The World Ends with You (2007)

The World Ends with You is a complex, and interesting game to dissect, in part to its themes and player choice that the game offers when it comes to gameplay. At every turn, the game challenges the player, whether through its narrative only drip feeding you pieces of the story and world without giving you the entire picture, how the game expects you to balance playing two characters at once in combat (or in the case of the switch port, two characters via two joycons if you’re a legend, though this is optional), or how its various complex systems can be leveraged to give you an advantage in those fights. After all, how you prepare for those fights is already half the battle. All of these struggles are underscored by a killer soundtrack and a cool, cohesive art style.

For those of you who don’t want to read the entire thing, here is a TLDR:

The World Ends with You attempts to weave a message of expanding your world view and broadening your horizons through its dynamically changing protagonist, its varied systems that give the player plenty of options to choose from, and its partner combat system that all bolster the player for trying new things and engaging with the rest of the world. While the game has a few systems that are divisive, primarily in Pin Evolution and Food being heavy on waiting, its core combat being intentionally overwhelming, and if you don’t enjoy the way that the game is written or its character interactions, its story being front and center throughout all of it might grow to be grating. But all of these factors, despite their shortcomings, help create an immersive world and an interesting theme that I feel will stick with anyone who engaged with the game in earnest.

This is going to be a long one, since this is most probably my favorite Rpg, if not my favorite game altogether, so I’ll be breaking this down into sections as follows:

• Calling (The Story)
• Someday (Controls and Combat)
• Ooparts (Gameplay Systems)
• Owari-Hajimari (Themes)
• Twister (Conclusions)

While I could spend a long time talking about the music individually, I feel that it would be better to tie this in with the section on Themes, as music tends to be an extension of the artists intentions for characters, its world, and further developments. Without further ado..

CALLING (The Story)

This section will contain spoilers, but I will give you fair warning beforehand.

“I have my values, so you can keep yours, alright? I don’t get people. Never have, never will.”

The story revolves around a group of teenagers who have all been pulled into some sort of scavenger hunt in the Shibuya neighborhood by a mysterious group called “The Reapers” In this game, all players involved must complete the daily requests given by the reapers, or face “Erasure,” complete and total deletion from existence. What makes the game even more risky, is that the city is populated with these monsters referred to as “Noise” that are controlled by the reapers, and are used to test, and weed out weak players. Thankfully the players are gifted with magic pins that give them psychokinetic, pyrokinetic and all types of “Kinetic” powers to defend themselves. All players also find that they cannot interact with or ask for help from anyone outside of the game, aside from key stores and restaurants that are approved by the reapers to be part of the game. This restriction is not a recommendation, the players are essentially ghosts to anyone not in the game, unable to speak to them or touch them directly. The players initially have no choice but to play this game for a full week, which at the end of the week, the “Winner” is given a fitting reward. Neku is our protagonist, A terminally headphone wearing, artistically inclined boy who has a social detachment from the rest of the world, and is only interested in his own hobbies and interests. Particular a graffiti and music artist who goes by the alias CAT. Anyone or anything outside of that bubble is unimportant to him. The game throws him a curve ball, when it is revealed that to play the game and not be erased, Neku must partner with another player, forcing him to become team mates with the fashionable, and upbeat Shiki, a girl who seems determined to befriend Neku and win the game.

This is where the spoilers begin, scroll down to the section SOMEDAY if you do not want to have the story, its characters, and their arcs spoiled for you.

WEEK 1

To quickly spoil the first week so we can get to the meat of things, Neku has a natural talent for using these magic pins, and hates working with another player. His complete and total disinterest in people comes to a head, when a Reaper offers to let Neku win the game and leave, if he kills Shiki. He almost goes through with it before a man named Mr. Hanekoma shows up and stops the reaper. This is Neku’s lowest point, he is shown willing to kill just to maintain his self-centered way of life. Neku reveals that he is an amnesiac, and apologizes for being the Hyper Edgelord that he is. Shiki decides forgive him, as she does not have a choice if she wants to win the game. From here, Shiki and Neku complete trials, befriend another pair of players named Beat and Rhyme. Things are going well, Neku begins to learn about Shiki’s past and her friendship with her childhood friend, until halfway through the week, a noise kills Rhyme, leaving Beat to die without a partner. The rest of the week goes down like this: Hanekoma saved Beat from Erasure, Neku learns that every person in the Reaper’s game is dead, and that the reward for winning is to be brought back to life. Lastly, Upon entering the game, the Reapers take your most valuable thing from you as an entry fee. For Neku, this is implied to be his memories that make up himself, and for Shiki, it was her body and self image. She is revealed to be using the “image” of her best friend, who she admires more than anything to cope with her discontent image of herself. Upon winning the game, only one person on the team is allowed to be reborn, the other must play again. Neku surrender’s his right to be reborn into the living world so that Shiki can live on. The Reapers then reinstate Neku into the game, and take a second entry fee. They take what is most valuable to him on his entry into week 2, Shiki.

