Neodash Review | Rocket League + Geometry Dash = Fun & Madness
If you took the core of Geometry Dash and added in a touch of Rocket League, you’d end up with NeoDash, a fun speed runner-type game equal…
If you took the core of Geometry Dash and added in a touch of Rocket League, you’d end up with NeoDash, a fun speed runner-type game equal parts challenging and fun. Mastering some of the more difficult tracks results in incredible dopamine highs, and I recommend it.
It was fascinating to finally find the time to sit down and play this game after watching it slowly come together a little more than a year ago in short clips on TikTok, but here it sits majestically, as an entertaining game. Still being tweaked, stages are being added, and user-generated content is filling it to the brim… but even with where it’s at now, it’s still an incredibly fun game to learn to master, though good to know that it will continue to become even more feature-rich as time moves along.
My opening stinger is something I should provide more context for. It’s like Geometry Dash in that you must complete stages in a single go without dying. There are some banger Monster Cat tracks here, but the stages are not set to any in particular like Geometry Dash. Its similarity is more in that the more you play a stage and tweak your approach, the further you get to the end until almost magically, it seems the muscle memory for the stage has completed its download into your mind… and you win.
It’s like Rocket League in that your vehicle is rocket-propelled, but don’t go in expecting the rigidity of that system. The car booster is easily understood, blasting you faster forward and around bends as you drift, but the almost drone-like hovering is where you’ll need to refine your skills to become a master. The right analog stick is your best friend in controlling your vehicle’s tilt and only after mastering the fine motor skills required to do this, and well, will you be able to complete this game.
Your journey to becoming a master driver of this futuristic vehicle is very well-paced in the two supplied worlds full of stages, and their handful of difficult counterparts. After you’ve completed those, there are a few event stages that follow a similar formula. After that, it’s on to the community user-generated stages.
While I can’t talk about the ease of usability as far as the tools for creating your stages go because I have not tried it yet, I can talk about what you’ll find when you open the level browser. It’s user-generated content and the quality of the stages is all over the place. Some stages have some of the most abysmal game designs you’ve ever experienced, yet others are surprisingly great and tuned just right, while others are ridiculously hard, 7th-level-of-hell-type stuff. Even if you never get good enough to have the patience to complete some of the more difficult things that the sandbox of NeoDash and its sea of UGC offers you, there is so much available to you that you’ll be set to have a lot of fun at the difficulty level you’re comfortable with.
But of course, I recommend you try and complete the difficult stuff. Go for the fastest time among your friends. Get stuck on a stage for two hours, maybe four. Go mad. Forget what time it is. The beauty of NeoDash is that you can tune the entire world out while you focus on that one stupid maneuver that seems impossible… and eventually through your effort and focus you get it. Maybe you finally make it through that last hole in “hole in the wall” and then you’re getting smashed by those dumb pistons for literal hours. I’ll put it another way. I’ve never tried drugs, but I imagine the feeling has got to be similar to the moments following your hard-earned victories after the most difficult stages… After playing for hours you finally beat the level that in reality takes under a minute to complete and it’s incredibly euphoric and you can sit there and just think… “Man… I am the greatest person of all time to ever live and life is worth it. Who knew?”
Overall, NeoDash scratched a gamer itch that I forgot I had, with its weirdly enticing speedrunning and speedracing mechanics. It’s incredibly well designed, with great stage progression in the campaign with the cherry on top being seemingly endless levels made by the community. If anything I’ve said in this review has been slightly interesting I highly recommend you pick it up and give it a shot.
Originally published at https://backloggd.com.