Neon light is a brand new roguelite that recently dropped it’s early beta on steam and has been racking up the positive reviews. Consider this one of them.

In brief This game is a platformer action brawler with rhythm elements VERY lightly sprinkled on top. Unlike many roguelites this game makes you feel immediately awesome and powerful as you power through a number of laughably short encounters toward a boss at the end of the stage. Each encounter is comprised of navigating a couple joined rooms with baddies in them ending in a stat award. These rooms I found to be the one major part that needs to be jazzed up before a final release. Usually you’ll get a choice on what your next encounter award will be at this point, giving you a chance to direct your build before taking on the final boss challenge.

The visuals are flashy and beautiful, and the character portraits are right up there with hades.

On death you go back to base to talk to the various personalities and use some of your gathered resources to upgrade your stat tree, which has three starting branches, depending on whether you want strength, health or resilience.

It’s entirely voice acted although you’ll immediately notice none of the voice actors appear to be native English speakers. A few sound like waifu versions of Cartman from south park. It’s Not too surprising considering the studio, Xin Yuan studios, is based out of china. Initially I thought I wasn’t a fan of the voice acting, but thenIi decided it added a great flavour to the world building. So that’s an accidental well done from me.

The combat is quick and flashy, with rewarding reactions when you use your special in time with the beat, or do a dodge counter just as the enemy attacks.

Currently there are three different characters to choose from with their own move sets to master. only one of them is a ranged fighter.

As far as betas go this one has a promising future from a plucky studio. If you’re thinking about getting it,I wouldn’t rush personally, giving it some more time to cook could never hurt. But if you want big bright splashes of colour to shit all over your screen and you want to show the developer that you believe in them then this might well be worth your while.