The World Ends With You

Square Enix’s recent track record in the last 5 years can be described with one word. “Iffy”. They’ve published some well received titles such as 2010’s cult hit “Nier” and the surefire hit “Dragon Quest IX” but the lukewarm reception to the long awaited “Final Fantasy XIII” and the long delayed “3rd Birthday” hurt the company’s reputation. And that’s without mentioning the numerous controversies about their DLC practices and perceived lack of innovation. Yet, in every argument about Square Enix, one game is always brought up. And that game is “The World Ends With You”. 

The World Ends With You is considered to be something of a rarity these days. It’s an original IP, it’s incredibly unique and it takes place in a modern setting. All of these set it apart from your typical myths and monsters/flying cars and robots that plague games like Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy. Gone are evil wizards, gone are inhumane science experiments, gone is the same cliched story you’ve heard time and time again. The World Ends With You is unique in almost every sense of the word. 

So? 

For starters, TWEWY stars Neku. At first glance he’s your typical JRPG protagonist. He doesn’t like people, he’s amnesiac and he looks very similar to other Tetsuya Nomura characters. You also have your manic pixie dream girl esque sidekick, a brash, loud and unintelligent punk and several other seemingly cliched characters. But what sets it apart from other JRPGs of its kind is how it treats these characters. They all undergo radical development and by the time the credits roll, few characters are the same. The game does not tolerate the stereotype of a repressed, whiny and cynical teenager and goes out of its way to poke fun and deconstruct this stereotype. 

And the other characters follow suit. It’s a wonderful spin on an otherwise tired characteristic of JRPGs. It keeps the characters fresh and interesting and it actually makes you care about them. Granted, you won’t like everyone you meet (even one of the protagonists in pretty unlikable) but the game’s written well enough that you’re going to remember them. They’re all very distinct and nobody is alike. 

Protip: There's no actual time limit. 

The plot also keeps things fresh. Instead of your typical “Save the world” you see in so many other RPGs, you’re trying to save yourself. You are a participant in the Reaper’s Game and you must do what they say for the next seven days in order to survive. That’s just a basic idea but trust me, it becomes far more complicated than that. The rules will be bent, allegiances will be formed and you will be at the center of all of it. It’s a great plot that grabs your attention…once it gets started.

The World Ends With You excels in a lot of ways but it has a slow start. In nearly every way. First off, its plot takes a while to get off the ground. It took about 4-5 hours to get anywhere significant and afterwards it took maybe another 2 hours for anything else significant to happen. It’s a really slow start but after those first few hours, it maintains a pretty consistent speed. 

The battle system also takes a lot of getting used to. And I mean a lot. The World Ends With You has a very steep learning curve and it defies a lot of your normal gaming sensibilities. First thing you’ll notice, you move with the stylus. That alone takes some getting used to. Second, you’ll have to slash, draw and make other motions in order to attack and finally you’re going to have multitask between two screens in order to win. It’s incredibly overwhelming and it’s a bit much to throw at the player their first time around.

It’s actually an incredibly intuitive battle system as odd as that sounds. Really, all you need to do is find a set of pins that you’re comfortable with. After you find your pins of choice, you’ll be slashing, tapping and air juggling like its second nature. It's significantly more action-oriented than most JRPGs. No scrolling through menus here, it's all action, all the time.

Can't have too many.

Now, what are pins you may ask? Well, for the uninformed, pins are how you attack. They come in many different varieties. They can range from quick successive slashes to shards of ice that juggle your opponent for a short amount of time. Not all of the pins are meant for offense however, some pins act  as an obligatory healing spell and others boost how much EXP you earn, how much health you recover, etc. There’s a wonderful variety of pins and while some are simply upgrades of other pins, there’s still a ton of them. It’s a lot of fun simply testing out your pins in battle to see what they do. These pins take advantage of nearly all the DS’s features, even the microphone! It’s a testament to how varied the DS truly is and very few games take advantage of the system’s intricacies quite like TWEWY.

But hold on, pins are a bit more complex than that. You see, they can evolve. Well, some pins can. Here’s the thing though, there are multiple ways of evolution. Some obvious…some nearly impossible. You see, it all depends on how you acquire PP (Pin EXP in layman’s terms) and there are three ways of doing so. First is the most obvious, by battling. What rank you get at the end of the battle determines how much PP you get. Second is PP you get by how long you let the game rest. That’s right, you can evolve your pins by not even playing the game. And finally, and probably the hardest way to get PP is through “Mingle Mode”. I won’t lie about this, I never touched Mingle Mode. But from what I understand, it requires other people with the game in order to take advantage of it. The worst part about it is that Mingle Mode is required if you want to evolve certain pins. Also, you have no way of telling how the pin evolves. However, some pins you can buy more than once so experimentation is key.

Did I mention you share a health bar? No? Well you do.

But…I’m not quite done describing the battle system (I’M SO SORRY). The battle system has one final quirk. And its probably the biggest one. As I previously mentioned, you must utilize both screens in order to maximize how effective you are in battle. It’s set up so that Neku is on the bottom screen and your partner is on the top. Now, most of the time Neku will be doing most of the damage while your partner is there for support but the game will deliberately put you into situations in which you must use both characters in order to win. It’s an incredibly clever game mechanic and probably the biggest innovation in TWEWY. And if you think that sounds too overwhelming, you can always put it on autopilot. The AI’s serviceable. 

