Pure unabashed fun

If you ever hear someone complaining about games not being fun anymore, then they clearly haven’t played neon white yet. Because Neon White is one of the most fun I have had playing a game in a long while.
To illustrate just how much I love the gameplay, Let me say that I’m not one not usually for time limits and speedrunning. I typically find them annoying ways to restrict the player or rush them bland levels.

I went for dev times in this game.

The game’s level design is extremely well crafted, not only must you reach a goal as quickly as possible, you have to eliminate every enemy in the level. This creates a lot of strategy outside just running towards the exit. Using the cards in the map to cross snipe enemies or slam into them with a card effect while progression through the map is a blast. The entire card system is just excellent in general, conceptually your weapons being able to be discarded for mobility tools is amazing and in execution it makes the game smooth as hell and something that you want to perfect.

The art style is very clean, the character designs are especially solid even though I’m not sure if any person needs that many belts. Most of the landscapes are gorgeous as well. They did not skimp out just because they thought you would be too busy speeding through the level. Also, the soundtrack is a trip, the good kind. Not a lot of standout individual tracks, but consistency is king in terms of the OST, I couldn’t think of a single track that I got tired of.

Also, the story is mad overhated. Sure, there were a few parts that mildly annoyed me, but even then there were so many parts that worked. The characters will deceptively grow on you even if you initially groan at them showing up. So many weird character decisions make sense with time that I’m not surprised people who wrote off the story in the first few scenes couldn’t see just how much everything connects by the end because they preemptively decided “The story is bad”. Neon red and Mikey are my goats. Also this game is surprisingly hilarious at times as well. I genuinely chuckled at a lot of the dialogue.

All around an amazing game. Should have won best indie at the game awards twenty times over. 100% worth your time.