Neon White review of a new masterpiece by Annapurna Interactive

A few months after our testing, we finally got the full version of Neon White, the action and platform game published by . Annapurna Interactive.

As indie fans well know, this publisher is renowned for the high average quality of its published games, and let’s just say it didn’t fail even then: Neon White paid homage to the good first impressions it made through the demo this spring.

Available from: June 16, 2022 on PC and Nintendo SwitchNeon White will offer you a journey to Heaven where nothing comes together but above all will let you play a crazy, fun and joyful game.

For all the details, keep reading ours Neon White review.

suddenly heaven

For those of you who haven’t read our essays, let’s take a step back. We Whitea murderer who dies and ends up in heaven. No, there was no mistake and no forgiveness: Our culprit did not find a place in eternal bliss, he was summoned and turned into a Neon to do the dirty work of the blessed believers, the blessed souls who rule the nine heavens.

the work of neons extermination of demonsespecially the cursed beings that haunt Heaven during the Ten Days of Judgment: This is the time we have before we hunt again, unless we are Neon number one and thus remain in Heaven for a full year.

White is not alone and will have to try Stealing Neon Green’s place, also face Yellow, Red, Violet and other Neons at the same time. Mentioned are White’s old acquaintances, but hardly remembers the past: so adventure will see us interact with these people who seem to be both friends and foes; who can you trust?

The plot and the curtains, visual novel style dating sim, mostly funny, jokes, best scenes and sometimes even bullshit. But don’t just expect a hilarious plot: White’s stay in Paradise will reveal various dark secrets, and dramatic events occur while many dialogues bring a smile. Overall, Neon White offers a simple yet pleasant storyline that gives one more reason to come to the end of the game.

Run, shoot, repeat

Neon White’s focus is its gameplay: run, shoot and repeat over and over. That said, it might not sound interesting, but we can assure you it’s the opposite: Neon White is probably one of the funniest games of recent times, combining the need for immediacy and precision.

The game is divided into two levels, linear zones with exit points: the goal is to eliminate every enemy on the way and reach the end; To do this we will have with us a set of weapons represented by colored cards. This base is a katana, but using it often means you have a problem: real weapons are guns like pistols, submachine guns, single-shot rifles, shotguns. The peculiarity is connected with the fact that all weapons have at least one special ability: for example, the pistol allows us to jump even in the air, while the bazooka becomes a grapple that pulls us in the direction we aim for. .

Use secondary skills this means discarding the card, but shooting and running out of ammo also has this effect. However, you don’t have to imagine Neon White’s levels as levels of a shooter, but as levels of a linear 3D platform game where each chapter has a specific solution. Every few steps the game gives us exactly the card we need, and we will “only” have to figure out how to use it and, above all, stick to the schedule.

Each level is actually a race against time: There will be three records to break, the second (Gold) and the first (Ace) will raise our Neon rank, which will serve to unlock the next levels. Neon White doesn’t pretend to advance all the Golds or Aces, by eye it takes half or slightly less of the levels broken by a record to reach the end of the plot. In our case, we’ve all gotten Gold/Aces until the final missions are unlocked: so the difficulty isn’t prohibitive at all.

Also, even if you’re not a lover record hunts And if you want to settle for the minimum, you will still have a reason to return to the various levels: upon completion, a gift package appears, which is necessary to unlock the dialogues of various characters we meet in it, as well as secondary quests with an alternative style. and more difficult than the main plot.

this gift boxes They are very cleverly hidden within the levels and require a good look, but above all it is necessary to think about exploration in an alternative way. Gift hunting transforms the experience significantly, as completion time is secondary in this case. It becomes more of a puzzle platformer where we have to figure out how to circumvent the original design to get the cards needed to reach the gift.

More generally, level design it’s always amazing: there are also shortcuts that we usually don’t notice the first time (obtaining Gold unlocks a hint that helps us see them in the level) and so we can have fun learning a new way to complete it by playing it again. path. These usually last a few tens of seconds, so failure and reboot are of no importance. On PC, downloads are instant within levels, so don’t worry about wasting time.

Unfortunately, we cannot speak for Turkey. Nintendo Switch version, we did not try. We don’t know if the granitic performance on PC holds true on the small Nintendo console: 60 FPS is mandatory for Neon White, and not having them can hinder enjoyment of the game.

Besides, play with remote may be insufficient: mouse and keyboard accuracy is not successful and Neon White needs efficient movement; We’ve broken records more than once with a few percent-second cutoff after many tries, and based on our testing with an Xbox controller, we couldn’t do that using analog sticks.