ANALYSIS

This entire week is focused on taking Neku from the self centered, sheltered, closed off person he is by showing him the value of friendship and a difference in perspective. He takes this to heart, leading to him prioritizing what Shiki wants more than himself. Neku still does not understand other people, or why people are the way that they are, but in this first week through seeing Shiki’s love for her best friend, and by working with her as a teammate and partner. The Reaper’s game, despite being an awful game of life and death, begins to gradually crack his hard shell, and open him up to Caring about other people.

WEEK 2

Neku re enters the game and partners with a boy named Joshua, an aloof, self centered, and witty character who is more interested in enjoying himself than completing the Reaper’s requests. As this week progresses, the two butt heads constantly, Neku determined to win the game, come back to life, and rescue Shiki, while Joshua just wants the enjoy the sights and sounds of Shibuya. It is then revealed that Joshua had something to do with Neku’s death, potentially being his killer. This sews distrust between the two. The reapers begin losing control of the game as noise start appearing outside their control, erasing both players, and reapers without regard. Beat is also revealed to have become a Reaper for a motive that is currently unclear. As the week comes to a close, Neku realizes that Joshua had to do with his death, but it was a reaper who killed our protagonist, not Joshua though he witnessed his death. Joshua was also never dead to begin with, an outlier in the Reaper’s game, as well as he and Hanekoma being friends, and Hanekoma being CAT, the artist Neku admires. Neku also finds out that the reaper that killed him is also the one creating these Rogue Noise that are erasing anyone they can, reapers included. On the final day, Joshua defeats the reaper that killed Neku, at the cost of his own life, leaving Neku as the lone winner of Week 2. Unfortunately, the Reapers disqualify him for teaming up with a cheater, and force him into playing one final week.

ANALYSIS

This entire week has Joshua pushing Neku around by directly contrasting his own personality. Where Neku takes the Reaper requests seriously and has a newfound interest in friendship, being open about what he is and what he wants, Joshua is closed off, secretive, and smug. He is concerned with enjoying himself, asking personal questions of other people. Joshua will push back and antagonize Neku and make him question his own persona. Making comments like “You know Neku… Shibuya’s a lot like you. Cut off.” This leads to a discussion in the Udagawa Backstreets where Neku was killed before the game, and in front of the mural made by CAT that he admires so much. Neku believes in living life on his own, doing what he wants, when he wants it, regardless of what other people want. In a weirdly ironic sense, this ideology is what led to him being killed in the first place. By having Joshua reaffirm what Neku felt when he was a living person, and comparing his experiences to the first week and a half of the Reapers game, he questions this line of thought. Seeing the struggles of other people, realizing just how complex the world around him is, there is more to it than just “living how he wants regardless of what other people want or think.” Before Neku figures out that Mr. Hanekoma is the CAT he admires, he tells Neku that: “The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, you gotta push your horizons out as far they’ll go.” (Wow, what a title drop. We’ll get back to this in Owari-Hajimari) In addition to Joshua, in this chapter, with Beat being a Reaper, he keeps fighting Neku and Joshua, becoming involved In their day to day activities. Beat dislikes the Reapers, but joins them in hopes of finding a way to bring Rhyme back to life. Beat represents the total selflessness that humans are capable of, just like Neku’s sacrifice for Shiki in week 1. Joshua’s main purpose in the story was to make Neku realize that his point of view, despite broadening, is still shallow and that embracing the experiences of other people, and stepping into their shoes can only make your world a more complex, and complete place. Right before Joshua dies, he says: “But Neku… I thought you couldn’t afford to lose. Give up on yourself and you give up on the world.” Neku’s interpretation of living for himself was always skewed. You have to value yourself and keep true to your values to see the world around you and appreciate it. But you cannot allow this to degenerate into a selfish prioritization of what you want over the wants of other people. In Week one he learned to care about others, in week two he learns to balance values with the world views of other people.

