neon white is a game that did the seemingly impossible - it made me feel like i'm actually good at video games. it's such a cool fuckin' game man, i don't think any other game out there blends so many different genres and ideas together as well as this one does. buttery smooth, aesthetic as hell, makes you feel like a god, and it's one of the only high score/time trial-based games that's actually compelling.

the way neon white is able to embody the thrill of speedrunning and optimizing routes without turning into some bullshit pixel-perfect platformer (or even that difficult of one) is so nice. overall movement and the amount of tools/gimmicks at your disposal in each level is immaculate, and almost every mission has something cool up its sleeve. zipping through the later levels with the rocket launcher, launching yourself through barriers with the shotgun while being careful not to hit mimics, it's just so fucking cool. never once did it feel frustrating to the point where i wanted to slow down - even you're several attempts into a level, it's still a blast finding ways to optimize your existing progress or trying out new routes. not every level is a winner (some of the later ones were so lengthy that they did start to wear on me a little), but a vast majority of them were perfect beyond words.

like i said at the start, games like this that are based around getting the fastest times/the highest score usually don't resonate with me because i have no reason to give a shit. not only is this game's movement perfect for that kind of thing, but plastering your steam friends' times at the end of each level is honestly genius. i'm sure a lot of games do this, but seeing that your time was total ass in comparison (or one motherfucker beating a level in 8 seconds) is a great motivator to replay levels in search of perfection. after all, i can't have my friends thinking i'm dogshit :(

the weirdo ass breakcore y2k aesthetic this game has is incredible too, and definitely helps ease the pain of having to replay a mission dozens of times. sliding down glassy aqueducts, grappling between modern skyscrapers, all while machine girl is hitting you with the most beautiful songs you're ever gonna hear... it's really something else. while this game's aesthetic inspirations and the feelings it's trying to invoke through its presentation are pretty clear, it stands out from the crowd extremely well.

gameplay and presentation-wise, neon white is almost unrivaled. however, pretty much all the negativity for this games comes from its story. which, yeah, it's pretty bad and drags the game down quite a bit. it's basically this weirdo jumble of excuses for you to get dragged from one level to the next while every single character is either absurd levels of comic relief or your generic milf mommy uwu. there wasn't a single moment i actually liked, but it wasn't enough to put me off from the game. i also didn't feel compelled to find any of the hidden gifts in each level for this reason - while i think that's a cool idea, it's not worth it when the "reward" is having to spend more time with violet. i'm not gonna say that this game would have been better if it had no story at all, but it'd probably have a lot fewer negative reviews. even if they leaned into some weirdo shit where the only stuff you learned about white or heaven came from getting enough medals/secrets and just kept it as a time trial platformer would be pretty cool.

if you haven't played this game yet you're dumb as shit!! just kidding, that's a mean thing to say. don't let the negative reviews taint your impression of this one. just mash skip through every cutscene and you'll get one of the best platforming experiences you've ever had. not bad for a dead guy at all.

i have absolutely fallen in love with etrian odyssey over the past year. nexus quickly became one of my favorite RPGs period, and V isn't far behind - i'm pretty sure i've gushed to almost everyone i know online about this series by this point. the soundtrack, combat system, dungeon crawling mechanics... all of the things that made nexus and V great are still in EO4, and they're all still spectacular. however, there are a few issues here and there that don't quite bring it up to the same standards as the games that came after it.

there's probably gonna be a lot of negativity here for a 4 star review, so let's just go over the positives first. the class system is still top notch, and super fun to mess around with. by EO standards it's fairly simple - this was meant to be a Sort-Of Reboot that would Bring In New Players so you've got shit like your standard sword user, mage, medic, fortress, and status class. still, they're not braindead, as each class has something fun that'll remove it a little from what's to be expected from standard RPG classes. runemasters can inflict elemental weaknesses while increasing the party's resistances to that same element, dancers can apply a shit ton of different buffs but also act as a support attacker than can hit multiple times per turn and inflict stuns... couple that with the subclass system and you've got even more opportunities to offset each class' weaknesses or play into their strengths. at first i was a bit disappointed in the class roster (that's what i get for starting with nexus i guess), but after hitting 6+ links per turn with a landsknecht/dancer setup and doing a billion damage i was sold. i'm a bit pissed that the really fun classes (arcanist my beloved) have to be unlocked later down the line, but it doesn't kill the game too much. combat itself feels good too - for some reason everyone calls this the easiest EO game which doesn't make sense to me?? i had about as much trouble with it as any other one i've played. maybe i just haven't played the really hard ones yet idk.

