Tales of the Neon Sea

A cyberpunk detective adventure that, to my mind, is quite a surprise. The serious story is interspersed with humorous interludes to lighten the atmosphere, while the dystopia presents quite a human face on the level of ordinary human and interspecies relations.
This is complemented by the introduction of 2 protagonists who, despite the ‘language’ barrier between them, work together quite well.
This is one of the few games I have enjoyed playing from start to finish and I am genuinely saddened that I have completed it.
✅

• Retro style pixel art. Pleasant, stunningly detailed and overall well-executed.
  
  
• Really good electronic-instrumental soundtrack. Creates an atmosphere, fits the theme and locations. Menu/Intro track is excellent (composed by Belarussian band - The Last Sighs of the Wind).
  
  
• 2 protagonists with their own unique style of gameplay. Rex, a retired police detective whose gameplay is based more on traditional detective work, paired with Wiliam - an atypical black cat whose gameplay is based on platform sequences.
  
  
• Great and mysterious story. Not only convoluted but also well set in games world.
  
  
• Some of the comments about the world from both MC and cat-MC are rad.
  
  
• Investigation mechanics are well thought out.
  
  
• Worldbuilding. It's easy to get a general feel for the area and the relationship between humans and machines by checking out posters, talking to NPCs and so on.
  
  
• Findable lore (notes, posters etc.) providing political, historical and miscellaneous information about the world.
  
  
• A variety of puzzles. Rather an overview of industry standard than something unique, but this part is done very well.
  
  
• Hidden secrets as a reward for curious explorer.
  
  
• Some posters, items and locations are obvious references/tributes to other productions. They’re also a “wink” from game developers to the players. Nice and funny add-on.
  
  
• Game is still updated with additional content.
  
  
• In-game arcade game.
  
  
• In chapter selection, each of subchapters has its own starting point. Great solution for all achievement hunters.
  
  
• Achievements are creative and reward curiosity.
  

😐
Autosave. This has both pros and cons, but if you need to quit the game in the middle of the chapter, you’ll be starting from nearest save point instead of your saved location. Fortunately collected lore stays unlocked.

❌

• If you take a look at the available achievements, you will spoil yourself lot about the game plot. Essential ones should be hidden as “Secret”.
  
  
• Some of the lore pieces can be easily missed, due to lack of any indicator that something in that particular location may be relevant.
  
  
• Some puzzles should have some kind of suggestion that item can be used many times, for different parts of the puzzle. Discovering that took me more time, than puzzle itself.
  
  
• Hint system. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but some of the puzzles are massive in scope and sometimes you won’t realize that action in point A will change something in point B (e.g. the waterwheel puzzle).
  
  
[*] Deduction is automated. You won’t be able to fail investigation or come to the wrong conclusion.

Story line was great! Puzzles were fun as well.

I almost refunded this game.

The bustling main street outside Rex's house runs no higher than 15 FPS. The rest of the game actually runs hella smooth, so it's weird. Before I installed this game, there was a recent patch modifying this area. Maybe that's causing it?
You can't rebind the controls.
The mechanical lockpicking. There are only two instances of them, but I wish they'd disappear.
Still plenty of bugs. I had been watching this game for years and reading through the reviews to see if they were fixed. Not many reviews mention bugs anymore, so I bought the game. Nope, there are still major bugs that require some workaround to bypass. Not to mention some of them have been there for years, according to people.

It was a good thing I told myself to be patient and went through to finish the game, because it turns out I love everything else. Every single thing. Visuals, sounds, mechanics, puzzles, story... Especially the sprites. Goodness gracious... I could spend hours just taking a walk and looking at things. I don't regret adding this to my ever-growing collection of pixel art games.

I'm still recommending this game because it's such a good game, but only pick it up if you don't mind the problems I mentioned above. Plus, I hope the devs will fix the problems and continue to make more awesome games in the future.

PART 2 PLEASE DEVS!

Highly recommend this one.

Tales of the Neon Sea is an awesome, beautiful game with an incredible, feast-for-the-eyes cyberpunk setting & story. Feels like there's some Blade Runner-esque inspiration in there as well.

If detective noir games are your twist and you thought it'd be really neat if a detective noir was set in a gritty yet very vibrant cyberpunk/Blade Runner type future, look no further. Tales of the Neon Sea will take you on quite the hallucinatory odyssey as you investigate murders, disappearances, other crimes, conspiracies, etc.

This game is absolutely packed with high quality detail across the board. It's a true gem and definitely a worthy addition to any library.

Looks & plays great on Steam Deck.

I liked this game a fair bit! A lot of things to collect, the mystery was intriguing, the mix cat and Rex gameplay was interesting, I liked it! A solid 7.5/10.

Pros: Lots of references and easter eggs. The story, whilst a bit predictable, was aided by the collectables that give you more history about where you are, and was an overall a classic mystery story of an aging detective/hobbyist chemist. The colors were solid.

Cons: Wish there was more cat gameplay, including a good resolution on the Don storyline. The design for a lot of women had the same face, which kind of bothered me, especially when other character designs were so strong and had variety. I felt there were a lot of Chekov's Guns laying around that I wish were tapped (unless some of these are meant to lead into a sequel, in which case ignore that last bit).

Pros

The visuals are fantastic, and I loved the overall vibes of the world. I enjoyed the investigation mechanics, I thought they were unique. It was an interesting way to show the logic Rex used to draw his conclusions. I was also drawn by the disturbing crimes committed by Noa, and it was neat to see the giant flesh blob he had turned into near the end.

