Neon White

 A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one

You might have noticed that I tend to be the sort of person who attaches himself to something new the second it catches his eye and attacks it with abandon. Like a dog who suffers sporadic bouts of ADHD, I'll just stumble onto something, think "Oh, this looks cool." And then suddenly I must learn everything about it and tell anyone who'll listen. That's pretty much me when it comes to this Neon White game that happened to debut during the Nintendo games conference, because now that I've tasted just that little bit I'm ravenous to know more about what this curious little action rhythm-puzzle hybrid has up it's sleeve. And if that mis-match of tags sounded even the least bit interesting, or just confusing, to you; then perhaps you owe to yourself to stick around in order to see just what in the heck I'm talking about this time. (What have ya got to lose?)

First of all, this here is game being published by Annapurna Interactive, and (according to Steam) only appears to be credited to one guy. I've looked at the official site too and there's nothing about who's making it beyond one name. I don't mean to call that into question at all, great games get put together by one man teams all the time, (look at Undertale) I'm just surprised, is all. This game looks really well put together, you'd imagine that'd take a master of few trades rather than a Jack-of-all. But assuming that what I've managed to dig up is accurate, this would appear to be the fruits of one, Ben Esposito. Some American guy who's had experience in making... Donut Country? That was a great little (and really well written) game from a while back! And What Remains of Edith Finch? And Tattletail? And Sonic Dreams Collection? (Okay, that last one isn't really worth celebrating) Oh, and he writes music? He did some work for Cartoon Network? Okay that's it. Blog over. I'm packing it up...

Damn, there's just so many talented folk out there, huh? And I don't even just mean sort-of-talented, I'm talking 'fingers in everything', 'self motivating' 'go getting types'. (It's enough to make this bum over here feel like garbage.) But hey, you can't feel like garbage when you're playing a sweet game, and Neon White looks like it might just be one of those. Now bare in mind that I'm basing my impressions off of what slant bit of details of this little title that currently exists, but at least I can put together a synopsis from it. You're a hitman called Neon White. (urgh, I actually hate that more than I should have any right to.) Wait, no more appropriately you were a hitman, you're dead now. Now you've been pulled from hell to kill demons in heaven, (huh?) and have some sort of competition against other hitmen to see who's the most effective at their job. Fastest gets to stay. (Honestly, I have to say that's pretty shoddy criteria to pick a hitman under. One should prize discretion and quality, maybe even a little flair for morbid irony if you're the poetic sort, but I digress.)

'Speed' is an important concept to keep in mind here as it's something you can feel flowing through the very veins of this fast paced action first person shooter. Look at the footage from the Nintendo conference and it's all jumping around hails of enemy fire (love me a bullet hell) whilst ripping through enemies at the blink of an eye and stringing that flawlessly into your next movement. In that way it's immediately visually similar to Ghostrunner, a game I talked about a couple of times before. We're talking about kill-or-be-killed spilt second action where the dance of death takes on this instinctual rhythm which, with practice, becomes as much a memory game as it does an action one. Like remembering the steps to a decidedly straight-forward waltz. (You see why I pulled out the 'Rhythm' tag earlier?) 

What Neon White has a little different from games like Ghostrunner, however, is this curious looking card system which I wish was touched on a little more in the scant resources out there. There appear to be these 'soul cards' that permit unique powers of movement upon the player when used, such as a boost up into the air or a dash of speed. But I think the toss-up comes in that it appears when you hold these cards without activating the power, you use the weapon present on the card. (At least that's my observation from the footage I've watched) Which, if I'm accurate, would create a curious give-and-take relationship between the movement and combat which I find very interesting. I just wish I could remember why the very concept of a game that substitutes cards for actions make me deeply nauseat- wait. Damn you 'Chain of Memories'. Why won't your memory grant me peace...

But I've also described what I've seen of this gameplay as indicative of puzzle-games, and let me extrapolate a little upon that. For me, 'puzzle game' simply refers to a game which presents a problem to be solved through rigid parameters, although that doesn't cover every example I can think of. Neon White appears to be composed of these time trial, almost rhythm action, sequences buffed with an aforementioned card system which no doubt will be of paramount import to the gameplay loop. I see the potential for a sort of game which is all about trial, error and optimization across levels that demand excellence through mastery. Similar, in a fashion, to how I look at the Hitman games, which I adore. Plus, there is the connection of this game literally being about an undead hitman, so I guess everything always ends up going full circle, or something like that.

The other side of this game that I'm curious about is the story, because there appears to be a small shade of VN elements tossed into this game. (Although I guess that shouldn't be too big of a surprise given the various intercut texting sequences from Donut Country) Neon White interacts with the other Assassins out for his promised spot in heaven, and indications are that there might be a little bit of a shared past sprinkled in somewhere. It's hardly the prelude to a deeply engrossing emotional narrative, but I appreciate the drips of flavour in such a deeply mechanical game in order to give the bones a little more flesh. It reminds me of a much more condensed version of the 'gameplay cut with living life' formula which has defined the popular Persona series. (and I love a little bit of Persona in my games.) 

 

So Neon White, in small minute long reveal trailer coupled with a couple anaemic info pages, managed to win me over. I seem to have really taken to these smaller more focused sort of titles of late, which I have a tendency to label as 'simple' though I hate to do so for the inherent negative connotations which accompany such a phrase. Perhaps if, come this winter, you too find the cumbersome 50+ hour mega games to be tedious (and a lot of the times disappointing) maybe you'll also find the more concentrated and better executed titles, like I'm getting the vibe this will be, are more up your alley. Or perhaps not, who knows? I will, come this Winter, so keep an eye out on this blog for that review.