dungeon crawling has been overhauled too - instead of just going between floors, now you also explore a big ass overworld and solve puzzles, battle FOEs, gather food that gives buffs, or take on smaller sub-labyrinths. again, this took a lot of getting used to (and it's a tad bit slow), but i'm thankful that they tried something different. the overworld definitely adds to that sense of progression - battling FOEs you previously had to avoid, accessing areas that were previously shut off to you, or finding secrets added a lot to the game's identity. dungeon crawling itself isn't too different from what you'd expect from EO - and at this point, i'm fairly used to making my own map so it isn't even worth mentioning. while some of the smaller labyrinths are hit or miss, there's quite a few that had a fun gimmick or were good for grinding, so i think it's a decent replacement for main labyrinths being shorter overall.

as always, this game kills it in the aesthetics department - not just with each labyrinth and character design, but they fucking knocked it out of the park with the music yet again. the last two labyrinths are absolute bangers (echoing library hitting me with the 7/4 time signature almost put me in a coma), and both the first and second battle themes are absolutely killer. story's not bad, either - people dog on this series for having simple, straightforward stories (which has always been done on purpose), but this one definitely had more meat than the later entries. it's certainly compelling and spread out pretty evenly (way better than V's exposition dump at the end), plus whirlwind is hot so it's impossible for me to be mad at this game.

now for the not so good - this game's biggest weakness overall is that it lacks various QOL stuff that V and nexus have. those games adopted a lot of the changes from the untold remakes, and it's definitely noticeable how much slower and clunkier this game feels compared to its predecessors. you can't run in the labyrinth or warp between floors, so exploration and backtracking are already a lot slower. you can't see how many turns are left on enemy buffs and debuffs, nor can you view an enemy's status weaknesses/resistances. also, for some reason the escape chances in this game are extremely low - you'll be close to the max level and have to make 2-3 attempts to run away from the level 2 bidoof in the first labyrinth while it keeps hitting you for 2 damage. sure, it could be worse and anyone who played the original trilogy are welcome to call me a pussy over this, but it definitely doesn't feel as polished as the later titles. not that i entirely blame the game for it, as it's obviously a bit older.

the dungeons themselves don't feel as polished either - most of them revolve around a simple gimmick that never really gets improved upon, and with a few exceptions most of them only have 1 FOE type per labyrinth. later titles had you solve extremely complicated puzzles involving several FOEs with different interaction rules, while this game never moves past "move this guy out of the way so you can get past him". again, this isn't outright bad, it just shows IV's age. except for the golden lair, though - that shit was absolute ass from start to finish. it's definitely a complicated dungeon - you have to keep track of whether the cave is frozen or not, how different FOEs move because of it, which entry you need to go in from, how many ice stakes you need to solve puzzles (which is COMPLETE fucking horseshit), and whether or not you'll be able to kill all the scales in the boiling lizard's room before running out and having to do it all again.

i know i praised the dungeon crawling elements, but it definitely does hurt a bit how they're just 3 floors each instead of the usual 5. sure, they're built around this and that just means your boss runbacks aren't as long as they could be, but i didn't get as much out of them. i think there was only one labyrinth i really enjoyed - the first two were still setting up the game, golden lair should die in hell, and the last one sets itself up really well but then says "oh you're actually gonna go visit all those other labyrinths again lmao". so shout out to the echoing library for being the goat.

i get that this review is definitely influenced by me going through this series in reverse order - of course it's not gonna have all the QOL stuff the last two entries had! even outside of that, however, it's not the smash hit that the series' last two games were. it's still fire though! it's still a wonderful entry, and pretty much whenever i wasn't getting fucked six different ways by the golden lair i was having some good fun with it. overall, this is a modern EO experience through and through, and while it may not have all the bells and whistles of the later entries it has everything else you'd expect.

graceful explosion machine is a bit of a weird relic in my eyes. back when the switch launched, this was one of like three or four games on the eshop that actually looked decently interesting - long before the storefront was dominated by Hentai Calculator Platinum Edition and other assorted slop. but the fact that it took seven fucking years for me to finally get through this one says a lot.

in its defense, GEM is probably one of the most inoffensive games i've ever played. a mobile-esque high-score focused shooter that dumps all its gimmicks on you in the first five minutes and tells you to go wild. gameplay and concept-wise, it's not terrible. having to constantly cycle through your weapons while keeping track of your energy/cooldowns is decently fun, and the frantic difficulty ends up being pretty satisfying without tipping over into frustrating territory. the looping environment is a fun gimmick, and in short bursts the game is fine. looks decent, sounds decent, and does exactly what it wants to do.

problem is that it ends up becoming boring and repetitive fairly quickly. outside of introducing new enemies once in a blue moon and slightly changing the environment with each level, your first half hour in this game is gonna look the exact same as the last one. outside of color palette and ups in difficulty, there's no sense of progression. no engaging hooks, no bosses, no big challenges, just shoot and dash. i'm not expecting an absurd level of quality from a game as simple (and inexpensive) as this, but past the first world there isn't anything that's gonna make you a fan if you weren't one already.

it's not terrible, just not engaging at all. if you're a fan of shooters like this, you'll probably like it - otherwise, it's probably one you're gonna need to force yourself to finish.