6PMinHell
BACKER
115 Reviews liked by 6PMinHell
Ridge Racer Type 4
1998
This is just so slickly presented, so focused and perfectly lean. The handling is like coasting through a dream, every drift and turn feeling like you're entering a zen state when you perfect a track and hit those perfect slides. The music, the endless summertime vibes this hits on oh so wonderfully. That opening FMV that had me spellbound within its vibes.
Each track with the perfect kind of coastal dreamlike hypnotic sense of wonder, each car feeling distinct to drive and fun to master. The type of game that you throw on when all you wanna do is fuckin vibe and lose yourself in pure 1999 circuit racing bliss.
The stories while light keep your attention through each GP and provide a nice bit of sentimentality between each race. Everything about this game appeals to me in such a hyper specific way. None of the other Ridge Racer games that I've tried or played have hit for me quite like this game does. It hits everything it does in a way that no other arcade racer ever has. I realize now that I've been looking for this game my entire life and I'm so happy that I've finally played it. Namco really couldn't lose in the 90's. Making 2 of my favorite games ever (Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere my beloved....) absolute fuckin peak.
Each track with the perfect kind of coastal dreamlike hypnotic sense of wonder, each car feeling distinct to drive and fun to master. The type of game that you throw on when all you wanna do is fuckin vibe and lose yourself in pure 1999 circuit racing bliss.
The stories while light keep your attention through each GP and provide a nice bit of sentimentality between each race. Everything about this game appeals to me in such a hyper specific way. None of the other Ridge Racer games that I've tried or played have hit for me quite like this game does. It hits everything it does in a way that no other arcade racer ever has. I realize now that I've been looking for this game my entire life and I'm so happy that I've finally played it. Namco really couldn't lose in the 90's. Making 2 of my favorite games ever (Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere my beloved....) absolute fuckin peak.
Ridge Racer Type 4
1998
Audiovisual psychosis. The screaming engines, shredding rubber, vibra-industrial heartbeat, bind souls to the metropolitan bloodstream. Mandatory literature for sound designers.
Ridge Racer Type 4
1998
racing games' The Bouncer, and i mean that as the highest praise possible. cannot really bring anything more to the table that the excellent reviews by squigglydot, kingbancho, and letshugbro have not already discussed but god damn i completely adored this game. aesthetics, vibes...all of it is off the god damn charts and hits my aesthetic sensibilities dead-on.
this simple but deceptively taxing game of knowing when to push your machine and when to let go to handle unforgiving corners on your way to the front of the pack has a mood and vibe that leaves modern multi-million dollar productions hopelessly in the dust. y2k optimism in it's purest form, trusting the machine to take you where you need to go but never letting it control you.
few games have better endings than this. on a track where the assumptions you have built up will fail you time and time again, in the closing minutes of the 20th century, how do you survive? by slamming your foot down on the accelerator and never letting go, never looking back, until the years become blurred around you, until 1999 is nothing but a distant speck in the rear view mirror, and you reach the future before it arrives.
a masterpiece.
this simple but deceptively taxing game of knowing when to push your machine and when to let go to handle unforgiving corners on your way to the front of the pack has a mood and vibe that leaves modern multi-million dollar productions hopelessly in the dust. y2k optimism in it's purest form, trusting the machine to take you where you need to go but never letting it control you.
few games have better endings than this. on a track where the assumptions you have built up will fail you time and time again, in the closing minutes of the 20th century, how do you survive? by slamming your foot down on the accelerator and never letting go, never looking back, until the years become blurred around you, until 1999 is nothing but a distant speck in the rear view mirror, and you reach the future before it arrives.
a masterpiece.
Ridge Racer Type 4
1998
(recommended by clownswords on this list. i remembered!)
