If you were to line up screenshots of arcade-style shoot’em ups, it’s highly likely the typical gamer would struggle to name them all. The 16-bit era saw many, many, sci-fi shooters with sleek spaceships and starfield backdrops. Even now, games just as described appear on the digital storefronts on almost a weekly basis. With this in mind, NeverAwake successfully stands out from the crowd – it’s very distinct looking, with vivid art and a warped tone. It even manages to make the Cotton series seem normal by comparison.
Then again, NeverAwake isn’t a typical scrolling shooter, so arguably it was always going to deviate from convention. It’s a twin-stick shooter where our darkly dressed lead floats around the screen with gathering shimmering souls. When the soul gauge – situated at the top of the screen – reaches 100%, the stage ends. If you fail to obtain the soul quota quickly, the stage then starts to loop – and this impacts your score and awarded currency.
The premise, too, is pretty out there. Our angsty protagonist is recovering in a hospital, battling through the nightmares taking place in her mind. Being a mere child, these nightmares are rather innocent – the first, easy going, set of stages is set in a vegetable world to convey her dislike of broccoli. Then comes a stage full of yapping and snarling dogs, a school full of bullies, a trip to the dentist, and more.
The concept of stages looping, along with the dreamlike nature of the stage designs, recalls SEGA’s celebrated NiGHTs. The way the lead rotates while shooting recalls Capcom’s Forgotten Worlds too, a comparison I nearly didn’t make due to that franchise being…forgotten.
Rather than pick up or swap between weapons mid-stage, a limited use special attack is selected before tackling a stage, while a handful of perks can be chosen that increase firepower and boost the number of souls dropped. Later, new perks are added that sufficiently shake things up, including the ability to fire backward as well as forwards. This allows for a heady amount of experimentation, especially when considering some special attacks can make short work of bosses.
If you ever hit a brick wall with progression, such as a certain boss proving tricky, a lifeline is available in the form of a firepower boost that lasts for a single stage. This idea alone makes NeverAwake feel far more accessible than other shooters. The bosses themselves are a little contrived, though. Not so much in their design – the school world features a phantom gymnasium vault box, of all things – but rather the fact that they all have three phases, and consequently must occur a set amount of damage three times before defeat.
Despite having a slightly casual feel, NeverAwake isn’t a walk in the park. In fact, you may be surprised by how long a single playthrough takes – it isn’t a quick fix arcade-style shooter, but rather designed for the long haul. My first playthrough stood at around 4 hours – there are seven worlds to play through, each with several stages and a handful of bosses. Some individual stages are tough, especially toward the end. Others are designed simply to be entertaining, beatable on a first, or perhaps second, attempt. There’s quite a bit of variety here, with stages that scroll vertically and horizontally, and a few that have 3D backdrop elements that move into the foreground. One stage per world also presents a floating crystal to smash, helping to fill the soul gauge as it travels forward.
All these gimmicks and ideas do come at an expense – NeverAwake is a considerable ‘loose’ example of the genre, especially when compared to something like Raiden or Ikagura that demand and reward pixel-perfect precision. That’s loose in the sense that by investing in certain perks and upgrades, it’s possible to become ‘tank like’ by maximising firepower and extending the life bar to a beyond generous size. You don’t have to worry too much about precision movement either, especially upon activating the auto-aim ability. I even managed to ‘cheese’ one of the later bosses by leashing my entire stock of special attacks one after the other, resulting in an almost instant victory.
Nevertheless, NeverAwake is always entertaining. It’s nicely presented, with its penchant for sparkly glitter-like effects, the bosses are delightfully warped, and there are a few surprises. It isn’t a ‘one run and done’ affair either, with some extra story pieces and new modes to discover upon completion. Indeed, it’s easy to apricate how many bases are covered here. It’s not only one of the freshest twin-stick shooters of recent times, while also being a good entry point to the genre, but there’s enough tact here to please hardened shooter fans too. Those weaned on the classics of the genre are likely to find it more of a diversion rather than their next obsession, but a fun diversion all the same.
Developed by Neotro and Published by Phoenixx, NeverAwake is out on Xbox Series on June 29th. It first launched on Switch and Steam in 2022.