[DS] The World Ends With You: Review

*ALC*☆Kotarō · 04-12-2012

"I thought it might be necessary with the hype of Kingdom Hearts:3D Dream Drop Distance quite recently coming out of Japan, due to this particular KH game including characters from not only disney and Final Fantasy, but from TWEWY as well!"

TWEWY's PLOT

The World Ends With you takes place in Shibuya, Tokyo in Japan.
Basically it starts of with Neku, our protagonist, taking a stroll around somewhere in the area.
Suddenly, he wakes up in the middle of the Scramble Crossing.
He shouts out, only to find that no one can hear him, or even notice him...
What you may not know, Neku is very unsociable, hates people and only sees them for their uses (this can also be evidenced by the headphones he wears, which might indicate he tries to cut himself of from the rest of the world.

He finds a mysterious pin in his hand, and flips it.
Ironically, straight after, he hears not only Voices, but the minds of the people as well.
He notices a strange message on a building reading "You Have 7 Days", and a timer engraved on his hand counting down from 60:00 (an hour).
He sees strange monsters, and has no choice but to run.

The World Ends With You - Opening [High Quality] - YouTube

Neku notices people disappearing, and wonders what is going on.
He encounters a person who notices him, Shiki, a girl who happens to know what's going on.
She tells him to make a 'pact' with him, which Neku doesn't really understand.
He eventually gives in, saying he 'accepts', in which a strange light surrounds the two.
She gives Neku a pin with what appears to have the picture of flames on it.

She says that he has to hurry and use the pin to defeat the noise.
***
After the fight is over, Neku wonders why he could control the fire and defeat the monsters.
She then said that she had found the right partner as she couldn't use that pins psyche (power).

Then she states that now they have made a pact (became partners), the noise won't come after them.

She points out the fact, they are in something called the "Reapers Game", and that it lasts for 7 days.
Neku runs of to leave Shibuya, but the twist is, you can't....

Neku and Shiki now work together to win the game.

Plot Rating: 9.4/10

(As the story unfolded, I got a feel for the characters and got hooked to the game, I couldn't put it down for more than 1 second.
Being myself, I love deep/good plots and is the main factor of the game for me.
I really enjoyed the story, it was very complex and left me on the edge of my seat, wanting to know what happens next.)

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay is unique with every partner.

The game revolves around a dual screen system, one fight is on the top one fight is at the bottom.

Shiki

Shiki uses a special psyche called Mr.Mew, special because the attacks do not require a pin (like every other assist), and doesn't need to be recharged, unlike Neku's pins.
The attacks are not particularly strong, but are fast, and the combos you can perform with it are quite effective.
Depending in which way you're facing, only that way will be attacked.
(Keeping in mind that this is the same with Joshua.)

The tasks are ordered as followed:
FIRST WEEK

Day 1: Reach 104
Day 2: the cursed sculpture free
Day 3: Defeat the master of A-East
Day 4: Reach Towa Records
Day 5: Spain Hill from the Noise
Day 6: Dominate the Scramble Crossing view at 3:00
Day 7: Defeat the Game Master

Each task is not straight forward, especially when trying to unlock walls to advance.
There are countless trials for you to do to advance.

Each Day follows on from the story, and everything that happens in a task is significant (applies for all day's on other weeks).

Joshua

The combo's are a bit more complicated but much more of a powerhouse than Shiki's/Mr.Mew's fighting style.
The attacks aren't that quick, and requires the combo to be complete to attack.
(Unlike Mr.Mew where he attacked every time you completed a segment of the combo you were using).
Also, instead of focusing on one enemy at a time, he uses random objects to rain down on the whole of the side he is facing.

The tasks are ordered as followed:
SECOND WEEK

Day 1: X = 30 + 74". This translates as an instruction to reach 104 (30 + 74 = 104)
Day 2: Acquire the √3 Au pin
_________________________________________
"No missions, even though you had to complete tasks to continue with the story, there were no title, and therefore would be a risk of a serious spoiler .

"
_________________________________________
Day 3: N/A
Day 4: N/A
Day 5: N/A
Day 6: Beat the bosses of 2.2360679's 0+5
Day 7: Erase the Game Master at Pork City

Beat

Beat's style is fairly easy, but very effective.
He uses a special kind of pin to attack with his skateboard.
Yet again, it requires combinations of arrow keys, and also requires finishing the combo to actually attack.
Only difference to Joshua's is, he attacks more than once after the combo, which is effectively superior to his in damage tallied up.
He attacks one on one, and it takes longer to execute attacks, so can be considered a bit more difficult to master.

The tasks are ordered as followed:
THIRD WEEK

Day 1: Reach 104
Day 2: Defeat Konishi
No missions, even though you had to complete tasks to continue with the story, there were no title, and therefore would be a risk of a serious spoiler .

Day 3: N/A
Day 4: N/A
Day 5: N/A
Day 6: N/A
Day 7: N/A

Neku

Obviously, you play as Neku through the entire game.
(keeping in mind that you also/can control the assist to, because the enemies health is linked in both screens, demonstrated here:

There is no specific fighting style of Neku, apart from the fact that he can choose what ever enemy to attack, you can move around freely and attacks range from quick-powerful and one on one to the whole playing field on the screen (Bottom screen, as the assist fights at the top).
You use the stylus to move, both in battle and out.

There are many pins all with different psyches.

___________________________________________

Tin Pin Slammer Gameplay

QUOTE:

Tin Pin Slammer is won by knocking all of your opponent's pins off of the battlefield, or by having the most points when time runs out. You gain a point for stunning your opponent's pin with "whammies", and you gain two points by knocking an opponent's pin off the field. If you are playing with multiple players, they are able to "steal" your PP if they are the ones who knock off the pin. If all of your pins are knocked off the field, your points will be reduced to zero, you will be given a "grave" pin, and (if you're playing multiple people) you will receive the amount of PP the person had.

It's role in the game varies.

Reaper Creeper

Quite simple, it's a minigame required to advance in a few tasks.
Basically, it's a game that takes advantage of your invisibility to other humans who aren't involved in the game.
All you have to do is choose the correct answer and slowly (with your stylus, and slowly because if to fast, you fail and have to restart it), drag a coin to either white, red or black.

Gameplay Rating: 5.8/10

(It was good and I enjoyed playing through it.
But the thing that brought it down was the complicated controls and the difficulty of playing with both the touch pad and the arrow buttons, which meant you had to look at both screens at the same time.)

GRAPHICS AND STYLE

At first, I enjoyed the graphics, the color pallet was nice, the settings made you feel like you were in Shibuya, but then, after a period of time, it got old, and the scenery seemed like the same again and again.
You had to revisit places over and over, and it got boring.

The thing I did like was the Manga like theme it had going during the cutscenes.
Being an otaku and all, I would have liked to see more of this, as it was a nice touch.

7.3/10

CONCLUSION

All in all, TWEWY is a good game and I find is mostly directed at plot loving gamers, more than gameplay based gamers (Obviously this won't apply for everyone).

Though there is still room for improvement, this game if definitely worth buying for the plots sake.

Overall Rating: 8.7/10