reigning champ and apotheosis of the ridge racer formula, type 4 finds namco on much more confident ground when compared to the shaky foundation rage racer built. a lot of rage racer's aesthetic musings - the idealization and veneration of wheelmen, the sleekness of these machines, the grunge and beauty of asphalt and cobblestone - have all essentially been given a facelift, no longer resembling a gloomy concrete jungle but instead coming across as suggestive, painterly, and sometimes ghostly. like many games of its kind, its romantic, but instead of invoking the arcade palette of saturated hues or gleaming vistas, this game is adorned with earthier tones that really strongly compliment its otherwise exuberant and kinetic approach to racing ('out of blue' is a particular fave of mine - cruising through a picturesque port town during a misty morning). personally i sensed a lot of overlap with ace combat 3 - obviously both works' existence as namco projects goes without saying but relating to their fidelity, they both have similarly moody approaches to lighting that really become apparent as you speed down highways at night that are pockmarked by pale green lights and transition into tunnels that explode with hazy amber. to say little of that incredible soundtrack shared between both titles! electrosphere with its comparatively cold electronic soundtrack has its antithesis in type 4, with polished evocative tracks that go down like smooth scotch (although 'motor species' is actually just a dead fucking ringer for some ace combat 3 tracks, which makes sense given that three composers are common to both games). it's not the furious rave techno of prior ridge racer entries, but it's mellow and heartthumping and just so goddamn arresting, my favourite soundtrack in a long while. drifting in sync has never felt better. so much of the reason this game is adored is largely for its aesthetic which is, to be sure, excellent, but this belies that it's every bit as strong mechanically as prior entries. rage racer's experimentalism is done away with for a more conservative experience, so hills are no longer sisyphean trials and drift/grip type vehicles see further segregation, but it's hard to complain when the end result is a game with some legitimately wicked track design that packs intelligent re-use of assets. the campaign, which has four levels of 'tuning' difficulties that all offer simplistic but reactive stories that depend on your performance as a racer, was a really nice touch - didn't need to be there but thoroughly enjoyed that element nonetheless. all their discussion about willpower and unattainable ideals is a fun way to motivate the player but also to underscore that these games are time trials in disguise, with your rival opponents being obstacles to surmount and benchmarks to ascendancy rather than acting as traditional opponents. about the only complaint i have in that regard is that it's strange that the peak of the game's difficulty is at the midway point; it's really disappointing that the final stage can be overcome without any of the predilection for appropriate technique that the game demonstrated prior to this (again, somewhat excusable, movin' in circles is one of the best tracks on the OST). even so, this is still a game that's firing on all cylinders - i had cynically expected some resistance to that idea heading in but it really is the peak of the franchise so far while carving out its own spot as a giant in arcade racing.
this is a game for the fellas who have It. if you dont know what that might be, you gotta do some soulsearching on these streets
reigning champ and apotheosis of the ridge racer formula, type 4 finds namco on much more confident ground when compared to the shaky foundation rage racer built. a lot of rage racer's aesthetic musings - the idealization and veneration of wheelmen, the sleekness of these machines, the grunge and beauty of asphalt and cobblestone - have all essentially been given a facelift, no longer resembling a gloomy concrete jungle but instead coming across as suggestive, painterly, and sometimes ghostly. like many games of its kind, its romantic, but instead of invoking the arcade palette of saturated hues or gleaming vistas, this game is adorned with earthier tones that really strongly compliment its otherwise exuberant and kinetic approach to racing ('out of blue' is a particular fave of mine - cruising through a picturesque port town during a misty morning). personally i sensed a lot of overlap with ace combat 3 - obviously both works' existence as namco projects goes without saying but relating to their fidelity, they both have similarly moody approaches to lighting that really become apparent as you speed down highways at night that are pockmarked by pale green lights and transition into tunnels that explode with hazy amber. to say little of that incredible soundtrack shared between both titles! electrosphere with its comparatively cold electronic soundtrack has its antithesis in type 4, with polished evocative tracks that go down like smooth scotch (although 'motor species' is actually just a dead fucking ringer for some ace combat 3 tracks, which makes sense given that three composers are common to both games). it's not the furious rave techno of prior ridge racer entries, but it's mellow and heartthumping and just so goddamn arresting, my favourite soundtrack in a long while. drifting in sync has never felt better. so much of the reason this game is adored is largely for its aesthetic which is, to be sure, excellent, but this belies that it's every bit as strong mechanically as prior entries. rage racer's experimentalism is done away with for a more conservative experience, so hills are no longer sisyphean trials and drift/grip type vehicles see further segregation, but it's hard to complain when the end result is a game with some legitimately wicked track design that packs intelligent re-use of assets. the campaign, which has four levels of 'tuning' difficulties that all offer simplistic but reactive stories that depend on your performance as a racer, was a really nice touch - didn't need to be there but thoroughly enjoyed that element nonetheless. all their discussion about willpower and unattainable ideals is a fun way to motivate the player but also to underscore that these games are time trials in disguise, with your rival opponents being obstacles to surmount and benchmarks to ascendancy rather than acting as traditional opponents. about the only complaint i have in that regard is that it's strange that the peak of the game's difficulty is at the midway point; it's really disappointing that the final stage can be overcome without any of the predilection for appropriate technique that the game demonstrated prior to this (again, somewhat excusable, movin' in circles is one of the best tracks on the OST). even so, this is still a game that's firing on all cylinders - i had cynically expected some resistance to that idea heading in but it really is the peak of the franchise so far while carving out its own spot as a giant in arcade racing.
