Subsonic steps bound off of idyllic tiles, a steadfast one-two sprint. Clasped tightly in his hand, divine intervention is executed by the thunderclap of .500 magnum, a heavenly send-off alternating between the gentle coaxing of automatic fire and the definitive blade of retribution. Closing in, denizens of hell launch bioluminescent bombardments, lethal brimstone sending you down a path 10,000 feet under. As if born to die, the demons are dispatched as quickly as they rise, beings materialized, analyzed, and pulverized within nanoseconds. Speed and focus become one, repetitions on idealized concepts pointing towards sublimity. Your holy arms holstered, your sanctified sword sheathed, you cast your sight upon diamond excellence, an eternity encapsulated in the blink of an eye. Now, beyond the safety of three-round bursts and lead ripostes, you see her.

Her heliotrope hues leave psychoactive cigarette burns; if true angels drive one to madness, her presence in Heaven is well established. Like sewing needles piercing taut eardrums, her voice spikes out, an aural trepanation. More lethal than chambered rounds and heavy ordinance, she implants in your brain the same innate fear that courses through you as you enter convention halls, the same fight-or-flight micropanic as the first step within a college’s Japanese Culture Club, for she is the eidolon of modern otakudom. When you breach the seal on Neon White’s world, what resides underneath isn’t the long-forgotten Y2K Japanimation mecca, but a puréed distillation of the wretched refuse of anime fandom, the Anitwitter and r/animemes congregation speaking in post-post-ironic references, where every man is either a razor-edged twink or a hulking himbo, and every woman either an e-girl yandere or a wannabe mommy-dom that covets humanized mediocrity. Buried under the pretense of being “by freaks, for freaks”, the reality of Neon White puts you in the nightmarish scenario of living through the dreams of the most typical of indie weeb softboys.

Such is the loop of Neon White: for every moment of precise platforming bliss, an hour of Young Thotticus making your amygdala fire on all cylinders, a century of watching history’s straightest couple verbally hate-fuck, an eon of remembering Tumblr-Sexy-Man-ified Junkrat saying “you were my Sasuke!”, an eternity of knowing that the core message of the game is that you have a moral imperative to forgive those who abused you in life, lest you literally go to Hell. Both sides of the equation, fraught and unstable, struggle to maintain a semblance of balance.

When Ben Esposito, Enemy of the People, claimed this project as a game “for freaks”, it masks the reality of what Neon White stands for. Decked in the style of the forums of yesteryear, Online Signature UI and Neocities buttons intact, with a heart beating to the 200bpm pulse of breakcore, the aestheticism of pre-Web 2.0 culture is broken by the asphyxiating smog of The Modern Anime Fan. Sincerity and passion die at the cross of venomous disingenuity, nailed down by ironic detachment and love in the key of “Waifu of the Month”. The work of Angel Matrix, the latest in rebrands of Esposito's predictable shtick, axes even the most optimistic of readings: Neon White is the new face of pretension, wearing the oh-so-relatable mask of an adored time for the sake of drawing attention, not out of love, nostalgia, or passion. Soullessness masquerading as soulful.

and someone please tell the writers that run-on sentences don’t read as like, relatable or quirky. It just looks bad. It’s like, your job to Make Text Read Good. come on.

Honestly, the game did kinda feel fun at first. I was having a decent enough time, but the more I played, I think the more I realized this game seriously lacks its own identity.
Inspiration in games is something extremely important, and every good game is inspired by a multitude of other great media. But "inspiration" becomes a problem if it shifts from its original definition to basically making someone else's product, but practically worse in every way.
If people stop referring to a game as its own thing and are referring to it like "its just like this other game!", I think there's an issue.
And speaking of that, you will probably notice everyone, even the positive reviews on steam talk about this game in the context of "its just like hollow knight!" "its hollow knight but with robots!" "cute game to pass the time until silksong"
And they are right, it is just like hollow knight, too much like it, I think.
This game takes everything Hollow Knight has done, barely puts an effort to putting a creative spin on anything, makes the experience just less fluid, less fun in comparison, and calls it a day.
And on top of that, it has the gall to be more expensive than the game it's taking most, if not everything from, which is nuts to me.

And speaking of Hollow Knight, not like it's a game that came up with all of its concepts on its own. It's not a game that reinvents the wheel, nor does things no game ever has done before, after all. It just crafts its world and gameplay with such care and polish that it manages to stand out above the rest of its competitors, and even manages to hold a candle to the very things it took inspiration from. It puts fun spins to its mechanics, it makes movement and fighting super fluid and fun, it makes its world interesting, worth caring about. It doesn't present many new ideas, but it presents the ideas it has with excellent craftsmanship and incredible polish.

