The First-person shooter genre is not one I gravitate towards. I never cared about Halo, Killzone, Battlefield, or Call of Duty. I played COD Black Ops II at a friend’s birthday, but it did not click with me. Neon White is an exception because the game looks different from your standard FPS. However, after getting to the final level of Episode 5, my opinion on FPS still has not changed.

Neon White is an FPS where they encourage you to speedrun it. You grab cards that act as gun ammo and use different abilities. The yellow card elevates you, the green card allows you to stomp, the purple card shoots a bomb, etc. Discarding them allows you to activate the abilities and that is a cool gameplay mechanic. What I dislike is how you can overshoot yourself with some of them.

There is a red card in Episode 5 where you can shoot yourself in whatever angle you move your reticle. I overshot myself numerous times and ended up missing the demons I needed to kill or falling straight to my death. At least, the levels are short, so it was not too frustrating. However, this game turns you into a perfectionist.

You need to get gold medal rankings if you want to increase your rank to continue the story. Silver and bronze medals do not increase your rank; only gold and ace medals do. You are encouraged to replay levels again and again to get those better medals. When I reached the final level of Episode 5, I needed three more ranks to proceed to Episode 6. I did not want to replay three levels to get three gold medals. I just gave up right there.

One aspect of the game that is the point of contention for many is the writing. The voice acting was really good, but I hate the dialogue. After Episode 2, I just pressed the “Y” button to fast forward. The dialogue is cringe and barely funny. I may have chuckled here and there, but that is about it. I could not stand the dialogue.

Neon White could have been the game to make me a fan of First-Person Shooters. It looks different from your average FPS, but this game can turn you into a perfectionist and that can be frustrating. You need gold medals to increase your ranks, so if you are bad at the game, you are not going to make much progress. The dialogue is also cringe and that could ruin the game for you. It pains me to drop this game, but this game is not winning me over to the FPS genre.

Reviewed on Mar 29, 2023


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