Out now - Open Critic 89Game Informer wrote:Neon White achieves everything it sets out to with remarkable success. Not only is it one of the most entertaining experiences I've played in years, but it also speaks to a highly specific audience many just don't anymore. It's for weirdos, misfits, and dorks. Neon White is one of the best games of the year, and it'd be a colossal mistake not to check it out.
Metro GameCentral wrote:A stylish and brilliantly designed blend of first person shooter and platformer, which nails the compelling and addictive chase for the perfect run.
TheSixthAxis wrote:Neon White is a love letter to turn-of-the-decade internet weirdos. It's full of rule-of-cool anime nostalgia, ear-shredding electronic music, and dialogue ripped straight out of my group chats. It's a genuine game made for an audience rarely prioritised, but even if you don't fit the archetypical person this game was made for, you're still in for the most stylish and satisfying action-platformer I've ever experienced.
Manga, anime and Japanese videogames are full of unusual purgatory premises, so when I draw comparisons between
Neon White and
Neo: The World Ends With You it's probably only because that is most recent in my mind. The comparison though is apt, as where that game vied with
No More Heroes 3 for most stylish of last year, Neon White moves into pole position in the current - perhaps seen to be combining the subculture spanning fashion of TWEWY with the irreverent pop culture references and toilet humour of No More Heroes. That latter aspect lends what could easily be a cringe element to the script if it wasn't for the superb Steve Blum led voice acting carrying it off with assured coolness, a confidence maintained by the game as a whole. You would be forgiven for ranking the localisation alongside the likes of
Cowboy Bebop until you realise Neon White isn't Japanese at all - this is a Japanese videogame from a western developer able to ape the best of that country, innovation included.
Undoubtedly stylish then, without really delving in to the excellent art and music, but how does it play? Neon White is a hybrid first person shooter platformer. That might immediately conjure thoughts of
Mirror's Edge, and while certainly a touch of that can be seen in the bold white buildings and yachts and red highlights, the game plays much closer to
Lovely Planet - cool rather than cute, but with the same super fast pace and precision aeronautics. In Neon White you jump and bounce around the courses, pirouetting mid-air to pick off enemies and clear the way, feeling out the fastest route to the exit. A card based weapon system adds a welcome layer of strategy and helps set the gameplay apart even more so, encouraging the player to think of the pickups as consumables to be played when best needed. Players disposed to speedrunning will find themselves right at home - this is a game played in 30 second bursts, but you'll feel compelled to repeat and refine each stage until you take the top record.
Between each run of stages the game breaks things up with some much more sedate visual novel inspired downtime, letting you talk to the supporting cast and even gift them presents (found during the levels) to raise your relationship. It's another genre fusion in a game clearly unconcerned at pitching itself to a very specific audience, those who grew up watching anime on Toonami at the turn of the millennium and playing JRPGs. If you find yourself in that audience, like myself, there couldn't be an easier recommendation that Neon White.
Has anyone else picked this up? I'm playing it on Switch, where it runs great, but I imagine PC gives the ultimate experience for the precision of mouse aiming - that's where I played the similar Lovely Planet and this is exactly the kind of game where the difference in input makes a clear and notable difference to your times.
I wanted to make a thread as this is an immediate GOTY contender for me and deserves more attention.