NeverAwake is a curious game that put itself in a tricky position right at the concept stage. Shoot ‘em ups are a gameplay-heavy genre that you probably aren’t going to turn to for a meaningful narrative. There are too many limitations to get a player properly invested in a story, yet NeverAwake attempts to do so by sporadically giving you the diary entries of a little girl trapped in a coma. Most of these lay out her feelings after or during an event in her life, describing her relationship with her parents or friends at the time.
While the intention to tell a story is admirable, these diary entries have very little substance. They’re usually one or two sentences long, can be very repetitive, and are dished out with little thought. You’ll be given them when you complete a level, when you fail a level, when you’re navigating menus, and so on. The story positions itself as a mystery that is supposed to drive you forward, but it throws dozens of random, often lackluster, diary entries at you completely out of order and expects you to fill in the gaps. It’s far too disjointed and asks you to put in more effort than the game itself seems willing to.
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Thankfully, the story isn’t the main draw, and the core gameplay loop is satisfying enough to get you through its relatively short runtime of 3 to 4 hours. NeverAwake functions like your typical shoot ‘em up, as enemies of various sizes will fill your screen with all manner of projectiles while you fire back your own. However, it manages to set itself apart by having each level constantly loop until you collect enough souls that drop from your defeated foes. After each loop, enemies respawn and are more deadly, making each level a race to the finish before the pressure becomes too much.
All of the levels are fairly similar so repetition can take hold at times, but boss fights and gimmicks are sprinkled throughout to keep things just interesting enough. Special weapons and accessories with different perks are thrown at you after each level, giving you plenty of ways to experiment and tweak your combat style, while extra difficult challenge levels can be played to unlock photos of the main character and her family. All these things can extend your playtime if it gets its hooks in you.
Unfortunately, you don’t get much in the way of rewards for completing these challenges besides a small boost to your personal pride. The photos you can collect are fine, but there’s very little incentive to keep going with a challenge that might be giving you trouble. In fact, the game goes in the opposite direction by giving you a bad ending if you complete every optional challenge, which feels counterintuitive considering the difficulty of some of the later levels.
It wasn’t the promise of secret endings or tricky trials that made NeverAwake an enjoyable experience though, as it’s a rare example of a game using its art style to keep me going through morbid curiosity alone. A lot of the game’s imagery is deliberately upsetting, as you navigate levels inspired by the fears of a typical child. The monsters you encounter are based on everyday objects such as vegetables and stuffed animals, but have been twisted into horrid monstrosities to simulate them being viewed through the eyes of a child. The boss fights take this element and exaggerate it even further, as you fight monsters like the dentist or the concept of social media.
While the levels are varied and challenging, and the story is serviceable for the kind of game NeverAwake is, they weren’t the things that had me blasting through levels to see what was next - it was the excitement of seeing what kind of horrible beastie was waiting for me around the corner. The game excels at turning the mundane into monsters and doing so manages to set itself apart as one of the more unique shoot ‘em ups out there. Add to that some demanding but entertaining boss fights and NeverAwake is a decent (yet depressing) time for any fan of the genre.
Score: 3/5. A PS5 review code was provided by the developer.
