(Review) NeuroVoider

You want options? We’ll give you options! We’ll give you so many options that your head will spin! There is so much loot in NeuroVoider that the ability to completely upgrade or change your character after playing a level is nuts. That’s especially true if you’re playing in coop and you take most of the upgrades thinking that the loot shared (or just not caring). By the way, the loot is not shared, so don’t be that guy! It’s all smooth going and there’s not too much to dislike about this twin-stick game. Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.

You'll be spending a lot of time in this window having to go through all the loot you pick up. It can come off as overwhelming, but it gets a lot easier and quicker once you get used to it. Also, it helps to know what you're looking for and you can then simply sell the rest!
You’ll be spending a lot of time in this window having to go through all the loot you pick up. It can come off as overwhelming, but it gets a lot easier and quicker once you get used to it. Also, it helps to know what you’re looking for and you can then simply sell the rest!

With what seems to be the norm here lately, NeuroVoider is a Roguelike with robots and all sorts of weapons and armor options and a lot of things to dodge. What stands out the most to me here are the options. There are three main “classes” to play with here: Dash, Rampage and Fortress. Dash is your fast-moving melee-mostly robot that can be pretty awesome, but is a little rough for me to use currently. Due to NeuroVoider being a bit of a bullet-hell, melee doesn’t work to well for me since I just tend to eat all of the bullets… all of them. That being said, there are some really cool melee options to enjoy. I especially love the ones that explode when you swing them. Not only are they flashy, but they’re pretty damaging to boot (as one could imagine). They use up a lot more energy than the others so your chance of overheating is higher, but that’s the price you pay for looking awesome!

Jump into the Dash mech and cut a fool!
Jump into the Dash mech and cut a fool!

Rampage has been my go-to option since it’s more of a “shoot a lot of flashy things while having some good mobility”. It’s hard not to like it. You could classify it as the middle of the road option, but since it can’t use melee weapons or rockets, there’s more of a feeling that the difference in class here is not because of what it can do, but because of what it can’t. It really does feel like a completely separate class, but in the end, I’m not too sure how I feel about how that difference is accomplished. I still enjoy playing as a Rampage and probably would stick with it if it wasn’t for the third option.

The Rampage class... Pew Pew Pew! Shoot all the things!
The Rampage class… Pew Pew Pew! Shoot all the things!

Fortress has been more of a recent love for me. The shield doesn’t really shine for me much, but it gives you high defense and a sweet opportunity to use rockets and they are glorious! I mean really glorious! Rockets are my favorite weapon because of all the carnage you can do at once. However, this is where the game really starts to teach you what is possible and what you really shouldn’t do if you’re running solo.

The Fortress mech, they are even beefy looking. Not shown here: rockets, but you've got to trust me that they are fun!
The Fortress mech, they are even beefy looking. Not shown here: rockets, but you’ve got to trust me that they are fun!

Fortress taught me that rockets are awesome. Fortress also taught me that two different types of rockets are even better. I played with a slow-moving massive damage rocket (Mini Nuke I believe) and a “faster” single missile. That worked well for the longest time. I was clearing out levels without a care in the world and even accomplished this on multiplayer too! However, then the bosses came and ended my dream of rocketing myself to victory. The boss stages don’t have enough room to benefit from the “fire and forget” method. While a slow and powerful weapon is great, you need something faster when you get to a boss. The basic rocket is fast enough when you have room, but the boss stages aren’t large enough to play without speed. You’ll need gear with speed or a weapon with some faster bullet/laser spray.

The basic goal of every level is to walk about and break things. That's a goal I can get behind.
The basic goal of every level is to walk about and break things. That’s a goal I can get behind.

Most of the game is pretty balanced and works well with almost any setup that you’ll pick. As stated above, there are a ton of options if and when you want to change them (at the end of the level). That being said, NeuroVoider is still a bullet hell game at times and can get pretty rough. Bosses aside (because we already covered that), most of the game is pretty easy if you take your time.  Then you encounter the timed levels. These aren’t much of a problem if you’ve picked a balanced setup of weapons. However, if you were contemplating using my fun-tastic rocket setup above, this doesn’t work well. My build was for a slow methodical walk through the levels making sure everything was cleared before I got there. This doesn’t work out when you don’t have the time to properly utilize that method. You can essentially create a build that ends up being your own downfall. This is unfortunate. It’s nice that there is level variety, but no one setup can carry you through the game (which is good, but still sad for me).

This is simply a pause screen, however, it's a pause screen with some of the truest words slapped on the bottom.
This is simply a pause screen, however, it’s a pause screen with some of the truest words slapped on the bottom.

More NeuroVoider info: FacebookOfficial Page / Steam / Twitter

NeuroVoider is a great addition to the bullet hell/rougelike genre. With smooth controls, fun visuals with lots of explostions, there is a good amount of content to enjoy here. While everything sounds rosey so you may be wondering why this didn't get a "Tasty!" rating. NeuroVoider is fun with other people and I don't really enjoy it by myself. This makes it hard for me to want to play it unless I've got a bud ready to go. This isn't always the case and so I can't always play it and have fun. That sucks. You may enjoy the game more than myself, but if you've got buds that enjoy this type of game, you should really jump on NeuroVoider without much hesitaion.
NeuroVoider is a great addition to the bullet-hell/Roguelike genre. With smooth controls, great music, fun visuals and lots of explosions, there is a good amount of content to enjoy here. While everything sounds so rosy you may be wondering why this didn’t get a “Tasty!” rating. NeuroVoider is fun with other people, but I don’t really enjoy it by myself. This makes it hard for me to want to play it unless I’ve got a bud ready to go. This isn’t always the case and so I can’t always play it and have fun which sucks a lot because with a friend, I really enjoy it! You may enjoy the game more than me solo, but if you’ve got buds that enjoy this type of game and are ready and willing to play, you should really jump on NeuroVoider without much hesitation.

Jonathan Amarelo Sig

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