Although Neon White looks old, its design isn’t archaic or old-fashioned, nor does it make you wince. You feel like a kid again, borrowing a bootleg 50-in-1 disc from a friend. The controller is passed between friends every time you die, every trying to shave milliseconds off each other’s time, including a skateboarding game and Pokemon knockoff.
A hint is practically mandatory to achieve Platinum-level speedruns – and more importantly, beat your friends – if you get a certain time on each level. In addition, scaling a building with a perfectly timed grenade blast is marginally faster than climbing the stairs. For some sections, sniping far-off demons lets you skip them, or you can use your abilities otherwise.
There is limited ammo in Neon White, but you usually have to discard it in order to get a one-time ability. In order to get the best time, you need all weapons, whether they’re grenade launchers or double jumpers. Although I’m rushing to finish this review, I would’ve played every level for at least an hour. I’ve already topped a couple of leaderboards, but I’m looking forward to being overthrown by more players.
You want to get faster every time you replay a level in Neon White, whether you’re competing with yourself, with friends or with strangers. A robust level design is required to make this possible; this is a game that you want to play again and again. You obsess over niche mechanics like wall bounces and double grenade propulsions. Everything is intentional and incredible, even though I attacked every level from every angle. Just when you think it’s over, you play the clock tower level. Even if I didn’t spoil anything, Neon White is worth playing.
The biggest downside of Neon White is that I got motion sickness after playing it. When I changed the FoV settings, the nausea went away, but it was exacerbated with a controller. If you suffer from this sort of thing, a mouse and keyboard might be an option. I got motion sickness when I played Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer projected onto a wall as a kid and when I played a zero-gravity simulator in VR, but with Neon White I got it bad.
When I switched inputs and tweaked settings, my issues were resolved, and I was back in the hot seat. Neon White would still be brilliant even without its style, its characters, and its story. Despite the fact that the story isn’t the main draw, the characters are sexy ,interesting, and it’s dripping with style.
Speedrunning is the core of Neon White, despite the sexy suitors and anime villains. Despite being a modern interpretation of a classic, simple premise, Neon White delivers almost flawlessly. Just take your time, you’ll thank me later.