this is a game for the fellas who have It. if you dont know what that might be, you gotta do some soulsearching on these streets
Ridge Racer Type 4
1998
The PS1 aesthetic perfected.
Ridge Racer Type 4
1998
Can you feel the heat?
When the tires kiss the street
Move into the beat
Ever since I learned about occlusion culling, a technique deftly handled by Naughty Dog with their first PlayStation 1 title, Crash Bandicoot, my appreciation for the more graphically stellar titles for the system was granted a new shade. It helped offer me a frame of reference (granted, of one of the more extreme use cases) for the necessity to obscure unneeded geometry to save what precious few resources the console could afford - as well as giving me something to mull over whenever I play a 3D PS1 game that looks suspiciously good. Much akin to Crash Bandicoot, racing games benefit from what is essentially a densely curated linear track. With limited camera movement, every attainable viewing angle can be accurately poured over by the designers, letting them carefully weigh up exactly how much they can get away with at every meter of game space. This is very apparent in visually stunning racing titles like Wipeout 3, Colin McRae Rally 2.0, and Need for Speed: High Stakes; their tracks are glutted with turns, verticality and obstacles that exist to obscure as much model pop-in as possible, and offer a new piece of visual stimuli at every turn. This has a knock-on effect for how these tracks are actually driven on, too. Track designers are by necessity discouraged from long straightaways where the world noticeably phases into existence, and instead ensure that the player has very little if any downtime from cornering, maintaining a thrilling tempo that only stops when the chequered flag is waved. I say all this, because I really do miss the era where racing games were these hardware-defying explosions of style and skill, with enough big-money backing to allow the designers to let their perfectionism and neuroses get tangled in the engine’s crankshaft. I can only go in a straight line down a massive realistic unreal engine map for so long.
Anyway. Ridge Racer Type 4 is a Swiss watch. One of very, very few games I’d describe as “meticulous”. Every one of its moving parts serves a key purpose in its grand design. Its mechanisms are the result of painstaking consideration for the most minute details. Built to last, and never lose its sheen. The only game my dad likes (real). It all just moves & breathes with this air of confidence and romance, exemplified by the way the penultimate setpiece is the final lap taking place at the exact turn of the millennium - a genuinely affecting gesture to barrel through doubt and seize your future by any means.
One thing I’m particularly taken by is the overall stylistic presentation of Type 4. Among the first things you see upon loading it up are the game’s signature tail/headlight afterglows leaving trails across the screen. The preamble at the start of this review was for no reason other than the fact that R4 actualises the PS1. Its environments use every trick in the book with a healthy serving of incredible models & baked-in textures to make the world feel rich beyond the scope of the road. The game’s UI alone is worth studying for its consistent use of very few colours, empty-space and minimalist decoration (every game needs a "PLEASE" in the corner at all times). In establishing a universe that seemingly exists solely for the purpose of racing fictional cars around the fictional Ridge City, the developers at Namco have populated the series with a mountain of logos, icons, banners, signs, patterns, manufacturers, liveries and colour palettes. They work to establish the curves, hills and tunnels as very real places with a history all their own. How did Wonderhill get its name? Why is it called Shooting Hoops? Where are these places in Ridge City and how do they fit into the Ridge Racer universe?
Look at the Helter Skelter track’s logo, for instance. One of the things I enjoy about this logo is its deceptively simple construction that results in a complex visual illusion of sorts. Essentially, the structure is a series of circles that reduce in size from top to bottom. The circles do not change shape in the slightest, only in scale, and by removing their intersections and filling in some minor spaces to complete the shape, is this illusion achieved. It harkens to the track’s multi-levelled nature, conveying a sense of movement as you rapidly weave through overpasses and underground tunnels w/ the ferocity of a hurricane.
