Neko Beach is a lewd slider-puzzle game with a neko and beach theme!
Adult Content?
(F) nudity.
Censorship?
No. Woot! Woot!
Hours of Gameplay?
Thirty minutes.
Patch Available?
Download as DLC.
Gameplay: overview (3/5★)
Rearrange tiles to unscramble images! Neko Beach offers twelve three-by-four slider-puzzles. Slider-puzzles are notoriously difficult if you don’t know how to solve them. If you do, they’re not too bad. I was able to complete the game in maybe fifteen minutes. The key is to solve them by rows and columns; I recommend solving for the left-most column, producing what’s effectively a three-by-three board. Then you want to solve the upper-most row, then the left-most column (which at this point should only be a pair of tiles). As long as you didn’t fuck anything up, completing the puzzle is as easy as rotating the last four tiles into position! If you don’t know how to solve slider-puzzles, I recommend looking-up an online tutorial — it’s just memorizing formulas to get tiles into the correct position.
Sexual Content: overview (4/5★)
The base game has twelve animated CGs with bikini-clad nekos! Provided the adult-patch is installed, each CG has a nude variant. When completing puzzles, you may toggle between clothed or nude versions of each character. The artwork is high-quality, but the animation can be a little wonky. Each CG is has a lot going on, but the ladies themselves only engage in a short, seemingly sped-up loop. When viewing images from the gallery, you may toggle the animation. They’d make great wallpapers! There is no sexual content whatsoever.
Story: overview (1/5★)
There is no story (and I’m not making one up!)
Sound: overview (4/5★)
The music’s alright, but it stopped playing after a while. I guess it’s not on loop? I enjoyed the sound effects that played when moving tiles, but they didn’t seem appropriate. Instead of “sand” sounds, I got what sounded like big rocks and exaggerated water droplets.
Visuals: overview (3/5★)
There is not titlescreen, it’s straight to level-select. Audio can be toggled via the “volume” icon at anytime. The level-select screen doubles as a gallery; when selecting an already-completed puzzle, you may choose to resolve or view the image. Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a way to hide the user-interface. Beyond the level-select screen it’s unnecessary — I wish it was toggleable.
Verdict: nakie nekos on beach, cool I guess (3/5★)
If you enjoy easy slider-puzzles, this is an alright game. If you don’t enjoy slider-puzzles, you won’t like this game. There is no “cheat” button (that I know of) — even if there were, I don’t think this game is worth purchasing for the artwork alone. If slider-puzzles aren’t your thing I’d wait for some form of “artbook” DLC (or at least an update that allows the user-interface to be hidden!) Neko Beach is an unremarkable game, but it’s a functional title with decent artwork. It’s definitely worth a buck!