This game on the other hand, takes everything it can from hollow knight, from its mechanics to its basic enemies, makes it all feel clunkier, feel worse, does not attempt to do anything interesting. The systems don't feel fully thought out, like the healing system, which is basically a carbon copy of hollow knight's healing system, except instead of substance acquired by hitting things, you use your currency to heal. Not only does this not feel like an innovative or challenging spin one bit; because all it does is force you to grind basic enemies before attempting a boss fight, it's also near-useless, with how damn slow the healing is. Most times, especially during boss fights, you are better off not attempting to use it, because it puts you in danger more than it helps you.
And speaking of currency, the bank system the game has for its currency makes you deposit all of it at once, for some reason; without letting you choose how much you want to store. You can awkwardly hit the pole-thing next to the banks to slowly get a part of what you deposited back, but why make the player go through that hassle?
It feels in a rush to give you its upgrades, you get the wall jump ability maybe 5 minutes at best after your starting tutorial. Why not start the game with it then? What's the point of teasing you with places you cant reach 2 minutes into the game, if you will be able to reach then anyways in the next 3 minutes.
The chips (charm system of this game) don't seem creative either, with a lot of early game chips i found literally being carbon copies of hollow knight charms like longnail or gathering swarm. (Not to say longnail or gathering swarm from hollow knight are the most exciting or creative ideas ever, they are pretty basic. It just becomes a glaring issue here and frustrating when the game already takes enough from hollow knight as is, so the lack of any original ideas stands out even moreso.)
The game's lore and story is not interesting and does not spark your curiosity enough to find out more about it, it's characters don't feel distinct or alive either. I found very little reason to care about anything happening. It's another "peaceful land turned evil by bad virus" story we've all heard a thousand times, but feels even more egregious when the game is already borrowing from hollow knight so much as is.
Lastly, more of a minor nitpick that still takes you out of the game a lot, the text font does not match the game's style whatsoever. You have a game made with pretty decent low-res pixel art, meanwhile the text font you use for stuff like dialogue, character names, item descriptions etc. is basic Arial. It's an utterly strange decision to not give this game a font matching with it's art style, and it's just distracting.

Overall, this game feels like an attempt to make a hollow knight lite, which I would not be so harsh towards again if not for the fact that this game costs more to purchase than hollow knight, and you have zero reason to play this game over that. It does nothing better, it does nothing in a more charming way, and I wish it was more than a game that is "a cute game just like hollow knight!!"
A big shame too, I was really looking forward to it.

Like many of its contemporaries, it struggles a bit with difficulty in the early going. But, once you gain your footing, this title bravely faces its competition and—after much effort—overcomes them. This is one of the greatest titles ever released in a genre packed with masterpieces and it can easily hang on Olympus with the other greats. GRIME is ,as the credits describe, “passionately developed” by Clover Bite, who sent it soaring over the fence in their first plate appearance. Every pixel of this is lavishly detailed, dripping with art and tone, encrusted in a world beyond small understanding. I am willing to stake that it is the best-looking 2.5D game ever made.

The same love is applied to the gameplay and especially the BOSSES. The bosses in this thing!!! They will make you try 20 times but never feel frustrated. It is so rewarding to learn a bosses’s tells move by move and to then be able to navigate the fight like a beautiful dance, which becomes humorously literal at one point.

Can’t recommend this enough to any metroidvania fans. 2.5D metroidvanias are really having a moment

the game itself is well-made and as a debut title, i'm impressed by the vast majority of things this game gets right. the combat is simple yet satisfying, the art direction is breathtaking, the music is fantastic, and the setting is dripping with lore at every corner. the bosses were pretty great too, and often integrated various mechanics previously introduced within the game. if i hadn't known, i would've thought this was the work of a bunch of professionals. the game takes obvious inspirations from hollow knight, dark souls, and even salt and sanctuary, and I honestly believe that at its best, this game rivals those entries. in fact, this game is so good it makes salt and sanctuary look like a piece of shit. everything wrong with salt and sanctuary was gracefully fixed in this game.

however, it's not perfect. the ending chunk of the game was underwhelming, as is the case for most soulslikes it seems, and the rewards given for your exploration were at times very underwhelming. a huge missed opportunity from the developer's end was with the armor. the developers decided to make the armor only cosmetic, but yet put it in very hard-to-find parts of the map. what I'm trying to say is, you will often bust your ass trying to get to a secret part of the map, only to find out the secret is a worthless cosmetic item. sometimes you'd get weapons, which was neat, but the fact the armor does jackshit really rubbed me the wrong way. also, the performance was really inconsistent sometimes.

overall, it was a really good experience, with some hiccups here and there. i'd probably give this a strong eight. check it out