WEEK 3

The Reapers play a cheap trick, for Neku’s entry fee, they take ALL other players, leaving Neku partnerless in a game that cannot be played without a team mate. They also reveal that they have released Shiki, but that she cannot help Neku now. With no way to defend himself or play the game, he is to be erased before Beat comes to his rescue. With Beat being a reaper, he was not taken by the game, and becomes Neku’s partner for week 3, renouncing his Reaper Status. This sends the Reapers into overdrive, every single one determined to take out this final duo and finally put Neku and Beat down. The game spirals out of control as the rogue noise continue to grow stronger and kill Reapers, and Beat’s entry fee is collected. Hanekoma was able to keep Beat alive by turning Rhyme’s soul into a pin. By keeping her from complete erasure, Beat decided to join the reapers to look for a way to save her. It is then revealed that Beat and Rhyme were siblings, and that Beat’s entry fee, was the sisterly love and memories that Rhyme felt for him. He values his sister more than anything, and that they ended up in the reaper’s game after he tried to save her from being hit by a car, but ultimately died trying to save her. As everything spirals out of control, the final day arrives, and Neku and Beat ready to take on their final challenge. They must defeat the Composer, the one overseeing the reapers. Upon defeating the Reaper who managed the game, Joshua reveals himself to have been the Composer the entire time, that he DID actually kill Neku himself, and that his goal was to measure whether or not Shibuya was worth keeping, or whether it should be destroyed as it is filled with closed off, selfish people. For Joshua, this was all a game to keep things interesting, as he is a being of higher power who is meant to judge individuals. Joshua challenges Neku to one final duel, each have a gun, and whoever shoots the other first wins and becomes the Composer. Neku decides that he cannot shoot Joshua, he grew to trust him, treat him as a friend. Joshua shoots Neku and remains the composer. A week later, Shibuya is shown to be as it was, Neku, Shiki, Beat and Rhyme all meeting up for the first time in the living world. Neku takes off his headphones.

ANALYSIS

This Week shows what happens when individuals learn to love others and put them above themselves, as well as finally learning to respect and show genuine interest in the perspectives and ‘worlds’ of the people around them. Beat has struggled his entire life with feelings of inadequacy, most of which stemmed from him being a ‘deadbeat’ compared to his successful sister in the eyes of his parents. “They kept expecting stuff I ain’t got. Then made me feel like trash when I didn’t give it… ‘Why can’t you be like your sister?’ I hated it. So I quit tryin’ altogether. Gave up on myself, so my folks would, too. And the funny thing is, they did.” Despite this, Beat loves his sister more than anything, and doesn’t resent her for what he has gone through. Beat represents a flawed person who had given up on himself and chose to live through another person. As how Joshua was a foil to the new Neku, Beat is a foil to where Neku started during the first week. He is unconcerned with himself, in hopes of helping another person. Neku through all these interactions, Shiki’s willingness to make Neku feel heard, Joshua’s challenging of Neku’s stance on the world, and Beat’s flawed eagerness to help others, Neku has his eyes opened to Hanekoma’s speech about the World Ending with You. In the end, when faced with the destruction of everything Neku knows at the hand of one of his only friends, he cannot bring himself to prioritize a world he can hardly remember, a selfish goal that he benefits from, over the life of this other person. This is a direct contrast to how Neku was willing to Kill Shiki to return to life back in Week 1, and is a representation of how far he has come as a person. Seeing how people can change, Joshua decides to let Shibuya live, and return our deserving core cast to the world to give them all a second chance. Shiki to learn to love herself, Beat to find a path in life and get his sister back, and Neku to have a new world for him to engage with. Neku taking off his headphones represents how his world has expanded, and what a different place It has become now, and how he is willing to engage with it.

END OF SPOILERS

SOMEDAY (Controls and Combat)

This is specifically talking about the DS version of the game, and will only briefly touch on the Switch and IOS ports. The world Ends with You has a control scheme that is very divisive, but generally accepted as being unique though perhaps being unintuitive for some players. You take control of two characters, Neku on the bottom screen, and whatever partner you have for the week on the top screen. On the touch screen, you maneuver Neku around, dodging attacks, and using your Pins to defeat your opponents. This is all controlled via touch screen swiping. Certain swipes trigger certain pin’s abilities. While you are keeping one hand busy with this, the top screen has your partner, who you must maneuver using the D-Pad (ABXY if you are left handed) to perform attacks and assist Neku in Combat. They do not have to worry about dodging attacks, but help perform damage to enemies by hitting the arrow keys in sequence with what is available on screen. By completing sets of inputs, you receive a ‘card,’ the design of which depends on the partner. Collecting groups of cards earns you stars which can be spent on performing what are called “Fusions,” super powerful attacks that can deal massive damage to all noise, or reapers in combat.

While the partner controls stay consistent, You may equip Neku with an enormous variety of Pins. While you may only have a few equipped at a time, each pin (for the most part) belongs to a certain “Brand,” which each have their own consistent elements or abilities that give them their identity. The brand D+B for example, has its pins revolving around attacks that have you swiping Up on enemies, or dragging discarded items across the screen to smack enemies with. Or Tigre Punks, which has the player doing lots of horizontal swipes, or dragging neku across opponents to deal damage. There are 13 Brands in the game, leading to the player having a huge variety of not only types of attacks, but different stylus swipes to choose from in order to cater to the kind of playstyle you prefer. The catch, is that spamming attacks mindlessly will only hurt you in Normal or higher levels of play, particularly as you approach the midpoint of the game. This is because all pins have a number of uses, before they enter a “cooldown” period, where they cannot be used for a number of seconds before becoming usable again.