The whole game is like this. A veritable archive of mindful audio, visual and game design, of weapons-grade artistic talent. Beyond aspirational and genuinely medium affirming.
When the tires kiss the street
Move into the beat
Ever since I learned about occlusion culling, a technique deftly handled by Naughty Dog with their first PlayStation 1 title, Crash Bandicoot, my appreciation for the more graphically stellar titles for the system was granted a new shade. It helped offer me a frame of reference (granted, of one of the more extreme use cases) for the necessity to obscure unneeded geometry to save what precious few resources the console could afford - as well as giving me something to mull over whenever I play a 3D PS1 game that looks suspiciously good. Much akin to Crash Bandicoot, racing games benefit from what is essentially a densely curated linear track. With limited camera movement, every attainable viewing angle can be accurately poured over by the designers, letting them carefully weigh up exactly how much they can get away with at every meter of game space. This is very apparent in visually stunning racing titles like Wipeout 3, Colin McRae Rally 2.0, and Need for Speed: High Stakes; their tracks are glutted with turns, verticality and obstacles that exist to obscure as much model pop-in as possible, and offer a new piece of visual stimuli at every turn. This has a knock-on effect for how these tracks are actually driven on, too. Track designers are by necessity discouraged from long straightaways where the world noticeably phases into existence, and instead ensure that the player has very little if any downtime from cornering, maintaining a thrilling tempo that only stops when the chequered flag is waved. I say all this, because I really do miss the era where racing games were these hardware-defying explosions of style and skill, with enough big-money backing to allow the designers to let their perfectionism and neuroses get tangled in the engine’s crankshaft. I can only go in a straight line down a massive realistic unreal engine map for so long.
Anyway. Ridge Racer Type 4 is a Swiss watch. One of very, very few games I’d describe as “meticulous”. Every one of its moving parts serves a key purpose in its grand design. Its mechanisms are the result of painstaking consideration for the most minute details. Built to last, and never lose its sheen. The only game my dad likes (real). It all just moves & breathes with this air of confidence and romance, exemplified by the way the penultimate setpiece is the final lap taking place at the exact turn of the millennium - a genuinely affecting gesture to barrel through doubt and seize your future by any means.
One thing I’m particularly taken by is the overall stylistic presentation of Type 4. Among the first things you see upon loading it up are the game’s signature tail/headlight afterglows leaving trails across the screen. The preamble at the start of this review was for no reason other than the fact that R4 actualises the PS1. Its environments use every trick in the book with a healthy serving of incredible models & baked-in textures to make the world feel rich beyond the scope of the road. The game’s UI alone is worth studying for its consistent use of very few colours, empty-space and minimalist decoration (every game needs a "PLEASE" in the corner at all times). In establishing a universe that seemingly exists solely for the purpose of racing fictional cars around the fictional Ridge City, the developers at Namco have populated the series with a mountain of logos, icons, banners, signs, patterns, manufacturers, liveries and colour palettes. They work to establish the curves, hills and tunnels as very real places with a history all their own. How did Wonderhill get its name? Why is it called Shooting Hoops? Where are these places in Ridge City and how do they fit into the Ridge Racer universe?
Look at the Helter Skelter track’s logo, for instance. One of the things I enjoy about this logo is its deceptively simple construction that results in a complex visual illusion of sorts. Essentially, the structure is a series of circles that reduce in size from top to bottom. The circles do not change shape in the slightest, only in scale, and by removing their intersections and filling in some minor spaces to complete the shape, is this illusion achieved. It harkens to the track’s multi-levelled nature, conveying a sense of movement as you rapidly weave through overpasses and underground tunnels w/ the ferocity of a hurricane.
The whole game is like this. A veritable archive of mindful audio, visual and game design, of weapons-grade artistic talent. Beyond aspirational and genuinely medium affirming.
Ridge Racer Type 4
1998
I only played this game because the music is ridiculously good, but it turns out that this is just a great game in general. It holds up impressively well for being a ps1 game, both in terms of visuals and controls. Content is a bit light, but what's here is dang fun. Running through grand prix was challenging and enjoyable, and didn't take too long. This game is rad.
