Neon Echo – General Overview

Basics

All credit goes to Tyrian Mollusk!

Some Simple Answers for People Wondering

• Separate volume for voices: Yes
• Separate text and speech language settings: Yes
• Controller button remapping: Mostly (at least one in-combat move seems to be attached to the button you map to interact).
• Translation: Understandable as far as gameplay but a bit janky. Some weird language use to get used to.

Combat

Combat inputs are: jump, dodge, normal attack, special attack (timed cooldown, enhanced on specific music timing), ultimate attack (charged slowly by hits), and activate temporary power-up mode.

There’s also a jump slam attack and teleport-counterattack you get by dodging through an enemy attack (which is pretty strong and generous on timing), and the counterattack and ultimate each trigger “neonization” mode which offer a small boost and can trigger some special upgrades. You can duck too, but aside from an upgrade that was triggered by “squatting” I’m not sure if its useful.

So far, the rhythm element seems to be limited to activating your special attack on a specific fixed beat every few seconds (instructions say “on downbeat”, but it’s more like every fourth downbeat). Timing is reasonably generous there.

Parry mechanic

I haven’t seen a parry move per-se, but there is definitely a dodge-based counterattack that is effectively a parry. When you get it, you teleport to the attacking enemy and do a slomo and zoomed in attack. It’s pretty generous, as you can basically dodge into an enemy attack to trigger it, rather than having only a narrow window for an enemy to hit you.

Counterattack also triggers a temporary boost mode which can have other advantages. The counterattack aspect has its own cooldown, though, different from just being able to dodge again. You can do it quickly enough that I hadn’t noticed that yet (I may have just thought I missed the timing, since it’s not like you’d be checking cooldown icons mid-attack), but saw it in the (fairly brief, but a lot better than nothing) in-game system explanations.

I’m also a pro-parry player type tired of just dodging, so any reactive play element is a point in the game’s favor. BTW, Anvil also uses this kind of mechanic to significant effect, if you’d like it in a twin-stick shooter package.

Characters

You start with the sword girl and have to unlock the other two through “story progress”. I haven’t seen the first boss, but I’ve had several runs and haven’t seen another character yet.

Upgrades

Uses a Hades-style themed attack upgrade choice (including rarities and rewards for having tried everything), select your next stage reward, gifting and keepsakes (seems like keepsakes are empowered by further gifts to that character, not by fighting with them equipped). Upgrades feel very Hades on a basic level, but there seem to be some nice/cute variations.

There is also a weird upgrade grid you slot items into at the shop. It’s 3×3 and random each run. Slot items come in different shapes to restrict where you can slot them. Each slot has a bonus (which can easily be useless to you), and each row and column has an additional bonus if you have all three slots filled.

And then you have “drinks” which add some varying upgrade effects, and a larger upgrade that can be a game-changer (one big one I saw reset the special attack’s cooldown as long as you hit the on-beat bonus).

In short, there are a lot of avenues to upgrade during a run.

Metaprogression has a fairly shallow tree with three starting nodes. Unlock nodes to see adjacent nodes, each node has levels it can be upgraded. Early meta-upgrades look fairly normal. There are several meta-currencies to gain and spend.

Levels

As far as the first boss’s zone, each level seems like a fairly fixed simple platformer style series of rooms, without much platforming opportunity, and relatively few enemies (and very few types) arranged in simple groups. Short series of rooms, take level-end reward, choose next level reward, repeat.