para gente joven... Y acaban dando un poco de cringe. La historia como concepto no es mala, pero la ejecución es un poco rara, los gatos como ángeles se sienten forzados... Simplemente interesa más centrarse en el gameplay y no hacer mucho caso en ciertos puntos.

Por lo general, un juego excelente para superarte a ti mismo y sentir como mejoras cada vez que repites las cosas.

The First-person shooter genre is not one I gravitate towards. I never cared about Halo, Killzone, Battlefield, or Call of Duty. I played COD Black Ops II at a friend’s birthday, but it did not click with me. Neon White is an exception because the game looks different from your standard FPS. However, after getting to the final level of Episode 5, my opinion on FPS still has not changed.

Neon White is an FPS where they encourage you to speedrun it. You grab cards that act as gun ammo and use different abilities. The yellow card elevates you, the green card allows you to stomp, the purple card shoots a bomb, etc. Discarding them allows you to activate the abilities and that is a cool gameplay mechanic. What I dislike is how you can overshoot yourself with some of them.

There is a red card in Episode 5 where you can shoot yourself in whatever angle you move your reticle. I overshot myself numerous times and ended up missing the demons I needed to kill or falling straight to my death. At least, the levels are short, so it was not too frustrating. However, this game turns you into a perfectionist.

You need to get gold medal rankings if you want to increase your rank to continue the story. Silver and bronze medals do not increase your rank; only gold and ace medals do. You are encouraged to replay levels again and again to get those better medals. When I reached the final level of Episode 5, I needed three more ranks to proceed to Episode 6. I did not want to replay three levels to get three gold medals. I just gave up right there.

One aspect of the game that is the point of contention for many is the writing. The voice acting was really good, but I hate the dialogue. After Episode 2, I just pressed the “Y” button to fast forward. The dialogue is cringe and barely funny. I may have chuckled here and there, but that is about it. I could not stand the dialogue.

Neon White could have been the game to make me a fan of First-Person Shooters. It looks different from your average FPS, but this game can turn you into a perfectionist and that can be frustrating. You need gold medals to increase your ranks, so if you are bad at the game, you are not going to make much progress. The dialogue is also cringe and that could ruin the game for you. It pains me to drop this game, but this game is not winning me over to the FPS genre.

Incredibly unique and high octane FPS platforming gameplay that doesn't just incentivize but begs you to speedrun the many expertly crafted levels. But my god did they phone it in with everything else. Making heaven a sort of cultish country club run by and for self-absorbed sadistic angels is quite entertaining, however the story and character banter are so shallow and cringeworthy respectively. The main cast don't develop beyond being Scott Pilgrim character templates. In the end, please make more original levels thanks :)

This was one of my most anticipated games of the year and I really enjoyed it; the art direction is great, the music is fuckin' bangin' (check out the OST on spotify) and the gameplay is fast and intense, you always gotta be on your A Game, especially when you wanna get the presents for the social link aspect (very much like Persona/FE except they also give you bonus levels to play) and the boss fights.

I do however have some issues with this game, the story is very generic and I know it's tongue in cheek but it comes off really cringy at points, like when they reference John Cena and fucking Naruto. Also the finally boss really frustrated me cuz every time I died, I had to redo the entire fight, and there's parts where you just can't damage him at all and you have to pray you don't die or else you can repeat it again for the 4th time.

Overall I do really like this game and recommend it but if you're lookin' for a good narrative, this ain't it but gameplay and music wise, in for a treat!

An incredible first person shooter. It's focus on speed and precision makes it addicting to play and try your best to shave milliseconds off of your time and find better routes through these intricate levels.

The aesthetics are so lovely, the ultra clean presentation of the environments makes the demons and cards you collect stand out very clearly and give the heaven you fight through an almost sterile quality. The music is also incredible, just good beats to keep you going at a good pace.

It's one of the few games I ever decided to do speedruns in, and that's a genuine accomplishment for a game to do that for me. It just vibes perfectly with my brain.

The characters and story are nice and good motivation to push you forward, but nothing to write home about.

The only complaints I really have is that the gyro implementation on switch is a bit buggy and could use some work, but it was good enough for me to be able to playthrough to the end and get in the top 10 on most of the leaderboards when it first came out.