And again, the MUSIC???? It has no reason to go this hard
And again, the MUSIC???? It has no reason to go this hard
Ridge Racer Type 4
1998
The “Earthbound / Xenogears / Jet Set Radio / Donkey Kong Country fan excited to finally play the game” meme, but it’s me and Ridge Racer Type 4. As a big DnB fan, I’ve been moving in circles to this soundtrack for well over ten years, but for some reason never had the wherewithal to actually spend 5 minutes downloading the ISO and experiencing the free video game this classic album came with. Getting the disc was one thing - configuring DuckStation to a satisfactory specification was a whole other. I’m generally not too picky about how my games emulate, but something about Type 4 just demanded I tune my machine to neon-smooth sheen, and it paid off by miles - I got my shaders and filters and scaling playing just right for the pixels to bleed together and brake-light after-images to leave a lasting impression. Few games this short can stick around for so long - you can breeze through this in an afternoon, and will come back for more afternoons in the future. It’s the one for me!
Neon White
2022
Important Disclaimer to My Score (IDTMS) #1: The first thing I did after seeing the intro of this game was go to Options —> Audio —> Voiceover Volume and pull that slider to zero so hard I broke an analog stick
IDTMS #2: I studiously avoided every optional side activity and event in the hub
Now that we have that out of the way: this game was great! I thought…[the remainder of this review has been cut due to its plagiarizing the praise for level design and music you’ve seen 100 times already]
IDTMS #2: I studiously avoided every optional side activity and event in the hub
Now that we have that out of the way: this game was great! I thought…[the remainder of this review has been cut due to its plagiarizing the praise for level design and music you’ve seen 100 times already]
Neon White
2022
This is some of the best gameplay I've seen but every time a character opens their mouth I wish I never learned how to read
Neon White
2022
I deserve a Nobel Prize for beating this with joycon drift
Neon White
2022
Some really weird consensus with people who like this writing is that it's akin to a 2000's anime? I gotta say I don't remember people in s-CRY-ed talking like a Twitter thread about anime character PNGs imposed over popular text posts but whatever floats your boat, just don't try convincing me that it's good. I was more attached to the F key than to any of the Neons.
Game looks and sounds fantastic though!! The aesthetic is the actual part that feels dragged out of the early 2000's, what with the whole "sleek edginess" aspect of it, especially the mission intro screens. The gameplay is very fine-tuned for what it is, although it would help if it was a bit less floaty in places. Not nearly as gimmicky as it comes off at first and could probably do with a level editor somewhere down the line. Big fan of everything here other than when the characters are talking!!
Game looks and sounds fantastic though!! The aesthetic is the actual part that feels dragged out of the early 2000's, what with the whole "sleek edginess" aspect of it, especially the mission intro screens. The gameplay is very fine-tuned for what it is, although it would help if it was a bit less floaty in places. Not nearly as gimmicky as it comes off at first and could probably do with a level editor somewhere down the line. Big fan of everything here other than when the characters are talking!!
Neon White
2022
Astonished at how much I enjoyed this considering the disdain it has harboured from many whose opinions I hold in very high regard. Its eschewing of Sans-Serif Corpo committee-design in favour of a maximal exploration of bombastic and obtuse peculiarities from the aesthetic to the mechanical warms my heart. The sincerity on display strikes a chord of 'cringe' within me less because of its actual writing content, and more because it is a contemporary parallel to the endearing, honest, whimsical edgelordiness of video games past. Neon White is the Shadow the Hedgehog, The Bouncer, Vexx, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Bomberman Act Zero, Dante's Inferno, Jak II, BMX XXX of the 2020s in tone, spit and polished to a shine. It forgoes the failings of mid-2000s muddy and ruddiness, where landscapes and gameplay blended into green-brown smears, and proudly proclaims that games can be capital-C cool and fun as hell. Every skip is the descendant of Ulillillia's Spyro oddities. The soundtrack is the vague memories of Ape Escape and ChainDive, the vibe the immaculate remembrance of youth. It is Lovely Planet with accuracy replaced with speed, speed, speed.
Neon White is unabashedly itself, for good and for ill.
Neon White is unabashedly itself, for good and for ill.
