With Neon Inferno coming in from Zenovia Interactive, the folks behind the hugely satisfying Steel Assault from a few years ago, you get to play an absolutely gorgeous mixup of classic olden day run ‘n gun shooters Contra and Sunset Riders. In a near future version of New City that’s drenched in neon and hopeless crime, you play a member of the mafia who is vying for control, with your mission being to take out the competition.
The structure of Neon Inferno is somewhat clever for the type of game that it is, as it allows you to pick what you want to do, not just sticking you in a series of levels that you can finish in a couple of hours. Granted, you can still finish this game quite quickly, but the path you take will be entirely up to you, and in that, there’s surprising flexibility and variety that isn’t otherwise seen in others in this genre.
Just by looking at screenshots, you can tell that this one is a looker, but it manages to be even more so in motion. Developer Zenovia has done a brilliant job at providing visual depth by overlaying pixel art, which adds plenty of effect to just about every aspect of its visual presentation, resulting in its living, breathing, and admittedly busy aesthetic. In gameplay, it translates to a vibrant but sometimes confusing playfield as it can sometimes get a little hard to read where threats can come from when the action gets going.
In terms of gameplay, Neon Inferno also has some weight to it. You can shoot from side to side in the 2D plane as well as into the background, with the big gimmick being your ability to deflect some enemy attacks coming in and redirect them to another plane. By doing so, you’ll stack up extra damage that you can apply to your targets, making hardier foes go down a bit faster than they would otherwise. But not all incoming threats can be dealt this way, and that’s when the dodge comes in, a pretty useful and somewhat broken skill that can get you out of jams with the touch of a button.
While I wouldn’t say it’s revolutionary in any way, that dance of either avoiding or using incoming attacks to your advantage is very fun to perform, and adds a much needed wrench into the works of what otherwise is a by-the-numbers genre that is way past its heyday. Neon Inferno tries to shake things up and in that succeeds at providing opportunities for those who love fighting for high scores to duke it by not just having them see who can shoot out the most, but the one who can get through the game without firing a bullet would be the top dog in my book, and that’s something you could very well do in this game!
You can play this with a friend along for the ride as well, and much like its arcade inspirations, it’s where Neon Inferno shines, having absolute chaos being wrought on screen with the two protagonists tearing it up simultaneously. I would recommend playing through the one-run-one-life mode this way as it’s noticeably harder to make your way through it solo. It certainly made me nostalgic for Xbox 360 Arcade-era shooters like Hard Corps: Uprising and it’s been more than a decade since I’ve last thought about that one.
While not anything mindblowing when it comes to gameplay but sporting one of the best looking presentations you’ll ever see, it’s the entire retro package that does the talking in Neon Inferno. If you were ever a fan of 1990s arcade shooters or have at least a little bit of an appreciation for excellent pixel art in motion, you should most definitely give it a whirl.