Cons

Really the only character we get to know well is Rex, which wouldn't be such a problem if the game wasn't so oriented around it's characters and plot. Most of the characters feel stale. The story itself was also flat, which is such a shame given how much it had going for it. I wish Rex's history had been explored more and sooner in the game. Intrigue and mystery is important in a game like this, but if the case is personal to Rex, it's important we get to see more of that so we actually care.

Conclusion

The game certainly isn't bad, but it's not amazing either. If you're into puzzle detective games and like the cyberpunk setting, it's worth the play.

amazing plot, amazing art, even more amazing characters. 10/10 game, would recommend it to everyone who likes puzzles (preferably someone who has more brain cells than me it took me like an hour to solve each puzzle) and storytelling games. william based car >_<

I love pixel graphics
I love puzzle games
I love detective themes
I love discount

Buy this game,

PS For developer, when sequel ???????

Great visuals, good puzzles, interesting world, likeable characters and decent length.

its so fun and good for a chill time

it's a good game with a great story and i want a sequel so buy it please

Could be a good game, who knows. Can't read a thing on steam deck, text Is too small.

Meh. Started of okay, the puzzles maybe a little bit on the easy side but atmosphere was okay, interesting mystery plot. Playing the cat with the gangster plot making things a little bit too ridicules, but I kept playing, Then came the third chapter with all those actions sequencish mini games and "your dead" resolution just to get another try. Totally killing the mood especially as the whole setup with combat drones and bots just seemed to implausible. So steppod playing there.

Somewhere between Darkside Detective, Virtuaverse and Primordia, but not in a good way.

an amazing cyberpunk mystery game. neither too short nor excruciatingly long, it is a fairly clever mixture of occasionally mercilessly twisted puzzles and a peculiar plot. the graphics are topnotch, the music is pretty calm most of the time, but goes real hard on a few occasions. i just wish there were more games akin to this one; while there probably are plenty of those, i certainly do not regret having played through this banger first.

10/10 the cat does all the job for the mc

Everything was going perfectly until the 23.99K Bridging Goldfinger disappeared at the moment I was supposed to make the God's Touch. I don't know if it was a bug or what the hell, but it was extremely annoying since I was progressing well in the game. Most of the materials were in my inventory, but the moment I talked to Charles to get those parts for BB-X, the 23.99K Bridging Goldfinger disappeared. I reloaded the game over and over again at that same point, but the bug kept recurring. Smh.

TLDR:
Nice graphics and character art.
Writing is poorly executed and riddled with spelling en grammatical errors. This is so apparent throughout the game that I cannot recommend it.

Longer version:
The game has some good things which will catch your interest. The pixel graphics and artstyle are in my opinion beautiful. That and the characters presented was enough to peak my interest.
But the game falls flat in many other ways.

The writing is terrible:
The most annoying and offputting are horrendous spelling and grammer mistakes. Words are sometimes misplaced, missing or miss spelled. There are grammer errors like missing spaces or other symbols.
But besides that, some characters are horribly written. This already becomes apparent in one of the early chapters where you meet officer Karl. Officer Karl dismisses Rex's solid evidence straight away as unreliable for no apparent reason. Karl seems like a very shortsighted officer that focuses on trivial things. He is just a a very unconvincing police officer and should have no place in the investigation. And Karl is certainly not the only NPC that does this.

Besides chracter writing the overal story arc also leaves some things to be desired. There's basically 2 characters you follow in this story; Rex the human retired detective. And William the cat. I love cats, and William sure is helpful to Rex. But I simply don't understand the additional cat plot with the mobsters. It seems out of place. . But I must admit, I have not finished the story completely, so I might have missed something.

The puzzles are okay. I found most of em them entertaining and at least a little challanging at times. But there's just way too many of them. Sometimes the simplest tasks are changed into a puzzle.

Looked aesthetically good but I was over it after 30 minutes because of bad writing and gameplay I simply didn't find enjoyable.

Bought it on a whim and needless to say I was pleasantly surprised by how much personality there can be in a pixel game, I usually play FPS this is the first 2D game in my library lol. For someone who loves puzzles/cyberpunk/mystery it was greaaat for the price

A traditional adventure game with an impressive setting with deep lore, and rewarding puzzles.

Save your money. This game is not for sale. This game is "for lease" only. Hence, you don't own it and never will.

Not for me.

Good world-building, cute cats, rich color palette, and beautiful music = a pleasurable experience. Some of the puzzle solving was a tad complicated but overall quite do-able. I'd say it scores a solid 7/10 or so on the trusty Adventurino-scaly'O.

Quick and chill game, GREAT visuals and cool puzzles.

There is a story blocker/story bug that has personally stopped me from progressing in the game.

Es gibt einen Storyblocker/Storybug, der mich persönlich davon abgehalten hat, im Spiel fortzufahren.

I saw such mixed reviews about this game and I have to say I am so glad I bought the game and did not listen to any nay sayers. This game is charming, grotesque, macabre and fun. I found no challenge too hard or too easy. The story kept me engaged and I think they left it on a proper cliff hanger that leaves me hopeful for a sequel. I think my biggest compliments to games is re-playability and this hidden gem of an indie game deserves a second or third play through. If you are on the fence and you like detective games, cats, serial killers and pixel cyberpunk vibes- get this game.
p.s. I did not find the ending abrupt, I thought the story told for this game came to a lovely conclusion wrapped in a bow.

The music and ambience are amazing. Having tons of unique puzzles makes it really enjoying. I loved it