Neon Inferno PS5 Review. There are a lot of types of games I missed out on in my childhood that have found a way to make a comeback in this day and age. Beat-’em-ups are thriving once again, and retro arcade shooters are back.
One type of game from my childhood I hoped would evolve is the hardcore 2D shoot-em-ups like Contra and Metal Slug. Unfortunately, Neon Inferno, though it looks stunning, brings with it some of the most frustrating action I’ve experienced in a long while.
Neon Inferno PS5 Review
Cyberpunk New York City Is As Violent As You Can Imagine
You take on the role of Angelo and Mariana, two assassins hunting down their next targets in a cyberpunk neon New York City of 2055. The city is brimming with corrupt police forces, Yakuza, and street thugs. Missions are presented through a narrative as you sit in a bar and take contracts from your boss.
At first, you can choose which of the three contracts you want to tackle first, a la Mega Man, but after these first three targets, the game’s story comes more into focus, and missions progress as you would expect. The story in Neon Inferno isn’t anything spectacular, but it helps keep the game going and gives your assassins a reason to keep going.
You can pick who you want to play as at the start of the game, Marina or Angelo, but the story is the same between the two, besides how some cutscenes are presented from an artwork perspective. The game features about eight missions, each culminating in a challenging boss fight.
Click, Click, Bang, Bang
The stages are varied, and many different mechanisms begin to play a role. Some missions have you riding a bike on the highway, shooting thugs, and another one has you hanging on rails in a nightclub, avoiding civilians on the ground as firefights break out.
The gunplay in Neon Inferno borrows from the titles that paved the way for it, for better or worse. The shooting itself isn’t bad, and when enemies are in front or behind you, it’s a blast. The problem arises when enemies appear in both the background and the foreground of the environment.
While you can move around, duck, and jump while shooting, when you have to take on enemies in the background, you have to hold one of the shoulder buttons and aim the crosshair with the analog stick. This means you can no longer move your characters around.
Background Shooting Leaves You Wide Open To Unnecessary Damage
It’s these situations that lead to the most deaths I’ve experienced in the game. Because you’re frozen to aim at the enemies in the background, all the other enemies are still shooting at you, and you can’t really avoid their damage unless you get out of the background shooting.
This gets worse in stages where you have to move or avoid falling to your death or avoid traps around you. It’s incredibly frustrating because they could have let you move around with the left analog stick while aiming with the right one.
It becomes rage-inducing later in the game when you have to take on dozens of enemies constantly bombarding from all directions.
Lack Of Health Drops Or Weapons Leads To Frustration
Another issue is the lack of any health drops. You have a health bar, and when it runs out, you have to start at the start of the checkpoint if you’re playing on easy or from the beginning of the level if you’re playing on normal.
The game became so frustrating that I had to change the difficulty to finish it, and even then, I died dozens of times on each level. Besides your standard handgun, you can buy different ammo types in a shop between missions, but these are one-time use ammo. I thought I might be able to hold on to it or switch to a different weapon.
That’s not the case. You can switch to this type of ammo anytime in the mission, but you can’t switch back if you want to save your ammo. You have to use it all up and then lose it for that mission.
Deflecting Gunfire In Bullet Time Is A Solid Mechanic
Buying this ammo is also a chore, as you only earn money depending on how well you do in a mission. The better your score is, the more money you get at the end of a mission. Getting a five-star in a mission is tied to the normal difficulty, which is baffling.
You also get a knife that can be used for melee attacks, but more importantly, it can be used to deflect green bullets back at your opponents, and you can also enter bullet time with them.
If you deflect the bullets and hold one of the shoulder buttons, you can freeze time and direct those bullets in whatever direction you want, even into the background to do three times the damage. It’s a great feature, but you can only use it a certain number of times before you have to wait for it to recharge.
Stunning Soundtrack And Pixel Art
Besides the campaign, there is an Arcade Mode for the most hardcore players, as you only get one life across the eight missions in the game. If you die, you have to start the entire game from the beginning. Those are the only two modes on offer, so there really isn’t that much in the form of replay value, and not enough content to really go back through the game once you finish it. It features couch co-op only; there is no online co-op.
Visually, Neon Inferno is stunning. The pixel art looks great and is well animated, and the environments are varied and look great. The amount of destruction you can cause to the background is also impressive and really brings the shoot-’em-up hell you’re in to life.
The soundtrack is also great, with fantastic electronic music that fits the mood perfectly, but my favorite track is the jazz theme that plays in the bar before you take on your next mission.
Neon Inferno is designed for a specific type of player. Unfortunately, I may not be that player. Though I enjoyed these hardcore shooters when I was younger, they didn’t innovate enough for me to keep my interest.
Neon Inferno could have improved on things by adding health or additional lives to the levels, allowing you to buy and use new weapons as much as you want. However, the most significant issue was that it didn’t force you to stand still trying to take out the enemies in the background while dozens of enemy bullets are flying at you.
Neon Inferno is now available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
Review Code kindly provided by PR