Neon White
2022
it's hard for me to write a review about this game. i feel like it was designed in a lab to be optimally enjoyable for exactly me, much like how McDonald's french fries are chemically engineered to be Mathematically and Provably Delicious for the general American public.
i can't talk about Neon White without talking about Arcane Kids. in the mid-10s, being someone who staked a lot of identity into playing games was profoundly embarassing. ignoring the truly heinous shit that goes without saying, year after year, AAA studios continued to pump out "mids at best." on the other side of things, "indie" games were no longer new and were in something of an awkward puberty. i can't tell you how many "physics-based puzzle platformers with a gimmick" i had pitched to me that promised to be Actually Good. they weren't. however, during this time, the Unity weirdos were churning away in their art scenes around the globe. the new derisive joke became "make a game in unity, make a million dollars." of course, the people making these jokes didn't know what they were talking about, but i guess none of us really did back then.
---
Arcane Kids existed as something of an antithesis to the games of the time. when we had more than enough pixel-art RPGs, they gave us ZINETH. when we got innundated with walking simulators, they gave us Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective. when indies decided to try and be funny with things like Goat Simulator, we got Sonic Dreams Collection, CRAP! No One Loves Me, and this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RNCyc3hzAw). while a lot of these games were "funny" or "jokes," they always had deeper ideas to them beneath the surface around player agency, the joy of moving your avatar, the love of Videogames As Videogames.
i cannot possibly explain how strange it felt to turn on the game and have the title screen after the intro cutscene splash in with a voice echoing "NEON WHITE" as the moodiest witch house track creeps in through your headphones. the fake scanlines, the neon glow on the characters, the tone, the vibes. i thought to myself, "they finally did it." as i played more, i confirmed my suspicions.
Arcane Kids finally made the game it feels like they had been working toward all these years. blazing fast, huge jumps, easy-to-learn-but-hard-to-master, tight, violent, horny, loud, freaky, all at once. in Mission 11, as breakneck-paced breakcore blasted out of my screen, i screamed aloud in my room to my partner who was watching me play "I. FUCKING. LOVE. THIS. GAME." in time with each click of the RMB that shot me across the map at incredible speeds. in moments like this, you know for a fact that moments like Bubsy pulling out an uzi and a katana at the end of Bubsy 3D or them subjecting a crowd of people at a game conference to vape trick videos that inspired their previous game (https://youtu.be/2pO23GTaBtk?si=ldB9w6CU2UC3TkHI&t=1791) was not just them contributing to the general irony-poisoned sense of humor of the time; they legitimately thought that it was tight as fuck.
-----
one line from the infamous Arcane Kids Manifesto (https://arcanekids.com/manifesto) that i always think about is "the purpose of gameplay is to hide secrets."
at a time when even FromSoft has started to move away from their smaller, more-focused world design in favor of chasing the lucrative open-world design potential in Elden Ring, it feels amazing that we have a game like Neon White that is about intricately crafted and infinitely replayable level design. after years of waiting, we finally have the one true Indie Puzzle Platformer, but this time it has guns.
the gameplay (for me, usually) fell into a flowchart like this:
-beat a level once and get whatever medal you get
-go back to find the secret gift
-during this second trip, notice which parts of the levels you can skip or save time on that were hidden to you before
-play the level a 3rd time to get a gold medal
-use the hint from the Gold medal to get an Ace medal on your 4th time
-over time, you begin to amass a collection of "hey, did you know this quirk" movement secrets like shooting bullets, bunny hopping after a dash, or sliding with the shotgun's discard
game design that calls attention to itself like this is beautiful. level designers are artists. we've known this since Doom WADs. however, in the time since Doom we've had several games like Gears of War, Halo, and their ilk that said "wasn't the sickest part about Doom being a huge buff guy with loud guns just blasting disgusting freaks and seeing them explode???" while that does indeed whip, Neon White is on the other side of the coin saying "wasn't the best part about Doom the level design and the joy of figuring out how to move as fast as you can through a level???"
after 11 years of watching speedrunning streams nearly every day, Neon White finally made me feel like maybe i could do it too. first you pit yourself against the Ace medal time, then your friends, then the Dev Times, then your own ghost, and then the world. to this day, i have yet to have a global #1, but i've had a #2 and two #3s. i'll keep going though.
