Neon Caves is an arcade-style action shooter from developer Force Of Habit. With a wave of action shooters on the Switch does Neon Caves do anything to set itself apart?

When first loading Neon Caves my initial thought was “wow, this looks and sounds like something I would have played on my Atari 7800”. Now that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I have a lot of fond memories of that classic system. The second thing that I noticed was the loading screen, which said: “tip: try the developer’s other games.”

Neon Caves

My first try of the game was exactly what I had expected: it felt like a game that I would have played years ago, but with a modern feel like someone made an HD port of an old game.

There is no real story, just a quick tutorial and you are on your way. Your goal is to destroy waves of enemies while trying to stay alive and stopping the cave from falling in on your ship. To stop it from caving in on you, you must shoot the golden shards on the screen.

Neon Caves

Essentially you control a ship by shooting – the ship will move in the opposite direction of your bullet. By holding a shoulder button you can stay in one place for a limited amount of time. The controls were initially a bit of a learning curve. As time went on I was able to control my ship a little better but never felt like I mastered it. Something that feels like it was done on purpose.

There is an online ranking system as well as achievements to reach. With those goals as well as the feeling of never truly mastering the game leaves some room for replayability. The background and look of it remains relatively the same throughout the game. As you progress however there are changes in enemies such as a spider. It also increases in difficulty by slowly darkening half the screen. There are also power-ups throughout the game such as shield, rapid fire, bombs and more. They can be useful   for trying to last as long as possible.

Neon Caves

I would normally say that it feels like there should be more content however on the publisher’s site it describes the game as being a “mini-game”, giving the  expectation of a small game. At a price of just $3.99, it is certainly worth a try.

 

I really enjoyed my time with Neon Caves. It brought me back to memories of my first gaming experiences. Trying the publisher’s other games as suggested in the loading screen is something I myself plan to do.