When I'm playing through games I'm rarely the type of person who beats a level and instantly says to myself "I can do that better." Usually, I'm quite content to just move along and finish the story, and if I really like the game I'll play through the whole thing again. That is not the case with Neon White.
Every single time I finished a level and didn't get the max rank I immediately ran it back and kept beating my head against it until I perfected it. This just goes to show how great it feels to move through these levels, and how the joy of perfecting that movement is so pleasurable. I've played other 2D platformers that have a similar rhythm to the movement, using enemies as springboards to propel yourself forward and whatnot, but this is the first time I've ever seen it done in 3D and in first person which is usually awful for platformers.
The idea of having all your guns have an alt-fire which acts as an attack and a movement ability is fucking golden. The meathook in Doom Eternal is kinda similar, and I'm sure there are other examples that I don't know about, but that's a mechanic I'd love for other shooters to steal even if they don't have such a large emphasis on platforming.
The soundtrack for Neon White is also outstanding. One of the biggest selling points for me was that Machine Girl was doing the entire thing, and it fucking rules. It's definitely a bit more subdued than their usual thing, but in tandem with the gameplay it's sublime.
If Neon White was purely playing through these excellently designed levels while blasting Machine Girl that would be fine by me. Unfortunately, in between all of the good stuff there is a whole lot of visual novel. I'm completely okay with the VN segments existing, I like VNs and I think they work in this game structurally as a breather from the high intensity gameplay. That being said, wow oh wow is this writing bad.
When I first started the game I found the writing kind of endearing. The art style of the game, the intro, the voice cast are all so obviously inspired by 2000s anime culture so why shouldn't the writing also evoke that flavor? That feeling of endearment did not last for long. At a certain point all the characters just really started to grate on me, and the plot did absolutely nothing for me either (especially the ending). The whole script really feels like what an anime club would have written while subsisting on a diet of Toonami and early aughts anime forums, then it sat on a shelf for 15 years and got punched up with a bunch of memes.
All that aside this is an excellent game, I loved my time with it, but all future playthroughs will be heavily utilizing the fastforward dialogue button
Every single time I finished a level and didn't get the max rank I immediately ran it back and kept beating my head against it until I perfected it. This just goes to show how great it feels to move through these levels, and how the joy of perfecting that movement is so pleasurable. I've played other 2D platformers that have a similar rhythm to the movement, using enemies as springboards to propel yourself forward and whatnot, but this is the first time I've ever seen it done in 3D and in first person which is usually awful for platformers.
The idea of having all your guns have an alt-fire which acts as an attack and a movement ability is fucking golden. The meathook in Doom Eternal is kinda similar, and I'm sure there are other examples that I don't know about, but that's a mechanic I'd love for other shooters to steal even if they don't have such a large emphasis on platforming.
The soundtrack for Neon White is also outstanding. One of the biggest selling points for me was that Machine Girl was doing the entire thing, and it fucking rules. It's definitely a bit more subdued than their usual thing, but in tandem with the gameplay it's sublime.
If Neon White was purely playing through these excellently designed levels while blasting Machine Girl that would be fine by me. Unfortunately, in between all of the good stuff there is a whole lot of visual novel. I'm completely okay with the VN segments existing, I like VNs and I think they work in this game structurally as a breather from the high intensity gameplay. That being said, wow oh wow is this writing bad.
When I first started the game I found the writing kind of endearing. The art style of the game, the intro, the voice cast are all so obviously inspired by 2000s anime culture so why shouldn't the writing also evoke that flavor? That feeling of endearment did not last for long. At a certain point all the characters just really started to grate on me, and the plot did absolutely nothing for me either (especially the ending). The whole script really feels like what an anime club would have written while subsisting on a diet of Toonami and early aughts anime forums, then it sat on a shelf for 15 years and got punched up with a bunch of memes.
All that aside this is an excellent game, I loved my time with it, but all future playthroughs will be heavily utilizing the fastforward dialogue button