Neon White might be the best mashup of different game genres that I’ve ever played. While initially released on Switch and PC back in June of 2022, the anime-styled platformer made its way to PlayStation 4 and 5 in December of the same year. Sporting a loud, early 2000’s anime style, this version ought to run spotlessly on current-gen hardware. I was excited to jump in having heard so much praise over the last year and hearing how addicting gameplay loop can be.
Published by Annapurna Interactive, the game was developed by a newly formed team called Angel Matrix. At the core of this group is Ben Esposito. Esposito gained fame for his indie darling, “Donut County” and previous work on “What remains of Edith Finch.” In an interview with the Washington Post Esposito described creating Neon White as needing to “get it out of his system” and taking a step away from more wholesome games. While Neon White isn’t by any means an offensive game, it harkens back to the campy innuendos found on late 90’s Toonami programs. Personally, I found the themes and writing nostalgic and funny rather than crass, but to each their own. The over-the-top platformer is unapologetic about its influences and has you jumping and shooting in no time.
You will receive a mission from beings who present as cat angels that are administrating the competition for one Neon (a damned mortal soul) to get out of Hell. A longstanding Champion, Neon Green, has won previous years and doesn’t plan to give up his halo. Each level is only 20-40 seconds long most of the time. You begin with nothing but a sword and collect weapons in the form of cards. Each card has a primary firing mode and a secondary mode. Once you burn the card it is fully spent, and you move on to the next card in your hand. Most of the secondary modes are movement based. A pistol has a double jump, a riffle has a dash, and a sawed-off shotgun has a multidirectional dash.
As such, the platforms in front of you are littered with demons begging to be shot, and you must time your secondary movement expenditures in line with the physical hurdles throughout the level. You’ll need to manage ammunition, look for shortcuts, and aim at demons, all while keeping an eye on the clock. Each stage has multiple levels of success, and you need to complete some minimum times to unlock hints and leadership boards. It’s almost like they gave Sonic a gun, a deck of powerups, and three dimensions and I love it!
The feeling of satisfaction when you find a shortcut or nail a jump is amplified by an outstanding soundtrack that makes you fully focus on the task at hand. All gears shift to a calm and playful feeling when you are in the game’s overworld between missions. You can select a location and progress the story by talking with various characters. It’s a refreshing change of pace with how adrenaline-packed the levels are. It’s also nice to add some narrative gravity tasks. You don’t have to engage too much though if it’s not your cup of tea.
You play as White, a Neon (mortal soul) from hell that has been chosen to clear out demons from heaven. Angels and heavenly spirits usher you into a competition of demon clearing where the winning Neon is allowed to stay in heaven, temporarily. White soon begins to puzzle together his forgotten past and finds that a troop of other Neons not only know him but have bad blood from the previous life. The story and dialogue are mostly voiced similarly to other Japanese style games like Dangan Rampa or Persona. The voice acting is great, and I was happy to hear Steve Blum. Anime fans will recognize his voice from Cowboy Bebop as Spike Spiegel.
I did run into a bit of frame tearing on the first stage, and the game crashed once during my playtime. However, after the first level, everything ran smoothly. It is worth noting that I was playing on a TV with VRR enabled, so the frame tearing may be an issue if you don’t have that feature.
Neon White breaks conventions and asks you to learn a new style of gameplay. It breaks ground where games like Ghostrunner and Mirrors Edge appear a little too “grounded” to give you the rush of feeling like you broke a level by finding a shortcut. Classic anime fans will feel right at home with the visual novel presentation of the story. The incentive to replay levels and community aspects of the leadership boards act as a catalyst to make you obsessed with perfecting a level.
Neon White’s story and character designs are so wonderfully loud that you won’t care that you can’t see your character model when exploring Heaven or shooting demons. I am sure this title sold very well and there is no doubt we’ll be hearing more from Esposito and Angel Matrix in the future. For now, I just want to have a few more runs of Neon White to see if I can beat my friends.
