Neon White felt like the perfect companion piece to my awaited playthrough of Final Fantasy VII: a lighting-fast action game to contrast a slower-paced JRPG. Yet, within the first few levels of playing Neon White, I knew this plan was shot by a game that contrasts itself far too well to put down.
The game has an incredibly well-defined gameplay loop for each level. First, figuring out the fastest path through the level to slowly whittle down the time to an Ace-rank medal (and even an elusive dev time-beating Red Ace medal once for me) in attempt after attempt of high-precision gameplay. Then, taking a fine-tooth comb to the level to find the hidden present and, more importantly, figure out how to actually collect it. Rinse and repeat for the next level. The present portion serves almost as a reward for getting an appropriate time on the level, something that often takes upwards of 10 minutes in the later levels. Without this "break", speedrunning levels back to back would almost certainly get exhausting.
Yet, both portions are able to remain incredibly stimulating with how they force you to thing about the physical space you're platforming through in each level. It'd be so easy for each level to be a linear, binary skill test, but the possibility space for each level is immense. They end up being these multi-faceted puzzles where absolutely everything around you needs to be considered in really interesting ways. So often you'll go through a level one way, be 10 seconds off from the Ace rank time, and then it just requires thinking about the tools to get through the level and how, if used in a completely different way, you shave off so much time.
The possibility space just continues growing the further in you get, with each new weapon added to your arsenal providing more freedom to utilize than the last. In the last few worlds, the grenade launcher that lets you both rocket jump up the side of walls and expend the weapon for a grappling hook completely blows the doors off the limitations of what 's possible if you're smart, and the game really makes you think about it. The game pulls the "figure out a way to conserve your bazookas throughout the level so you can stock up on blasts to scale up the side of a massive building to find a present" card more times than it really should be able to, but it remains satisfying to do every single time.
The game tries to replicate its high-octane/relaxing pace on a more macro structure as well, but it... doesn't work quite as well. The story the game tries to tell, in every facet down to its voice acting, feels overly thin for the amount of times the game dedicates to it. While nothing about it stuck out as outwardly bad to me, a lot of my paging through the dialogue, particularly in the individual character sidequests, felt like an obligation to get to the next portion of actual gameplay. By the end of the game, I ended up getting a bit annoyed at Neon Violet's yandere-isms, which I did not anticipate from my initial impressions of her (I am typically very tolerant of that kind of stuff)!
It's a shame how much space the lacking story takes place compared to what's a practically perfect gameplay experience. While I don't wish for the story to have been removed entirely, I think that would be a detriment to the game itself, sometimes you just wish something was a bit better! Still, it doesn't detract from the experience that much—and I think anybody who seriously docks the game for it needs to grow up a bit. Neon White as an incredibly enthralling, unique experience that understands speedrunning so well. I've been waiting to play the game since it released a year and a half ago, never getting around to it for one reason or another but always knowing it would be Poochycore. It feels good getting to this point and knowing my gut feeling was right!
The game has an incredibly well-defined gameplay loop for each level. First, figuring out the fastest path through the level to slowly whittle down the time to an Ace-rank medal (and even an elusive dev time-beating Red Ace medal once for me) in attempt after attempt of high-precision gameplay. Then, taking a fine-tooth comb to the level to find the hidden present and, more importantly, figure out how to actually collect it. Rinse and repeat for the next level. The present portion serves almost as a reward for getting an appropriate time on the level, something that often takes upwards of 10 minutes in the later levels. Without this "break", speedrunning levels back to back would almost certainly get exhausting.
Yet, both portions are able to remain incredibly stimulating with how they force you to thing about the physical space you're platforming through in each level. It'd be so easy for each level to be a linear, binary skill test, but the possibility space for each level is immense. They end up being these multi-faceted puzzles where absolutely everything around you needs to be considered in really interesting ways. So often you'll go through a level one way, be 10 seconds off from the Ace rank time, and then it just requires thinking about the tools to get through the level and how, if used in a completely different way, you shave off so much time.
The possibility space just continues growing the further in you get, with each new weapon added to your arsenal providing more freedom to utilize than the last. In the last few worlds, the grenade launcher that lets you both rocket jump up the side of walls and expend the weapon for a grappling hook completely blows the doors off the limitations of what 's possible if you're smart, and the game really makes you think about it. The game pulls the "figure out a way to conserve your bazookas throughout the level so you can stock up on blasts to scale up the side of a massive building to find a present" card more times than it really should be able to, but it remains satisfying to do every single time.
The game tries to replicate its high-octane/relaxing pace on a more macro structure as well, but it... doesn't work quite as well. The story the game tries to tell, in every facet down to its voice acting, feels overly thin for the amount of times the game dedicates to it. While nothing about it stuck out as outwardly bad to me, a lot of my paging through the dialogue, particularly in the individual character sidequests, felt like an obligation to get to the next portion of actual gameplay. By the end of the game, I ended up getting a bit annoyed at Neon Violet's yandere-isms, which I did not anticipate from my initial impressions of her (I am typically very tolerant of that kind of stuff)!
It's a shame how much space the lacking story takes place compared to what's a practically perfect gameplay experience. While I don't wish for the story to have been removed entirely, I think that would be a detriment to the game itself, sometimes you just wish something was a bit better! Still, it doesn't detract from the experience that much—and I think anybody who seriously docks the game for it needs to grow up a bit. Neon White as an incredibly enthralling, unique experience that understands speedrunning so well. I've been waiting to play the game since it released a year and a half ago, never getting around to it for one reason or another but always knowing it would be Poochycore. It feels good getting to this point and knowing my gut feeling was right!