 |
| Awww yea! a Yakuza otome game. |
Genre: VN.
Developer/publisher: Amulit/Voltage.
Platform: Switch.
Official Site: https://products.voltage.co.jp/neonclash/
Official Site: https://products.voltage.co.jp/neonclash/
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v47769
Release date: 11-12-2025
Got this on a whim because its theme is three kingdoms and I got nostalgic.
Seeing how there were yakuza/mafia themes and me recently going through
the yakuza series did influence my decision somewhat.
Instead of ancient china its a futuristic setting. I thought I grew out of my
three kingdoms phase which kinda died but this kinda renewed my spirit, even if
I have some grievances with this title it was exciting to play through.
Disclaimer: This is purely my own opinion and it could be different from yours
this is not meant to be some kind of all-truth, just an opinion that came from playing this.
If you don't like what you're reading then close the tab, move on and just idk play it yourself.
Pro's
- Interesting and engaging plot.
- Diverse cast of characters.
- Eye-catching artworks.
- Great soundtrack.
- Character epilogues are a satisfying conclusion.
Grey Area
- Awkward sounding names.
- Plot focused, can be a bit light on romance but it doesn't forget its an otome.
Con's.
- Font for text was imho not great on switch lite*.
- One bad end contained NTR; its in chapter 2 so use a guide if you want to avoid it(or get it).
---
Its not afraid to bring fantasy and science into the mix.
I did think some things could be explained better but it is what it is
It was fairly dark, there's violence & splatter but I didn't think it went too far.
Although I do think it covered a relatively small part of RotK
and it mostly focused on Dong Zhuo being a pain in the neck
and butting heads with Mun aka Cao Cao.
I know from playing similar games that the story goes farther than this
but the story of Neon Clash took its inspiration from the beginnings.
This wasn't a work that could be happy all the time, it was quite grim at times
but even so there was light at the end of tunnel.
---
The heroine Liu Kroa was cool but also a hot mess, she tried her best and lived in the moment.
She's proactive and had spunk. I liked her friend Meimei as well, they had good chemistry.
Kroa starts out as not wanting to be too involved, though only a matter of time
untill she was. The state of the world they live in was not pretty.
I actually really liked how everyone part of her group became her family.
A lot of shit happens and she does have some self-doubt or think she's not good enough...
but I think its only normal because she is responsible for the people in her group.
At times it was painful to see Kroa realize this but she did try to be better.
She is based on Lui Bei whom... also made a lot of mistakes and this is
woven into her character. Lot's of times I was thinking well that was stupid
but its not like the counterpart made the best of decisions.
Due this I can't be too hard on the writing because they really used RoTK as a basis.
---
- The Artstyle was eye-catching and mostly consistent in terms of sprite & CG's.
The background art was also good, it had a nice urban chinese feel! The UI was stylish as well.
- I bought the japanese version but it had english text! sadly the text was rather tiny
so maybe that is why the english version was delayed? there were some typo's but they
looked like errors anyone could make, they weren't constant. It read well enough
Had they given this one more thorough QA sweep the typo's would be gone.
I wondered why it was delayed but I figured it was either the font or the awkward names
I didn't really encounter any bugs throughout my playthrough.
Also about the font, the text actually looks fine if I view screenshots of it on my PC
but on my switch lite its just... way too small. I don't think its optimized for it.
- Music fit the tone of the scenes, there were some good jams and I had no real complaints.
---
System
Standard stuff, you make choices over the course of the story
but you're graded at the end of a chapter which gives points.
Choices do matter because if your performance is poor, its straight up bad end in ch6.
With those points you can also buy mini episodes but they are entirely optional.
I didn't read any of the mini episodes as I progressed the main story, I was able
to buy everything from the shop when reaching the truth end.
The unlockable mini episodes were really short, fun random scenes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The story had me hooked quickly and it was engaging but romance wise... its lacking.
It wasn't a traditional otome game. Neon Clash has a linear plot with some bad ends
along the way. There are character endings but to view them you must clear the main story.
There wasn't much replay value but the game is pretty lengthy being over 45 hours long.
You may or may not need to play it twice depending on how well you did, if you do poorly
getting the true ending may be difficult which means the epilogues are out of reach.
The bad ends were not great in number so its possible to avoid them.
If your aim is to see the character endings then I suggest you use a guide.
 |
| We need disguises. |
and focus on individual characters before delving into the truth route. I suppose with a setting
like this it was hard to romance anyone to begin with so the LI's either felt like they were
close friends or colleagues. There simply wasn't any time for it. I thought Hiyok's chapter was sad
and I almost gave up hope of there being any romance but it wasn't completely hopeless.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I loved the character interactions and there was a decent dose of humor.
There were some aspects that I couldn't quite take seriously😅
but they knew when to joke around and be dead serious.
The naming sense could be better though, its easy to find some
counterparts but others were more difficult to figure out. Like I am not entirely sure
who Ji or Wenyu was but I figured the latter was Zhang Liao because he bounced around.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TL;DR
who like story driven visual novel with a strong protagonist.
The story and characters were pretty good but... if you come here for romance
it could be a little disappointing due to how story-driven it is.
I wasn't completely sold on the otome game aspect of this game due to its structure
but the character endings were really nice to close it off with! I lost hope for proper
romance during the main story but I felt like I was rewarded when I did Gante's epilogue.
In the main story I enjoyed what little crumbs there were but it was just too little, I got
annoyed at the heroine's evasiveness. 😔 Some scene's made me d'aww but that's about it.
It was still exciting to play through but yea... with the structure of the game you do
sorta romance everyone during the main story to the point Kroa has a harem.😂
But then I remembered this...💀
It is kinda nice to be free from having to sit through 5 routes to get the full story
so all in all I didn't regret playing it because it was an interesting work.
I know there are VN's where there's a big common route and then really short
individual stuff... but this game skips the replay it 4+ times part so I think
there is a plus side to the game being linear because its not really fun to skip
half the game. Neon clash solves this issue I had with some older games.
8.5/10
The only real downsides for me were some pacing issues and the font!
often I had to take breaks because it takes too much effort to read it like that.
After clearing the game I kinda wanted an ending for Rin and Yulong... but they have none!😞
Character rambles after the jump but they're just some thoughts of them because
there aren't really any routes. I'll share some of my fav CG too.
There's not many spoilers but if you want none uh just stop reading I guess?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
