Neon White's Enemy Designs Make Its Fast Pace Possible

thegamer.com:

Speedrunning scenes pop up around most games, given enough time. But Neon White encourages players to attempt to speedrun it from the moment they start parkouring through the first level.

You immediately encounter shining floors (water? ice? ) that boost your speed. A stopwatch constantly runs at the top of the screen, keeping track of all your minute successes and mistakes. At the end of each run, medals ranging from bronze to platinum are doled out in recognition of your time. To proceed to the next set of levels, you need to hit a certain number of gold metals on the ones that came before. If you want to achieve in Neon White — to borrow a phrase from a gaming icon — you gotta go fast.

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Succeeding at Neon White means finishing levels as quickly as possible. That's something the game drills into your head with each new level. While it encourages speed, it doesn't require perfection. I bounced off the similarly parkour-focused Ghostrunner — despite liking its cyberpunk setting — because each level required exacting precision and (in my case) dozens of attempts to progress.

It would be easy for Neon White to follow a similar path. Instead, all of its design decisions are aimed toward getting you to maximum speed and keeping you moving. The game isn't effortless, but playing it feels smooth and seamless.

One of its central mechanics is key to its sense of speed. All of the weapon discard abilities expand your character's traversal options and usually make you move faster, too. The shotgun's ability slingshots you to your target. The sniper sends you flying swiftly straight in the direction you fire. The uzi causes you to ground pound, sending you falling through the air at terminal velocity.