You wanna know the pedigree of games I'm gonna be talking about moving forward? If we were talking strictly gameplay, with 0 mind paid to the story whatsoever, this would be #1 and it would not be remotely close.
Neon White is a speedrunner's wet dream, basically. It's an action platformer where you race to the end of a series of stages by using weapon cards to either kill enemies or use their discard abilities to progress (like one card gives you a second jump, another launches you straight forward, etc). It feels SO GODDAMN GOOD to clear gigantic stages in seconds flat. The enemies are, honestly, completely arbitrary, to the point most of them literally just take on the shape of blobs. Little more than devices you need to figure out how to eliminate quickly to progress faster.
There IS a story here, yeah, but it's pretty perfunctory. I know some people have issues with how anime-y it gets, but I never minded that. It really just boils down to you competing with the other Neons to reach the #1 rank so you can ascend, or whatever. Basically just get a minimum of Gold in every level and you won't need to think too hard about it. There's also presents you can collect to give to the cast to unlock hangouts with them, or mini challenges that will also increase your social connections with them.
If you want a game that's a gigantic fucking adrenaline rush, play this one. It's addicting, I personally have gotten Ace medals in about 2/3rds of the game and have even beaten the dev times in about 10 levels! This game is FANTASTIC, would absolutely recommend. This is peak gameplay right here. And I liked 5 games more than it this year. Fucking CHRIST.
