Neon Echo - Fabulous Vaporization

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I mentioned that the past few weeks have been loaded with good games, and just my last post was about some game that was overlooked. Now here's another one and ah, just read this out without first thinking it's a cliché anime style cyberpunk type game.

Actually no, it is really a cliché anime style cyberpunk type game, in the rather parody sense of the word, but get this, there's actual "FUN" in here too. It's beautifully stylized, glitzy, satirical, and best yet, it's one of the most exciting roguelites I think I've played somehow this year. And even weirder it is getting is that, it's made by a Chinese studio.

It offers a great mix of platforming and combat, with some puzzles thrown in, and the mechanics are highly distinguished compared to other games based solely on design and execution. I stopped taking its setting, characters seriously and just basked in how they tried to be intentionally bad in a rather good way.

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Right after launching the game, I saw the main menu with just 3 options, just entering game, option, and exit. I thought, "ok, I don't need to change anything in the settings" so initiated my first playthrough, now seeing characters looking like 3D Nendoroids.

I mention this because of the bizarre transition of the game, there was no cutscene or anything to prepare me for its story and atmosphere. After playing the game for half an hour, I pretty much figured out why; all of this is done to feel like throwaway, because of what I'll talk about later on seems to be working good enough for the developers to only work on.

If the above GIF seems to look like it has a lot going in it, that's because it does. It only has a basic combo attack that can increase over time with upgrades, dodge, special and ultimate where matching beat rhythm increases damage. But there's also this initiation where the press of just the LB, I would do dodge attacks and refill it after engaging enemies again.

I can attack on air, parry attacks timing my dodge, and do ground smash, which is kind of OP for CC clearance. It wasn't hard for me to learn all these, and just early in the game, I was blasting whatever was in my way like crazy.

The simple goal is to eliminate enemies in the stage before moving to the next one. Taking a minute or less to do. Completing each earns me rewards, one of which is element based records which increases stat, stacks them, and provide abilities. This first level had nine stages for me to complete before a boss battle. There are other rewards I was pulling in as well.

Some of these stuff I'd get, would be like these Prisms, coins and Music Cores. After 5 stages, I'd go to the Supply Station. A bunch of stuff is locked out, but ones I got to purchase are cards and health packs. Then use the Music Cores to unlock more upgrades.

The Station was accessed twice, the last one right before my first boss fight. And boy, this guy was hard at first try, and some of his attacks did ruthless damage to my health. I got the hang of the mechanics and rhythm of the game, but this wasn't it for me chief.

Ok, so I got my butt-handed and died. But after dying, I was introduced to the game's characters via dialogue and well now that I've explained the gameplay, here's where the game gets pretty wacky.

This interaction helped me understand the world and settings, but I've also had the odd experience of watching a terrible Eng dub by Chinese actors. It's not that bad, you can have some fun with how obtuse they're being with it. After a while, stops being tolerable.

But man, they sure do know how to do some fan servicing here and there. I already like the visual style, the glitzy pop saturation of the colors, and ah, yeah, the ladies, some are pretty well-equipped. And somewhere in the game, they've embraced this Asian cartoon show personality that sort of works for it.

There are even typos found in the subtitles, some that don't match the spoken dialogue even. It's like the writers just threw stuff on the wall and worked with what they got. It isn't all bad, I don't have to care about the characters, I can least be intrigued about the rest of the stuff though.

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And yeah, speaking of cartoon characters, there's a cartoon villain in need to give high stakes, and boy, was he not just high stakes, but a good punching bag and drive to absolute stomp him down. He's annoying, and that works in a way. He even has a derogatory name, called "stinky red tomato" by one of the characters.(Of all the names, they picked this one, sigh)

But other reasons for to strive is the constant need to upgrade, increase my DPS, become an unstoppable force, and with the upgrades I seem to be unlocking, the new enemies I face on every new level I've unlocked, and like, the general sense of progression, like finding how deep that well is.

I never explained how the Launchpad actually works, it's stacking up these attribute bonuses points until you hit a full row or column with different number of cores available. That way, a new passive is unlocked. Another one like Rhapsody is either changing my attack skills or bonuses, like reducing cooldown.

Now, I used the prism to upgrade my health and damage, even managing to have an extra life. So I went back for another run, 30 minutes later am back to fight that guy again, and while some of his attacks are still broken, I was running on pure adrenaline trying to stomp him before finally doing it.

Now, I really got the taste of power. I had various elemental records of power, was blowing fireballs, icing them, some of them with increase critical damage and stun chance, all of this piling up hard. The Launchpad is where in order to make the best use of it, I don't just button spam, learning how to play is one thing, understanding the complex lingo of the instructions is another. Yeah, how to prompt these other abilities can become a head scratcher sometimes.

But nothing I had a difficult time getting grasp of, trial and error fixed it, and so on to the next level where I was facing enemies on the frozen tundras. There are new types that require me to ground smash because they swim underneath, which makes it trickier because of the other enemies intensifying their attacks, it's hard to see what goes on in the screen.

So somewhere I died again, and then my employers here decided to let me have more access to stuff, so I can beef myself up even more. Don't care how expanse and ridiculous the progression system is, I want to zip, zap, slash my way to funtown. Wait, how is this a Roguelite again? It looks easy.

I pretty much got used to the cringy VA, and was actually paying attention to the aesthetics. It's a nice looking game after all. Or maybe because I was going around looking for more ladies to ogle at. The writing isn't all bad, if bad name callings aren't a thing that is. And I also found out that after playing to a certain point of the story, I get to play other characters as well. Each with different fighting style, one of their attacks also being only ranged.

Back to my third run, faced the same boss again, then to the second boss. He was challenging, but I was stronger than ever. Because I was filling up 4 different elements with 5-9 records each. The music also helps, I mean, half of the fun is playing through the rhythm of the BGM.

I was buffed up so much, just insta killing in split seconds. I was hot, cold, blasting wind, striking lighting, scorching my enemies before me, and I was doing it with utmost precision. I became the perfect monster killer.

I didn't care how broken my entire build was, this run was my lucky break and I was going full throttle. Made it all the way to the 3rd boss and took that one down even. Actually third boss were two bosses, who fused together halfway, I was close to 5HP and my extra life spent. But I still did it!

This game is obviously inspired by Hades, and while it feels a little shallow on some parts, this is early access and judging by how well it is doing now, major updates might shake this one up. For now just for fun, grab a friend and ask them to play this, see how bonkers they find out it is. It's good stuff.

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