We can all agree that dreams are weird, right? During that daily, eight hour period of near-comatose time that we all have to do or we’ll die, our brains subject us to wild hallucinations that we may or may not remember the following day. And to this day scientists still can’t explain why we have them. Whatever they are and regardless of their purpose, we as a species have always been fascinated by them. Not only have they been subject to many-a scientific study, but they’ve also been the focus of fictional stories for pretty much as long as humans have been humaning.
This happens to include the latest game I played. NeverAwake is a surreal shoot ‘em up, or a shmup as the kids call them, developed by the Japanese production company Neotro Inc, and is published by Phoenixx Inc. In it you play as Rem, who is fighting bizarre creatures in the nightmares of a girl who won’t wake up. It is currently out on Steam, and all the current Nintendo, Playstations, and XBoxes. Shmups are far from a new genre of gaming, and as I said before, stories involving dreams are pretty much as old as storytelling. It’s all about the execution, though. And NeverAwake definitely carves out its own path in this familiar territory. Beginning with the art style that breathes life into the nightmarish creatures and surreal dreamscapes, and continuing into an engaging gameplay loop that brings a fresh take to the familiar formula. As you progress through them, you’ll unravel the story in chilling tidbits that are there for you to piece together if you’d like. All of this culminates in an experience that, not to bury the lead, I highly recommend. So let’s dive in.
To say the areas you’ll be blasting through are unconventional is an understatement. You start out with access to four different worlds that can be played in any order. The world map is the little girl, looking like she’s made of crystal. A gaping hole can be seen in her chest, and segmented shackles bind her arms and legs. These shackles are the different worlds you need to fight through, and the segments are the individual stages contained within. Once they’re completed, more worlds open up as you fight your way to the game’s conclusion. All of which are symbolic of things that were the cause of a lot of stress or fear for the sleeping girl. The first four are Vegetable Forest, Dog Park, Quack Hospital, and Schoolmates.
The art style lends to the dream theme of NeverAwake, towing that line between haunting and surreal. There’s a hand drawn-quality to the character models and foreground assets. The background and foreground are full of familiar objects that appear distorted in the girl’s subconscious. There are basic enemies that you’ll encounter no matter which stage you’re in, but not looking to squander a good idea, the devs included plenty of world-specific baddies you’ll need to encounter. Easily the best and most disturbing character designs comes from the bosses, though. Some of them are surface level bizarre, like giant broccoli or misshapen dogs. But it’s the bosses that tie into the narrative that were my favorite. Not only were they visually well designed and fun to fight, but their significance to the little girl was chilling. I can’t think of many games where a boss encounter has you stuck between nightmare versions of a character’s parents while they fight with each other, dodging all the abuses they hurl at each other. But here we are, and I wouldn’t change that for anything.
NeverAwake is a shmup through and through. This game works with duel stick controls: left stick moves Rem, and the right stick fires in the direction to hold it. You also have special attacks and a dodge that you control with the shoulder buttons. Although this is a genre I’ve loved for as long as I can remember, I will be the first to admit that the formula can get stale before too long. Especially if the game in question doesn’t bring any pizzaz to the table. Fortunately not the case here, as NeverAwake takes a very atypical approach. Yes, there are waves of enemies. And yes, you can continuously fire Rem’s primary weapon without worrying about ammo counts or cool down. But, dear readers, as always, the devil is in the details.
Usually in this kind of game you’ll have one of two objectives: clear a stage of all its enemies or survive the waves until the big, bad fight at the end. NeverAwake changes this up by tying the stage’s objectives with the point of the game. Rem’s purpose is to relieve the girl’s stress and help her wake up, and she does this by collecting the Souls dropped by baddies and bosses. Once the on screen meter reaches 100% the stage ends, no matter what you’re doing at the moment. Working off this concept leads to stage structures that offer a fair amount of variety.
Your standard affair is just blasting through enemy waves until the required Souls are obtained. The waves are limited in number and will reset after 50 to 60 seconds, or if you’ve blasted through the waves fast enough. At which point a new loop begins. Enemy placement in subsequent loops will be the same, but they’ll be far more aggressive. Enemies who just floated by before are shooting at you now, just as an example. There are other variations to the formula you’ll get throughout the game. Some stages will only provide souls from specific enemies, or there are the ones where the souls come from a giant crystal that travels with you the entire time, and you need to constantly shoot it while dealing with incoming enemy waves. And then the boss fights. These get their own stages, and there’s usually three to each world. It is in those fights where the depths of the bonkers dreamscape is fully realized. Their designs are truly bizarre and twisted in all the best ways. Staying with the theme of the other stages, your victory isn’t granted winning the fight in the traditional sense. Bosses drop souls like the regular enemies. As they take more and more damage, souls will pour out in bursts. When Rem collects the desired amount, the fight ends with the boss never fully defeated.
As mentioned, Rem isn’t just attacking with her main weapon. There are a variety of special attacks that can be equipped and upgraded to pack a more powerful punch in a desperate moment, and accessories that can be purchased with any number of effects. Anything from more health to better soul absorption. These can be purchased and equipped between stages with the souls you collect along the way. Rem also has a dash ability. Some enemy fire can be neutralized with your own attacks, but some need to be outright avoided. Utilizing the i-frames of the dash is crucial to the later worlds. The difficulty scaling can sneak up on you with NeverAwake. By the time you complete the first four worlds, you’ll have an idea of what the rest of the game will throw at you.
Up until now I’ve been super vague about NeverAwake’s premise. That, however, is by design. Walking into the game, you’ll know very little. There’s a sleeping girl who won’t wake up, and a little, gothic version of her is fighting to wake her up. Anything past that is learned through gameplay. It isn’t long before you start receiving journal entries of what her life was like before her slumber. These are granted whether you beat a stage or not, and are not given in any kind of order. The more you play the more you learn, and it gets heavy. But if anyone was expecting a game about fighting through a child’s nightmare to be squeaky clean all the way through, then the disappointment is kind of on them. Clearing each world will break the bindings on the girl one by one, and provides more information on why she’s actually asleep. Like I said, heavy stuff. But all very well told.
To wrap things up: definitely play this game. The gameplay loop and visuals are enough to sell this. But then you consider that the premise of the game is more than a backdrop, it full on affects how and why you’re fighting to defend the sleeping child. All this in a pick up and go package that will not be a drain on your time. Both in how long the stages run, and the overall length of the game. It does get hard, though. But it’s the kind of challenge that makes you stubbornly come back for more. Because you know that better run is just over that next sand dune. So now you can never say that I never said NeverAwake isn’t any fun.
