Neon Tail is an open world urban rollerblading game that draws inspiration from Jet Set Radio, Life is Strange and the Batman Arkham games as you attempt to save an underground city from a dimensional disaster.
The devs of Neon Tail have lofty ambitions, with an aim of combining the urban dynamism of Jet Set Radio with the emotional storytelling of Life is Strange and the open world freedom of the Batman Arkham games. The current demo build offers a small taster of that, giving you a training mission, a large residential area to explore and a challenging orb-collecting mission to complete.
The residential area is a nice place to explore but the training mission and the orb-collecting mission are very tough to complete due to the current skating mechanics. Skating around an open area feels excellent and your character has a great sense of momentum, but it’s very hard to pull off any precision jumps. The ‘snap-on’ radius of grinding points feels far too small so you’ll miss even if your jump is just a tiny bit off and a lot of the time your character won’t jump in the right direction anyway due to their momentum.
The issues with the controls are a shame as the underground urban world is a fun setting to explore, the visual design is great and the character movement feels excellent (as long as you don’t try any jumps). It’s still early in development though so hopefully the devs will iron out the kinks as the concept of a Jet Set Radio style skating game with an impactful narrative and an Arkham-esque open world is very enticing!
Download The Neon Tail Tech Demo (Windows)