Neon Blood Review
Cyberpunk adventure RPG Neon Blood fails to deliver on the promise of its beautiful visuals.
Neon Blood. Credit: ChaoticBrain Studios / Meridiem Games
Developer ChaoticBrain Studios and publisher Meridiem Games bring Neon Blood, a cyberpunk RPG adventure featuring a stunning visual style. I’m a sucker for noir-tinged detective and crime stories, cyberpunk worlds, and pixel art, so it felt like I was the target audience for this game. I went in, ready to love it. Unfortunately, aside from its killer look, Neon Blood was a disappointment in nearly every sense.
In Neon Blood, it’s 2053, and Detective Axel McCoin works homicide in Blind City, part of the bleak megacity Viridis, formed after World War III. McCoin struggles with an addiction to the dangerous drug Spark, memory loss, and outdated cybernetic implants. A murder case involving the grisly execution of engineers working for the most prominent organic implant corporation throws McCoin into a web of intrigue that drudges up his forgotten past.
Neon Blood. Credit: ChaoticBrain Studios / Meridiem Games
Poor writing and awful localization completely squandered the story's promising premise. Some of the English dialogue verges on nonsense. It’s not much more tolerable in (what I assume is) the original Spanish. The game would have hugely benefitted from the involvement of an editor for the dialogue. As the core pillar of a narrative-driven game, the quality of the writing completely tanks the experience. I found myself losing patience with the game very quickly.
Gameplay consists mainly of exploring the world while conversing with characters and examining objects. I was grateful that the game allows you to run, but it was easy to get stuck on objects because of hazily defined collisions; as a 2D character in a 3D world, those boundaries weren’t always clear. The result is that traversal is clunky and sometimes vaguely frustrating.
Neon Blood. Credit: ChaoticBrain Studios / Meridiem Games
Every other gameplay system in Neon Blood feels like padding for the game’s short runtime. Puzzles are nearly non-existent. A simple maze with switches, some simple dialogue choices that gate progress, following tracks using an optical implant, and that’s almost the extent of it. It feels like busywork. The game’s few turn-based combat fights are tacked on and unnecessary, with a design that feels half-baked. Trade blows with enemies by selecting from attacks that feel largely identical with wildly varying, arbitrary damage results. Healing is just as unpredictable. A handful of easy quick-time events (QTEs) add some color to the proceedings; while these fight cutscenes are very cool, QTEs aren’t very interesting as a gameplay system.
The game’s standout feature is its art. Blind City is a neon-lit, rain-soaked cyberpunk fever dream teeming with life and detail. It’s all lovingly rendered in a distinct 2D-3D style featuring modern lighting effects and much depth. Characters are large, rendered in chunky pixels, and feel plucked from a classic adventure game. I truly loved the game’s art direction—the design of the characters and the world they inhabit. Brief but very good traditionally animated 2D cutscenes give us a better look at some of the character designs.
Neon Blood. Credit: ChaoticBrain Studios / Meridiem Games
I genuinely looked forward to Neon Blood since seeing its earliest trailers and screenshots. I don’t know anything about its production, but it feels like budgetary and time constraints caused the game to be lacking. As beautiful as the game’s art is to behold, I think some of the resources poured into that part of the project should have gone toward improving the writing, at least. I could have overlooked some gameplay issues if the game’s dialogue and story had been compelling. Gawking at the awesome art isn't enough to compensate for the otherwise miserable gameplay experience.
Neon Blood is available now on PC (Steam), PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One / Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
Overall Score: 3/10
Played on: PS5