The battle system has a few faults but they aren’t too intrusive. Aside from the aforementioned learning curve, the touch screen will sometimes misinterpret what motion you’re making and do a completely separate attack or just not attack at all. It can be annoying but it thankfully doesn’t pop up too often. The game is also really addictive, which is to the game’s credit but the more I played it, the more my hand started to hurt. There’s no comfortable angle to hold the DS at and because you’re constantly moving your hand around, expect to take a few breaks simply because your hand hurts.

But the best part about the battle system is how you engage in battles. Say goodbye to random battles. Instead you’re able to choose when and what you want to fight. It’s an incredible feature and it cuts grinding way down. Now there’s still some element of randomness to it, you won’t always know exactly what enemy you’ll be fighting but the ability to pick and choose when you want to fight is wonderful. You can also chain up to 4 battles which increases drop rates and the amount of EXP you get. This is incredibly helpful in the parts where you may need to grind a little. 

In addition to chaining up to four battles, you can also adjust your health and the difficulty to your liking. The lower your health and the higher the difficulty, the rarer the pins are. It’s a great pay-off that rewards mastery of the battle system and encourages you to play around while you’re grinding. And if you’re worried that you may run out of healing items, don’t be! You’re instantly healed completely after the end of every encounter. You’ll only need to heal during the actual battles. That alone makes grinding less of a chore.

Top screen. Pay attention.

TWEWY’s clothing  and food system is a bit out the norm. Especially the clothing. But first things first, the food system. Much like with the pins, there’s a wonderful variety of food to eat. The food will boost certain stats permanently and can also temporarily boost other stats while you “digest” it. However, you can only eat so much food in one day. And I’m not talking in-game days. I’m talking actual days, 24 hours, the whole thing. So no, you can’t gorge yourself. It’s a small feature but it gives the game some more personality.

The World Ends With You takes place in Shibuya. A place influenced by trends and pop culture. And man, does this game ever show that. Everything is influenced by trends. What brand is “in”, what brand is “unpopular”., etc. It all influences the game. Some pins will be less powerful, some clothing will be better, some brands won’t be affected at all. It all depends. But you have a say in what’s hot and what’s not. By battling with branded pins and wearing branded clothing, you can boost its popularity and make it more popular. There’s a real sense of accomplishment as you see your brand (or brands) of choice climb their way up the list.

Buying things will allow you to buy special items.
Just like real life! 

The bad thing about the clothing and trend thing is that it over-complicates things just a little. It’s introduced pretty early on and I didn’t fully grasp the concept until much later. It introduces the trend system far too early as you’ll still be getting used to the complex battle system and I wouldn’t expect most players to care enough about the trend system. It’s unique and it’s certainly cool but it’s introduced at a point where it doesn’t matter in the slightest and only serves to further complicate things.

The setting of Shibuya is an absolutely fantastic decision. It really brings The World Ends With You’s beautiful art style to life. Despite being designed by Tetsuya Nomura, who is often bashed for popularizing the JRPG cliche of “Spiky hair, tons of zippers and moody faces”, these are all pretty original looking characters. With the exception of Neku, they all look pretty atypical from what you would expect from Mr. Nomura. The characters are all distinct and more closely follow Japanese youth fashion than JRPGs cliches. Even some of the older characters have a distinct visual flair to them that makes them really stand out.

Jet Set Radio fans should recognize the bus station

And it’s not just the character designs that work, it’s everything. The enemies, the overworld, the animations, they’re all great. The enemies are all wonderfully detailed and often based off of recognizable animals or mythological creatures. The game used a heavy amount of rotoscoping for the sprites and their work paid off, it’s absolutely beautiful. And the overworld doen’t look half-bad either. The scrolling backgrounds are a nice touch and are a huge step up from the static backgrounds you find in most RPGs. 

But the crown jewel of The World Ends With You is easily, its soundtrack. The music is absolutely incredible. It’s catchy, it’s varied, it’s hypnotic. And it makes The World Ends With You. Without this eclectic soundtrack, the game would lose a ton of its charm. Not to mention, the battles would be super dull. It runs the gambit from J-pop to trance. It’s a wonderful melting pot  and you’re bound to find something that suits your tastes. 

The extra mode is a bit...out there.

The post-game is filled with the brim with content. In addition to replaying the game again to collect more stuff, you can also try out a new mode which focuses on an in-universe mini-game known as “Tin-Pin Slammer” and serves as both a parody of typical Shonen anime and a parody of The World Ends With You. You can also replay certain parts of the game again in order to complete certain objectives. It’s all super-fun and basically guarantees that you’ll be spending a lot more time with the game after the credits roll. It easily extends a 25 hour game into a nearly 75 hour game. 

The World Ends With You is a breath of fresh air. Nowadays, JRPGs try one or two things. They’ll either try to emulate Western RPGs or they try to emulate well known JRPGs. The World Ends With You defies tradition and goes its own way. It stakes its own claim and doesn’t fall victim to the pitfalls of most JRPGs. The battle system is fast and furious, the soundtrack is eclectic and memorable and the graphics are oozing with style. It takes advantage of the DS in a way few games have and it stands head and shoulders above many of the great RPGs the system has to offer. It’s not perfect by any stretch, the learning curve is really steep and the controls can be a little iffy but once you get used to it, you’ll never have more fun with a RPG.

And by the way, it's co-developed by Jupiter.