[EDIT 7/17/23: i did it :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWT2b9pwRMI]
---
Neon White is a love letter in videogame form
i can't talk about Neon White without talking about Arcane Kids. in the mid-10s, being someone who staked a lot of identity into playing games was profoundly embarassing. ignoring the truly heinous shit that goes without saying, year after year, AAA studios continued to pump out "mids at best." on the other side of things, "indie" games were no longer new and were in something of an awkward puberty. i can't tell you how many "physics-based puzzle platformers with a gimmick" i had pitched to me that promised to be Actually Good. they weren't. however, during this time, the Unity weirdos were churning away in their art scenes around the globe. the new derisive joke became "make a game in unity, make a million dollars." of course, the people making these jokes didn't know what they were talking about, but i guess none of us really did back then.
---
Arcane Kids existed as something of an antithesis to the games of the time. when we had more than enough pixel-art RPGs, they gave us ZINETH. when we got innundated with walking simulators, they gave us Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective. when indies decided to try and be funny with things like Goat Simulator, we got Sonic Dreams Collection, CRAP! No One Loves Me, and this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RNCyc3hzAw). while a lot of these games were "funny" or "jokes," they always had deeper ideas to them beneath the surface around player agency, the joy of moving your avatar, the love of Videogames As Videogames.
i cannot possibly explain how strange it felt to turn on the game and have the title screen after the intro cutscene splash in with a voice echoing "NEON WHITE" as the moodiest witch house track creeps in through your headphones. the fake scanlines, the neon glow on the characters, the tone, the vibes. i thought to myself, "they finally did it." as i played more, i confirmed my suspicions.
Arcane Kids finally made the game it feels like they had been working toward all these years. blazing fast, huge jumps, easy-to-learn-but-hard-to-master, tight, violent, horny, loud, freaky, all at once. in Mission 11, as breakneck-paced breakcore blasted out of my screen, i screamed aloud in my room to my partner who was watching me play "I. FUCKING. LOVE. THIS. GAME." in time with each click of the RMB that shot me across the map at incredible speeds. in moments like this, you know for a fact that moments like Bubsy pulling out an uzi and a katana at the end of Bubsy 3D or them subjecting a crowd of people at a game conference to vape trick videos that inspired their previous game (https://youtu.be/2pO23GTaBtk?si=ldB9w6CU2UC3TkHI&t=1791) was not just them contributing to the general irony-poisoned sense of humor of the time; they legitimately thought that it was tight as fuck.
-----
one line from the infamous Arcane Kids Manifesto (https://arcanekids.com/manifesto) that i always think about is "the purpose of gameplay is to hide secrets."
at a time when even FromSoft has started to move away from their smaller, more-focused world design in favor of chasing the lucrative open-world design potential in Elden Ring, it feels amazing that we have a game like Neon White that is about intricately crafted and infinitely replayable level design. after years of waiting, we finally have the one true Indie Puzzle Platformer, but this time it has guns.
the gameplay (for me, usually) fell into a flowchart like this:
-beat a level once and get whatever medal you get
-go back to find the secret gift
-during this second trip, notice which parts of the levels you can skip or save time on that were hidden to you before
-play the level a 3rd time to get a gold medal
-use the hint from the Gold medal to get an Ace medal on your 4th time
-over time, you begin to amass a collection of "hey, did you know this quirk" movement secrets like shooting bullets, bunny hopping after a dash, or sliding with the shotgun's discard
game design that calls attention to itself like this is beautiful. level designers are artists. we've known this since Doom WADs. however, in the time since Doom we've had several games like Gears of War, Halo, and their ilk that said "wasn't the sickest part about Doom being a huge buff guy with loud guns just blasting disgusting freaks and seeing them explode???" while that does indeed whip, Neon White is on the other side of the coin saying "wasn't the best part about Doom the level design and the joy of figuring out how to move as fast as you can through a level???"
after 11 years of watching speedrunning streams nearly every day, Neon White finally made me feel like maybe i could do it too. first you pit yourself against the Ace medal time, then your friends, then the Dev Times, then your own ghost, and then the world. to this day, i have yet to have a global #1, but i've had a #2 and two #3s. i'll keep going though.
[EDIT 7/17/23: i did it :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWT2b9pwRMI]
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Neon White is a love letter in videogame form
Neon White
2022
/r/animemes have found their Black Panther