Neon Inferno Feels Like Two Great Shooters In One
A throwback shooter with an original twist.
It’s been a great year for sidescrolling action games. In the past few months alone, games like Ninja Gaiden Ragebound and Absolum brought back classic platforming and beat ‘em up gameplay with enough inventive twists to make them feel entirely new. Now, a new game is doing the same for sidescrolling shooters, merging two distinct arcade genres into something fresh, stylish, and extremely difficult.
Neon Inferno feels like a perfect throwback to old-school arcade games and simultaneously like a totally original idea. For the most part, it’s a sidescrolling shooter, where you’ll race across a cyberpunk version of New York City blasting enemies that run in from all angles. But at the same time, the action isn’t strictly limited to 2D. From time to time, enemies will appear in the background, turning Neon Inferno into a shooting gallery game as you aim into the distance to dispatch foes. The real magic of the game is how those two parts seamlessly mix into one chaotically fun shooter.
Neon Inferno mixes two distinct styles of arcade shooter into one excellent action game.
Neon Inferno follows Mariana and Angelo, two assassins working for the mafia in New York in the year 2055. It’s self-consciously campy, with mobsters doing battle with both the Yakuza and the police in a story dripping with hardboiled dialogue. Combined with its tropey cyberpunk setting — where the city is covered in neon and gang wars involve giant mech suits — Neon Inferno has the character of an ‘80s action B-movie that’s a blast exactly because it’s so over the top.
What Neon Inferno is really about is its action, and fortunately, it absolutely delivers there. From the start, it’s a fast-paced shooter, depending on quick reflexes as enemies dive into the screen from all sides. Whichever character you choose, you’re equipped with a basic sidearm and a knife to take out enemies at any range. Along with slashing attacks, your melee weapon can be used to deflect projectiles. Slash at certain bullets (those that can be deflected are always green) and they’ll fly back at the person who fired them. But hold down the button after your parry, and you can redirect the projectiles wherever you want, letting you take out more powerful enemies with their own allies’ attacks.
Managing enemies on two planes is an extremely fun challenge.
Deflecting projectiles also lets you bridge the gap between the background and foreground. At any time, enemies can attack you from the background, and using the controller’s shoulder button lets you fire at them, giving you a crosshair you aim around the screen to take them out. But bullets you’ve deflected can also be redirected into the background, getting an even bigger damage bonus when they connect.
If it sounds like splitting your attention between two different 2D battlefields would be extremely challenging, that’s because it is. After an introductory level, you’re given the choice between several missions to proceed, and every one of them is an order of magnitude harder than the already tough intro. Neon Inferno isn’t the kind of game you blaze through on the first try; it’s one where part of the fun is getting a little better at it each time you get sent back to the last checkpoint.
Over-the-top encounters make Neon Inferno a blast.
Even in the first set of levels, though, Neon Inferno shows just how much creativity it packs into its retro-styled exterior. The first stage already has you hopping on a motorcycle for a highway chase ending in a fight on a tractor trailer. The next few in line give you battles against mechs and sci-fi tanks, close-quarters fights in subway cars, and chases across fleets of flying cars.
At first glance, Neon Inferno might look like a throwback action game and little else, but there’s actually a lot more going on under the surface. Its brilliant combination of gameplay styles and impeccable atmosphere make Neon Inferno a fantastically fun shooter that takes some real practice to master.
