Tales of the Neon Sea

Game Title: Tales of the Neon Sea
Released: April 30, 2019
Game Length: 10 Hours
Grade: B

Setting

Robots: If there was one thing this game does absolutely right, it would have to be the setting. There is a mountain of backstory and lore oozing out of every corner in this game. Human civilization decides to build a floating city for the rich and famous while the rest continue to live on what is left from the Human-Robot Wars in the buildings below. It takes place some years later in the future after our detective protagonist and his robot partner faced down a criminal mastermind who breathed onto the belief that robots and humans should combine. In a twisted hand of fate, the detective survived the final showdown with this villain by melding his flesh with his metallic friend. Now out of the police force and trying to get by on the bare necessities, he makes do as a private investigator. 

Information: The developers did something interesting by establishing a game with layers of content. This means that you don't need to click on every single thing to progress in the game. Only the elements that prompt a response or highlight an object are necessary to continue with the story. However, there are a number of side quests you can take on for nuggets of information if you wish to learn a little more about the situation. Helping out a girl at the bar, replacing a faulty water device, or assisting a malfunctioning robot can make those individuals tell you a little more of the location, a certain individual, or how the system works in the underground. Almost everything in the background is interactable with a small description of what you see in front of you. There are also hidden books and data chips that detail the history of your time period. 

Mature: Because of how the game is presented, there are times where you will see things you probably wished you didn't see. For one, our detective isn't afraid of the disgusting, horrible nature of humanity left behind to fend for themselves. There will be brothels where women flaunt themselves and posters plastered everywhere of those with barely any clothes on. Although pixelated, there is a moment near the end where you will see various failed experiments of naked women bodies. The main villain in this game considers himself as a form of artist that constructs statues of multiple robots and humans combined together in a very grotesque manner. While the game does limit itself in the amount of blood and guts shown on the screen, any number of these can turn away someone who consider themselves squeamish.

Gameplay

Investigation: Surprisingly, there is very little difficulty in solving puzzles. All the clues are generally self-contained in a small area. The magnifying glass when you examine bodies shines when you get close to a clue. Resolving a case is as simple as attaching cogs in a pocket watch. How something happens is then shown in a cutscene. There are a myriad of mini-games of different shapes and sizes that keep things interesting as you hack devices and open doors. 

Cat: Amusingly, a good quarter of the game you play as the detective's trusty feline companion. You continue to save your human friend by chasing after robot mice that give him power, find important items that are essential to the case, and rescue him by moving around machines. From his perspective, you converse like a standard human with other cats. Though you can't be understand by humans like an engineered bio-cat, your detective friend still talks to you like a normal person. 

Movement: Characters will move at a standard pace unless you have either the cat or detective run. When there is a scene where you can move horizontally or vertically, you must click on the prompt to follow the stairs or ladders to your destination. This goes for whenever either character needs to jump onto platforms. Objects that can be picked up are generally clearly marked and combining them at a workstation doesn't take but a few tries. There is no way to manually save the game because it automatically does so at each interval and chapter. 

Summary

Review: It is clear that the developers poured some passion into this game. The story, setting, and gameplay are all very well done. Despite the game going in directions you might not have anticipated, all of it builds onto itself in creating a type of atmosphere that you can immerse yourself in. The drawback is perhaps how the game gets too engrossed into building this amalgamation of how fragile robots and humans really are when left to their own devices. I caution anyone who might want to play this game.