Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Neon Arena is already at night in the story, so what is the time of day they chose for it? It appears to be either dusk or dawn, with the Sun just under the horizon turning it shades of red. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the EX settings are hinted at in the story in that the ending cutscenes for each world is set whenever the EX stages are: nighttime for Rose Garden, sunset for Golden Temple, and so forth, and Neon Arena is no exception. Go ahead, take a look.
GonGon is the VIP for Neon Arena this time around—the audience is still energetically waving the light sticks around, and they’re still featuring that celebrity in the Spartan helmet (unless that’s just a mascot and not an in-universe figure). Naturally, I’ve dressed GonGon in a way fitting of an urban VIP.
We are now officially in the last quarter of the game (well, upon its release anyway; more stages were added as DLC later, but I won’t be covering that because we’re seriously running behind schedule as it is), so despite this being a heavily populated area with high visibility, things get tougher here. You’ll see what I mean.
00:00 - 6 EX-01 Arena
01:04 - 6 EX-02 Rising Road
03:06 - 6 EX-03 Gap Lane
03:45 - 6 EX-04 Wheel Road
05:21 - 6 EX-05 Box Seats
07:07 - 6 EX-06 Spiraling Spires
09:21 - 6 EX-07 Building Excitement
10:00 - 6 EX-08 Various Seesaws
11:28 - 6 EX-09 Left and Right
13:38 - 6 EX-10 Cradle
Just like with EX 4-01, Giant Slalom, not every character can clear 6 EX-02, Rising Road. It is a set up from the earlier stage (well, a few steps up, literally speaking) in that you need to go up a half-loop to gain momentum to land on it, then keep doing this three more times. If you ask me, it is as hard as it sounds. As you can see, even GonGon struggles with this on.
Does 6 EX-04, Wheel Road, look familiar? Yes, this is 10-5 Tornado Ring, except you’re now travering the tops of the rings instead of the insides. In a way, this is easier as the transition to the final ring is much easier, though the “Fall Out” boundary is below the bottoms of the rings, so you cannot ride the insides of the rings even if you wanted to. With some stge scenery as reference, you can see that your character does indeed shrink as they fall to give the illusion of falling far into the distance.
6 X-05, Box Seats, takes the form of an icosahedron that folds out into the path that you must take. Key to succeeding here is to set the stage to Play rather than Fast Forward, and to know which platforms remain when the stage folds up. The goal is located at the bottom of the icosahedron, meaning it can only be accessed while folded out.
I didn’t have this much trouble with 6 EX-08, Various Seesaws, my first time through. I hadn’t noticed how far down that harrow seesaw would slant.
Don’t ask me for the solution for 6 EX-09, Left and Right. I still don’t know, just that a Spin Dash is not necessary to reach the goal as GonGon.
6 EX-10, Cradle, is oddly painless for a final stage in an EX world.
Neon Arena is already at night in the story, so what is the time of day they chose for it? It appears to be either dusk or dawn, with the Sun just under the horizon turning it shades of red. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the EX settings are hinted at in the story in that the ending cutscenes for each world is set whenever the EX stages are: nighttime for Rose Garden, sunset for Golden Temple, and so forth, and Neon Arena is no exception. Go ahead, take a look.
GonGon is the VIP for Neon Arena this time around—the audience is still energetically waving the light sticks around, and they’re still featuring that celebrity in the Spartan helmet (unless that’s just a mascot and not an in-universe figure). Naturally, I’ve dressed GonGon in a way fitting of an urban VIP.
We are now officially in the last quarter of the game (well, upon its release anyway; more stages were added as DLC later, but I won’t be covering that because we’re seriously running behind schedule as it is), so despite this being a heavily populated area with high visibility, things get tougher here. You’ll see what I mean.
00:00 - 6 EX-01 Arena
01:04 - 6 EX-02 Rising Road
03:06 - 6 EX-03 Gap Lane
03:45 - 6 EX-04 Wheel Road
05:21 - 6 EX-05 Box Seats
07:07 - 6 EX-06 Spiraling Spires
09:21 - 6 EX-07 Building Excitement
10:00 - 6 EX-08 Various Seesaws
11:28 - 6 EX-09 Left and Right
13:38 - 6 EX-10 Cradle
Just like with EX 4-01, Giant Slalom, not every character can clear 6 EX-02, Rising Road. It is a set up from the earlier stage (well, a few steps up, literally speaking) in that you need to go up a half-loop to gain momentum to land on it, then keep doing this three more times. If you ask me, it is as hard as it sounds. As you can see, even GonGon struggles with this on.
Does 6 EX-04, Wheel Road, look familiar? Yes, this is 10-5 Tornado Ring, except you’re now travering the tops of the rings instead of the insides. In a way, this is easier as the transition to the final ring is much easier, though the “Fall Out” boundary is below the bottoms of the rings, so you cannot ride the insides of the rings even if you wanted to. With some stge scenery as reference, you can see that your character does indeed shrink as they fall to give the illusion of falling far into the distance.
6 X-05, Box Seats, takes the form of an icosahedron that folds out into the path that you must take. Key to succeeding here is to set the stage to Play rather than Fast Forward, and to know which platforms remain when the stage folds up. The goal is located at the bottom of the icosahedron, meaning it can only be accessed while folded out.
I didn’t have this much trouble with 6 EX-08, Various Seesaws, my first time through. I hadn’t noticed how far down that harrow seesaw would slant.
Don’t ask me for the solution for 6 EX-09, Left and Right. I still don’t know, just that a Spin Dash is not necessary to reach the goal as GonGon.
6 EX-10, Cradle, is oddly painless for a final stage in an EX world.
