Went for 100% on replay; i.e., got all the Ace medals (and surprised myself with a few red ones too), completed all the gift challenges and sidequests, and against my better judgment, I even read all the dialogue. I left this run-through of Neon White with new appreciation and new frustrations in roughly equal measure, with intersections between the two that'd take an essay to unravel, or maybe a three-hour YouTube video called "Neon White: An Exhaustive Critique" or some bullshit. I'll save that for round 3.

Gameplay and level design so good that its "flaws" could be more aptly called "imperfections"; the devs occasionally err on the side of traversability over polish (meaning bits of level geometry that help with gift challenges can gum up normal runs), some of the chain reactions built into levels aren't usefully telegraphed, and there are a few "where do I go now?" moments that feel like imprecise design rather than intentional mini-puzzles. (It gets particularly annoying when exploding barrels shoot you up into the empty sky, with no clear indication which direction you're supposed to turn afterward.) But on the whole, this is a game I've been waiting my whole life to play, or at least the decade and change since mastering League of Evil on my old iPod Touch in high school. As someone who can barely hold his own even in the rare FPS games I enjoy, I aced every level apart from most of the 11th chapter, and that's only because I know for a fact I'm going to optimize the shit out of those levels over countless hours of trial and error. I cannot wait to play even more of this game.

However, I must confess I skipped every single cutscene as soon as I realized the dialogue was going to be Like That for the whole game. Every single one.

'ate Lyse
'ate Gyr Abanian zones
'ate repetitive busy work

luv Gosetsu
luv Doman zones
luv the Steppe tribes

simple as

Finished the Collection, Unlocks, and Secrets (only used passwords for the ones mechanically impossible to unlock on iOS), so I’m good marking this as my completion date. I’ve seen this called everything from a roguelike to a bullet hell shooter to a musou game to survival horror (??), but you know the genre this has the most in common with? Idle games! Vampire Survivors’ DNA is more Antimatter Dimensions than Hades, which makes it a perfect game to half-pay attention to while the TV’s going, and which also seems to have brought out some seriously unhinged takes from the denizens of this here website. It is OK for a game to be shallow and mindlessly fun! It is, quite literally, not that deep!

Barely deserves to be called a game, what with its complete lack of challenge, player options, fail states, or any form of decision-making at all—it’s more like a fidget toy with (obscenely long) loading screens. Other Lego games will do the bare minimum and throw in a “put these statues in the right orientation” puzzle; The Chase Begins will gesture at this idea, but make it impossible to put the statues in the wrong orientation. I couldn’t imagine playing this for its own sake (or heaven forbid, for a job), but I can’t deny its value as a not-too-distracting distraction, the sort of thing you can play with the TV going and not miss any of the show’s plot.