You are a Neon. A sinner in life, condemned to exist in the glass sea for eternity for your life choices, except for ten days a year when demons overspill into Heaven. This is when the Believers (the current custodians) offer the one Neon who kills the most, a year in Heaven.
This is the premise for Neon White, a first-person action platformer. Similar to games like Mirror’s Edge or Ghost Runner, the game is less about killing and more about traversal. You do need to destroy everything in most levels to open the exit, but it’s more about speed and trick shots.
You play as White, who is suffering from amnesia and is confused by what is going on. Other contestants appear familiar with White and remember their life before. We have the himbo Yellow, the seductive femme fatale Red, and the emotionally unstable and combustible Violet. The final contestant who has a background with White is the current champion Green who is ruthless, confrontational and more than a little miffed that White has no memory of their past.
The Believers are pompous and self-serving, giving off an air of arrogance and a holier-than-thou attitude. The Angels appear downtrodden and oppressed making it seem that things might not be all it’s cracked up to be behind the pearly gates. The Angels are portrayed as cute cats on clouds though!!
The story is told to us through a visual-novel-style narrative but is more kinetic. Characters will bounce, spin and expressive emotes and blush lines will appear. All characters are fully voice acted with recognisable voices such as Steve Blum among the cast. The soundtrack is by an American electronic music duo Machine Girl and is really banging and suits the style perfectly.
Each day starts with a sermon and a chance to socialise with fellow neons and angels. Once you have your assignment you have a run of ten levels usually focused on a new ability introduced that day. You run in first person only equipped with a katana and have to race to the exit as fast as possible while killing every demon along the way.
To aid you there are cards along the route which, when picked up, give you various weapons. The guns also have a secondary function if you decide to dispose of them. For example, the yellow pistol is weak requiring multiple shots but discarding it gives you a double jump, the blue rifle is stronger but has less ammo and can shoot you forward upon discard. Also, there are red doors which can only be broken by abilities, giving Neon White a strategic element.
Upon completion you are given a medal based on your time and if you get gold or higher your overall rank will increase. Level perks are also unlocked based on the insight you earned in the level, starting with the activation of a hidden gift, to hints for shortcuts or a ghost mode. Insight is earned quickest through the acquisition of medals but you get one insight every time you complete a level, meaning you can still earn perks for the trickiest of runs.
Dying in a run resets the level. There are no checkpoints so each level must be done in one run. At least resets are really quick and can be done with one button press, which was a great feature (even though I did accidentally reset a few times).
Each day’s mission is locked off by your rank, so if you don’t get enough medals, you will have to perfect your runs to advance. It’s not egregious though as I didn’t need to get gold in every level to advance. In fact, I stopped worrying about my time about halfway through the game as I felt I had advanced my rank enough to finish the story.
The main reason I began replaying levels was to get the gifts. You see, the gifts were a two-stage puzzle. The first was finding them as they were mostly hidden just off the path, and the second was figuring out how to actually get to them. I would sit there analysing the problem going like “I need to use this double jump there so how do I get to that position without using the double jump earlier?”. They became real brain teasers and the satisfaction of figuring it out became such a dopamine hit I was hooked on solving these.
But what were the gifts for? During each day’s social part, you can gift your fellow Neons and angels which gives you insight into their character. This in turn would unlock your memories of them revealing what happened to you in life. It would also unlock decorations for your room (yes you have a room) and challenge missions for each respective Neon with certain conditions. Yellow’s missions, for example, you cannot discard cards so you don’t get abilities, whereas Red’s missions exclusively focus on abilities. These ended up being equal parts challenging and fun and I managed to complete them all.
As the days move on (each day you are reminded with an ominous “X days ’till judgement”) you begin to piece together that not all is as it seems in Heaven. With a plot that is excellently written, well-acted and beautifully drawn, it leaves enough intrigue that I wanted to see it to the end. I honestly didn’t think I would enjoy Neon White as much as I did, as I often don’t do well in games of twitch reactions and skill, but the level of difficulty was just right.
Neon White is a game with a low barrier to entry but a high skill ceiling to aspire to. You don’t need to be perfect to see all this game has to offer but for those that want a challenge, it’s in here. With global leaderboards, it’s a perfect speed run game to challenge yourself as you try to shave that little bit more time off or just sit there chilling to the music. There were plenty of times I sat there wanting to pull my hair out and (as other TYG members can attest to) it was making me produce some guttural yelps for every close miss, but when it worked….. It really worked!
Developer: Angel Matrix
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Platforms: PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Windows
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