Neon White is a game that's categorized primarily by it's excellent aesthetic and it's overtly amateurish game design.
The gameplay of Neon White is genuinely brilliant, if not groundbreaking. The way that the different abilities and weapons attatched to them are constructed is something special, i love the card game seetup of it.
The level design was something i found myself more and more dissatisfied with the longer the game went on. In the early levels i found myself having a lot more fun due to the faster, shorter nature of them, as well as the fact that a lot of them felt more open and less rigid. The later levels feel almost on-rails with how little room for variation or mistake there is, every level has an exact way you're supposed to play, and the only real difficulty in them comes from figuring that out with the sometimes obtuse mechanics. It's far too steeped in trial and error for me to find that muh satisfaction from it, even the boss fights are so limited in what can be done despite having such a well-designed moveset, it doesn't feel like it's reached it's potential.
The narrative is, as you can probably guess, paltry, and almost obnoxious in how unambitious it is. I want to give credit to an indie game for even having a story of this calibur, in addition to having voice acting for most of the dialogue, but as soon as i'm ready to ignore the cliche-ridden dialogue and poorly-defined characters, they throw in an almost insulting nod to the audience in the form of a joke or an out of place pop-culture reference, the tonal dissonance in this game is absolutely ridiculous. Just like the levels, the more and more the plot went on the less i found myself interested, it doesn't jive with the rest of the game, nor does it stand on it's own.
The aesthetic, for the most part, is atleast very well executed, it has a problem with a lot of the areas after the first third of the game not looking nwarly as good as that which was designed to be shown off in trailers and used in promo material, but the game never looks actively bad. The character portraits are actually pretty impressive in sheer number, they compliment the excellent designs. Neon White has such a firm hold on looking a certain way, but only some of the time, and i love the way it looks some of the time.
The soundtrack was an excellent addition too, and it made repeating the same missions over and over again a lot more enjoyable, it definitely adds to the vibes of the game a lot, one of my favorite game soundtracks in a while, just off the top of my head.
The thing that strangely bogs this down is the optional relationship-building and bonus level segments, which are required to acquire what is surely going to be considered the superior, and possibly, canonical ending, are such a drain on the game i can barely even articulate it. The scenes aren't particularly fun to unlock, take a lot of time of aimless wandering, and aren't entertaining to watch at all, they are a tremendous waste of time, and i can only see tying the true ending to them as a massive mistake. The game doesn't even account for narrative change that would, in other games, cause these scenes to be inaccesible for the time, once again the game undercuts any emotional significance it might have.
Overall i felt that Neon White was undercooked, but worth playing. I'd say this is a great first attempt for a studio that's only just finding it's footing, and hope that they can either improve upon this idea, or move on to something else that i happen to enjoy more in the future.
The gameplay of Neon White is genuinely brilliant, if not groundbreaking. The way that the different abilities and weapons attatched to them are constructed is something special, i love the card game seetup of it.
The level design was something i found myself more and more dissatisfied with the longer the game went on. In the early levels i found myself having a lot more fun due to the faster, shorter nature of them, as well as the fact that a lot of them felt more open and less rigid. The later levels feel almost on-rails with how little room for variation or mistake there is, every level has an exact way you're supposed to play, and the only real difficulty in them comes from figuring that out with the sometimes obtuse mechanics. It's far too steeped in trial and error for me to find that muh satisfaction from it, even the boss fights are so limited in what can be done despite having such a well-designed moveset, it doesn't feel like it's reached it's potential.
The narrative is, as you can probably guess, paltry, and almost obnoxious in how unambitious it is. I want to give credit to an indie game for even having a story of this calibur, in addition to having voice acting for most of the dialogue, but as soon as i'm ready to ignore the cliche-ridden dialogue and poorly-defined characters, they throw in an almost insulting nod to the audience in the form of a joke or an out of place pop-culture reference, the tonal dissonance in this game is absolutely ridiculous. Just like the levels, the more and more the plot went on the less i found myself interested, it doesn't jive with the rest of the game, nor does it stand on it's own.
The aesthetic, for the most part, is atleast very well executed, it has a problem with a lot of the areas after the first third of the game not looking nwarly as good as that which was designed to be shown off in trailers and used in promo material, but the game never looks actively bad. The character portraits are actually pretty impressive in sheer number, they compliment the excellent designs. Neon White has such a firm hold on looking a certain way, but only some of the time, and i love the way it looks some of the time.
The soundtrack was an excellent addition too, and it made repeating the same missions over and over again a lot more enjoyable, it definitely adds to the vibes of the game a lot, one of my favorite game soundtracks in a while, just off the top of my head.
The thing that strangely bogs this down is the optional relationship-building and bonus level segments, which are required to acquire what is surely going to be considered the superior, and possibly, canonical ending, are such a drain on the game i can barely even articulate it. The scenes aren't particularly fun to unlock, take a lot of time of aimless wandering, and aren't entertaining to watch at all, they are a tremendous waste of time, and i can only see tying the true ending to them as a massive mistake. The game doesn't even account for narrative change that would, in other games, cause these scenes to be inaccesible for the time, once again the game undercuts any emotional significance it might have.
Overall i felt that Neon White was undercooked, but worth playing. I'd say this is a great first attempt for a studio that's only just finding it's footing, and hope that they can either improve upon this idea, or move on to something else that i happen to enjoy more in the future.