You're either a slowpoke or the smoothest assassin in the heavenly realm. That's the kind of question Neon White ponders at. Speedrunning isn't my thing, but after this game, I might be more interested in it than I was before. It works conceptually and in execution. Has little that's holding it back, this is a perfect game that combines both bullet run and platforming together.
There's no fancy visuals, no crazy aesthetics pull, not that the production value this game has is bad by any means either. And it isn't even that difficult to play either, the game oozes with so much replay value, added on top are these anime style eccentric characters that keep you invested, staring at the screen, cackling at the witty dialogues and one-liners, making its campy nature pretty tolerable.
Is it a perfect game? Sounds like there's a lot of positive notes given. Maybe I am giving it more appraisal than I should. Which is why, writing this, I want to talk about the rush that really got me hooked.
Just as White thought he could catch a break, death eventually caught up to him, and he woke up somewhere thinking his time was up. Till the angels decreed that if he wants to redeem himself, he needs to win against other Neons for a place in heaven. Among them, he meets his old teammates; Red, Violet, and Yellow. But he doesn't recollect knowing them at all, thanks to retrograde amnesia. A fix to that is by participating in the contest and learning more.
The opening was kind of like a cringe roll of Crunchyroll anime, except it embraced it in a self-aware way but also coming up with believably funny characters, and quippy dialogues. You know, the ones that are well written.
For once, meeting these characters kind of irked me, till they started revealing more of themselves, deviating from generic characters arc by pulling out really crazy shenanigans like weird, deep BDSM sexual innuendos, and clever inside jokes. There was a lot more going on than I initially anticipated. There's also the talking cats, they either talk cute or they're a bunch of smart mouths. The latter makes sense when you're dealing with killers in the afterlife.
There are missions, each with various level runs, to play in. In order to get access to those, you have to meet a ranking requirement, which increases based on how you perform. Doing so, you go to your mission provider, a cat named Mikey.
I like how this plays the job agent trope with the gusto voice acting from a floating cat. Add the great writing, with the VA and personality, and you got yourself a good comedic element. He and the others, too, are the ones carrying the campy nature of each cutscene. There's a good story, but that setting mostly exist for the VN style dialogues, and the multi-layered characters here.
Outside of Central Authority giving you work, you can explore the rest of Central Heaven. Engaging conversations with others, give them gifts unlocking new story bits and dialogues, and well exchange tickets for unique items.
If the game had an entire VN based around this, I would definitely play it. It would be my pick me up from any kind of bad day I would have. Of course, it isn't. It comes with the next big part of the game, where the real fun is.
The shortest summary to describe this game would be calling it a speed run FPS. But it's a lot more than that, there's puzzle solving involved, and you can only hold two weapon cards stack at a time. Each level is 30-50 seconds short, and all you have to do is dispatch enemies by using your cards. Each of the weapon cards have unique abilities, once used, disposes the card. Like yellow pistol boosts you up in the air, green SMGs creates an AoE stomp, blue rifles phase you forward, etc.
Two main objectives is clearing out demons and getting to the exit point quick as possible. Use the cards provided to finish the level and make your time run. You can retry it easily as much as you want, long as you're satisfied with the results.
After clearing a level, gift packages are unlocked. Where you retry the level instead to find the gift, which involves finding it in hidden areas and doing some platforming to get them. These are used, as mentioned earlier, to unlock conversations and other things with different characters you interact with in the heavens lobby.
The game makes the ridiculousness of each level much more interesting and intense as the game progresses, you use the green card to stomp on explosive barrels that bounce you really high before you quickly use the other card type to advance forward. That's one particular example.
Gunplay feels great, platforming is crazy smooth and fun, the level designs are really intricate, and best part, you want to flex your time record, you can do it to online leaderboards from both worldwide and your friend's list.
If whatever I've shown you haven't convinced you enough, take a look at the trailer below. It'll give you an idea of the voice acting, but also how insane the game can get.
I can't stress this enough, just how much fun this is. There's little flaws here and there, but I don't look at them as seriously as I did other games.