Neon White is one of the best games of the year, blending smooth FPS gameplay with "speedrun" styled puzzles, and is tied together with a great cast of characters. NameBrand.
Neon White is an incredible game! If you're reading this, I implore you to download the demo for yourself and see if you get hooked in to its gameplay loop. That's what I did, and it encouraged me to buy the full game, of which, I am not disappointed! And I don't think many people will be.
The biggest complaint I see everywhere is that people don't like the characters or the story... I've heard people say that the writing is too "Woke" or "anime" or that "it's just not that interesting". And I disagree on all those fronts? I think the disconnect here is because perhaps the gameplay is attracting a crowd of people that just aren't used to the tropes? I personally found the characters very endearing, and the "anime" influences were really, REALLY light in comparison to other visual novels and purely anime based games. I also enjoyed the story! I could see how it's off-putting for people interacting with pseudo-biblical-fiction for the first time, but as someone who's experienced, through like, Bayonetta and some others, I really didn't mind the story, its setting, or its workings, and found myself immersed in the world as it expanded. I think peoples complaints here are bogus, but everyone is different.
That being said:
The majority of reviews I've read praise the gameplay and I have to agree. It's so smooth, and fast, and traversing bite sized puzzle levels as fast as you can possibly go is absolutely exhilarating. I love how the game slowly teaches you through hints and otherwise, "how to speedrun" as you play the game, and the whole medals system in general encouraged me to keep playing until I got the ace. Sometimes I'd go a bit further because I knew I could optimize my run through the level even more, and other times, I'd keep going to try and best the scores of those on my friends list. Everything is ludicrously replayable, it's ridiculous, and that's not even mentioning grabbing gifts in each of the levels after the fact, and the level rush mode after the after the fact.
I loved the inclusion of the gifts, especially in the fact that they change the gameplay up from this fast, optimized, race against time, into a more methodical, calculated, platforming challenge that put all of the levels in a new light. It was really fun to spot a gift in the distance and be absolutely flabberghasted with the task of reaching it, and then spend the next [x] minutes solving the issue through careful gun and/or parkour use. Not only do they break up the gameplay a bit, but they help hammer in you the mechanics of the game and make you a better player.
I found myself in a pretty good routine that I'd recommend to any other player of this game: Play it so that one in-game day, is one real-life day. I did that because I wanted to push myself to get all the gifts and everything before moving on, but I think it also gives my brain a break. I could see how players might get extremely burnt out if you just play this game and nothing else, so having a break is nice, and I liked talking with all the characters at the end of my play session.
Again, I loved the characters. At times, my motivation to get through some of the missions was so that I could just get the gifts. At the end of a string of levels I really enjoyed going back to the hub world and talking to everyone, increasing White's relationship with them, and going through the little side stories and side quests that helped me understand the overarching plot more (not to mention they also help refine your knowledge of the games mechanics). Everyone's voice acting is phenomenal, and I give major kudos to every single one of them. I thought this was a great addition to this game, and think it elevates the experience beyond its exceptional gameplay.
Overall I really do recommend Neon White to anybody. The bar for accessibility here is pretty low, so if you're new to this kind of game experience I don't think it would be too hard to get into and beat! Some people might be disappointed with how easy some of the levels are in that regard, but the global leaderboard shows that the skill ceiling is higher that you could ever imagine to make up for it. Levels are infinitely replayable, the story is interesting and the characters endearing, the music is fitting and absolutely phenomenal, and it all just makes for a package that I can't see many people being disappointed with. Now, I'm off to try my hand at the RUSH levels. See you on the leaderboards!
Neon White is an incredible game! If you're reading this, I implore you to download the demo for yourself and see if you get hooked in to its gameplay loop. That's what I did, and it encouraged me to buy the full game, of which, I am not disappointed! And I don't think many people will be.
The biggest complaint I see everywhere is that people don't like the characters or the story... I've heard people say that the writing is too "Woke" or "anime" or that "it's just not that interesting". And I disagree on all those fronts? I think the disconnect here is because perhaps the gameplay is attracting a crowd of people that just aren't used to the tropes? I personally found the characters very endearing, and the "anime" influences were really, REALLY light in comparison to other visual novels and purely anime based games. I also enjoyed the story! I could see how it's off-putting for people interacting with pseudo-biblical-fiction for the first time, but as someone who's experienced, through like, Bayonetta and some others, I really didn't mind the story, its setting, or its workings, and found myself immersed in the world as it expanded. I think peoples complaints here are bogus, but everyone is different.
That being said:
The majority of reviews I've read praise the gameplay and I have to agree. It's so smooth, and fast, and traversing bite sized puzzle levels as fast as you can possibly go is absolutely exhilarating. I love how the game slowly teaches you through hints and otherwise, "how to speedrun" as you play the game, and the whole medals system in general encouraged me to keep playing until I got the ace. Sometimes I'd go a bit further because I knew I could optimize my run through the level even more, and other times, I'd keep going to try and best the scores of those on my friends list. Everything is ludicrously replayable, it's ridiculous, and that's not even mentioning grabbing gifts in each of the levels after the fact, and the level rush mode after the after the fact.
I loved the inclusion of the gifts, especially in the fact that they change the gameplay up from this fast, optimized, race against time, into a more methodical, calculated, platforming challenge that put all of the levels in a new light. It was really fun to spot a gift in the distance and be absolutely flabberghasted with the task of reaching it, and then spend the next [x] minutes solving the issue through careful gun and/or parkour use. Not only do they break up the gameplay a bit, but they help hammer in you the mechanics of the game and make you a better player.
I found myself in a pretty good routine that I'd recommend to any other player of this game: Play it so that one in-game day, is one real-life day. I did that because I wanted to push myself to get all the gifts and everything before moving on, but I think it also gives my brain a break. I could see how players might get extremely burnt out if you just play this game and nothing else, so having a break is nice, and I liked talking with all the characters at the end of my play session.
Again, I loved the characters. At times, my motivation to get through some of the missions was so that I could just get the gifts. At the end of a string of levels I really enjoyed going back to the hub world and talking to everyone, increasing White's relationship with them, and going through the little side stories and side quests that helped me understand the overarching plot more (not to mention they also help refine your knowledge of the games mechanics). Everyone's voice acting is phenomenal, and I give major kudos to every single one of them. I thought this was a great addition to this game, and think it elevates the experience beyond its exceptional gameplay.
Overall I really do recommend Neon White to anybody. The bar for accessibility here is pretty low, so if you're new to this kind of game experience I don't think it would be too hard to get into and beat! Some people might be disappointed with how easy some of the levels are in that regard, but the global leaderboard shows that the skill ceiling is higher that you could ever imagine to make up for it. Levels are infinitely replayable, the story is interesting and the characters endearing, the music is fitting and absolutely phenomenal, and it all just makes for a package that I can't see many people being disappointed with. Now, I'm off to try my hand at the RUSH levels. See you on the leaderboards!