Stopped by to echo everything written here. Neon White is the best game of this decade. It's a wonderful throwback to the PURITY of gaming, fully in tune with what makes this media tick. It's got a distinct style and a pleasant visual clarity. Neon White even made me solemnly pledge to never shit on Unity as a platform again. The devs truly made it their bitch and the game runs like a marvel.
I'm also perfectly fine with the plot and the overblown characters. Ok, a bunch of pointy-haired animu post-teenagers as a fearsome group of mercenaries can stretch your imagination, but the heroic characters, their interactions with each other, and story pacing aren't that far from a classical Greek drama intertwined with a rudimentary Old Testament morality. The writing could be better in the sense that the punchlines in each story encounter don't always hit, but the overall style and the lighthearted tone are just fine. And there are some hits in there, sure, like Mr. White himself singing Smashing Pumpkins in karaoke. Their voice acting is good. Each character has a distinct tone, which plays well with their archetypical personalities.
But the meat of the game is what we're here for and this is where Neon White is an unquestionable tour-de-force. The comparisons to Ghostrunner and Mirror's Edge have been thrown out there but I think Neon White has even more in common with the Trackmania series. This is fundamentally a racing game in FPS's clothes, and the thrill of optimizing routes, squeezing fractions of a second, navigating complex racing tracks, and the slickness of an instant start/restart are straight from Trackmania (or competitive go-kart racing if that's more your cup of tea). The level design is fantastic, and they are very good at using little nudges with decorative level elements and (I think) camera movement to hint you towards the right path even on the first run on breakneck pace. I'd iike to say that the distinct style bleeds all the way into the screenshots, but maybe it's just the curious design decision to dedicate the bottom left corner of the screen to the main character's mugshot.
Maybe the real innovation of Neon White is the way it has different tiers of clearing levels. If you just muddle through, sure, you'll get a bronze medal and open the next stage, but that's not what Neon White is about. You need to IMPROVE, to be FASTER, to leave NO CORNER UNCUT. Improving a bit more nets you a gold medal, which opens up a level hint towards a shortcut, allowing you to go even faster. I don't really know why, but some games really manage to ignite this drive in you. I mean, there are leaderboards, and some progress bars blinking, but that's not really what drives you. The game is just FUN, and the faster you are, the funner it gets.
The boss fights are the only slight letdown in Neon White. They are a nice change of pace, and make the best of the situation, but a 4-minute grind against a flying machine gun isn't really what Neon White needs. The only thing I actually miss is the puzzle mode from the earlier Trackmanias where you have a barebone level with a start, goal, and a limited set of track pieces you have to place to get to the goal within target time. Not sure how that would have fit in Neon White, though.
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would recommend.
