The longer levels and boss battles towards Neon White’s end do introduce a potent new card and some new traversal techniques, but I found these pretty tiresome on account of their punishing lengths. Levels can take between 10 to 20 seconds to a few minutes, although the sweet spot seems to be around a minute-or-less. It hooks you into its just-one-more-try loop. After mastering the moves I found myself searching for other hidden jumps and bits of level geometry that could be scaled or exploited. For an entirely unexceptional shooter player, Neon White’s capacity to make you feel like you look good playing it is a real credit.īetter still, the faster you go, the more it encourages you to keep improving – first by giving you your own ghost to chase, and next by revealing new shortcuts to you. There were certainly many occasions during Neon White where I felt like the greatest dead parkour assassin in the universe breathless moments where I’d reached the end of a level and picked up my trophy by bounding and blasting by the seat of my pants, and playing the footage back felt like watching someone else playing. There were definitely instances where I’d find myself jumping into a void during a first run through a level and dying without a clear idea of where I was supposed to be headed, but these were exceptions.Īs a result, Neon White boasts not only a marvellous sense of momentum, but also a fantastic ability to flatter you.
It’s remarkably intuitive, seeping its way into my brain before I’d even realised it. With sharp and simple graphics and very deliberate use of colour, Neon White usually makes it quite clear which direction you need to travel, the barriers you can smash, and the gaps you need to leap. This ended up being a lot less intimidating than I’d feared as there’s a very well-considered visual language at work within Neon White. The beauty of Neon White is that the precise assortment of cards you’ll need to nail a level is always there – it’s just up to you to gather and execute them all in the perfect spots. Using an ability to clear a gap, breach an obstacle, or destroy an enemy burns the card that granted it – but there’s always another. Shotguns turn White into a sailing fireball, rocket launchers become grappling hooks, and SMGs become devastating ground pounds. The pistol turns into a double-jump, the rifle a high-speed air-dash, and the machine gun a destructive grenade that doubles as a vertical boost. Each card grants White the limited use of a weapon, alongside the use of a one-time secondary ability. Why are they cards? Other than allowing White to briefly look like an edgy street magician in the intro movie, I don’t know – but it works. The catch? Each level is a parkour puzzle, and reaching the end within the allotted time limits requires judicious juggling of the finite weapon and ability cards. The objective? Kill all enemies and reach the exit as quickly as possible. It’s like the first page of a Deviantart search up in here. There’s also a cigar-chomping cat, a BDSM redhead in a collar, and a spiky-haired meathead. Then there’s Violet, a knife-wielding pixie with an infantilised voice that’d open a remote garage door, and who seems like the kind of woman who’d dot the i’s on her ransom letters with love hearts. There’s the titular White, a spindly-legged man who wears three belts – none of which appear connected to his trousers – and who likes to stand with his shoulders pulled back and his crotch thrust forward. This makes for a lot of chat to wade through outside of the otherwise impeccable puzzle platforming, delivered by a cast of goths, gym bros, and cloud-riding capsule toys that are as irritating as they are horny. You can fast-forward through it, but it’s always there.
I do appreciate the effort to slow down and add context to the 12 chapters and 97 levels developer Angel Matrix has built here – rather than just machine-gunning them directly into our veins non-stop, that is – but overall Neon White’s slightly over-assertive blend of pop-punk Christianity and off-brand anime didn’t grab me. In practice, however, it makes a large portion of Neon White a young adult visual novel where a bunch of brightly-coloured, dead millennials reminisce about their past lives and argue a bunch. Neon White’s oddball premise – which sees sinners plucked from purgatory to serve as parkour pest-exterminators, clearing out a demon infestation in heaven as part of an annual contest where the winner gets to remain there – certainly sounds interesting on paper.
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