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.
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.