Dust and Neon moulds together futuristic and western settings, but is this colourful twin stick shooter more style than substance. Yes and No.
Dust & Neon is undoubtably a fun take on the roguelite/shooter genre though, with its quick shooting, stylish/frantic reload mechanic and a host of different weapons to buy and upgrades to get through.
As a roguelite each death comes with consequences – guns gathered on missions are lost along with any currency or items you have picked up. If you die you are sent back to the hub area where you are reminded how many times you’ve died or in this game’s words “cloned”.
You can then restock your guns and start the mission over again. Your character upgrades, and level progressions and guns purchased in the hub area are all kept after death. This means a nice balance is struck that takes away some of the frustration inflicted by many other roguelikes.
At the core of any twin stick shooter is, er, the shooting of course we’re pleased to say this is where the game excels.
With responsive controls, tight aiming and a meaty feel to the weapons you quickly get into the swing of things. In terms of weapons, you will always start off with at least your trusty pistol, but other guns can be found lying around in missions fairly quickly.
Guns can also be purchased in the hub area, so if you can survive long enough to save up some cash your favourite weapons become available even after you die.
Something unique to Dust & Neon is the reload mechanic, and in short it’s fantastic. When your gun runs out of ammo a slick and quick stylish animation of your equipped gun fills part of your screen asking you to reload each bullet, wild west style.
At first this may seem pretty simple but during hectic boss battles or harder levels this element adds an extra twist into the gameplay loop – requiring more thought and planning of your immediate surroundings as you’re swamped with more and more enemies.
Another positive are the graphics, with a clean and crisp art style – the framerate stays very stable as well, docked and undocked. We do wish there was a bit more variety and life to worlds though, as they can often feel a little empty and lifeless.
With a game like this the fun is in the combat, but we did find missions to be on the repetitive side – especially early on, making us wish there was a little more variety throughout. The bosses are very fun and offer a good challenge, but they’re a brief respite from the generally repetitive nature of levels unfortunately.
Dust & Neon is still a fun, stylish, and tidy little roguelite. It can get a bit repetitive, but overall we had fun with it – and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to those looking for a new twin stick shooter.