Where Pin balance comes in, is planning your most common attacks with the shortest cooldown, versus your attacks that will deal the most damage but need to be used sparingly, to what pins can interrupt enemy attacks, to which ones use that zone’s strengths to their fullest. The goal is to handcraft a setup that suits your level of aggression, without leaving you high and dry without an active pin to use to defend yourself, of having pins that are too niche to be regularly helpful in combat. The trouble, is picking pins with high damage and lowest cooldown times can work, but in many situations, you will need powerful pins to halt enemies in their tracks. Neku has an intentional delayed dodge that allows for enemies who are approaching him to be avoided, but if the player makes a mistake and allows that enemy to close in, you may use a pin with some form of knockback to halt the enemy in its tracks and prevent a blow that would otherwise hurt you, or deplete your total score for that round of combat. There is a whole song and dance that goes into this, and what makes it so unique, is that every player’s internal tempo and level of aggression is different, leading to different pin types that work best for different players.

This combat system, essentially requiring you to rub your belly with one hand, and pat your head with the other so to speak, is frantic, and fast paced. You must learn to use both your character’s abilities and strengths to defeat opponents in battle. This system has a learning curve to it, where at first it is overwhelming, though this is accommodated by easier fights and by drip feeding you the controls through easy initial encounters. Once you have played for a few hours, using your bottom screen to take care of enemies and bolster yourself with extra damage, and special attacks becomes second nature.

In addition, the game respects the intelligence of the player by making most combat encounters (and I mean 90% of them) totally optional. You fight enemies at your own pace, and at the difficulty you prefer. You are given access to various game difficulties that are meant to be changed on a whim, though how these fit into combat and the greater world design, and combat complexity will be touched on in Ooparts (gameplay systems).

Outside of combat, you will explore the City of Shibuya, solve puzzles, complete requests at your own pace, and find ways to strengthen your team, and your arsenal of abilities. This leads us into:

OOPARTS (Gameplay Systems)

While combat is the central focus of the game, all its finer points are accentuated by the various systems in place to allow the player to take personal control of.

Starting with Difficulty, the game allows to unlock other difficulties as you play via a quick trip the in game menu. Rather than being a direct increase of enemy damage in health, as well as experience as you would expect with other games, this game also supplies you with rarer rewards for defeating such enemies. Why this is important, is because rather than giving you more “ethers” or enemy crafting material drops. The World Ends with You supplies the player with rarer pins, whether they are simply pins of higher Yen value, or rarer pins that yield unique abilities or powers, expanding your arsenal with skills that can either be situational for certain scenarios, or all-around great pins for powers. Increasing your arsenal of pins, we know is important, as more pins means more options for new styles of play. Not only this, having the difficulty be so quickly accessible and expected to be jumped on from the onset means that its not only quick to do, but that the game is built around this change, allowing the player to adjust in order to accommodate the level of Chain they are attempting to complete. This leads into the discussion on Chains, a system where, rather than tediously fighting one enemy at a time, reloading combat, and then fighting the same group of enemies with little risk in order to grind, the player may instead elect to fight multiple battles, in a row. Why this is important, is because it vastly increases the speed of combat, levelling, and looking for new pins, simply by taking on a higher risk, for greater reward. With each subsequent fight, enemies get stronger, drop better rewards, and between fights you do not regain health. Any standard fight in this game (which I repeat, are optional), can be turned into a gauntlet that tests your most recent build, for high rewards and faster progression through any section that’s difficulty may have caught you off guard. The player is expected to know what they can handle and is given the reigns to run with it.

But lets say you’re having trouble with enemies in a certain zone where you must defeat an enemy to progress. This leads you to three options, try again to learn the enemy patterns, change your pins and clothes to match the current fashion of the zone, or change what is popular and make your own style the dominant trend in that area. This leads us into Trends, Clothes, Pin Evolution, and Food. We will start with Trends and Clothes first.

Each store has a brand that it caters to, selling clothes and pins of said Brand. This seems to be standard fair for shops of each type, but the game has a system in place where you can get affinity with the shop owner by purchasing his wares, even earning you additional splash dialogue and new wares becoming available as the Clerk recommends you objects and becomes your friend. Not only this, befriending the clerk by buying wares from certain stores, allows you to unlock the clothes hidden abilities, leading to strengths in combat if you can learn to exploit these abilities. The importance of brands appears when Trends become the focus.

Each zone in the game has a set of three brands that are popular now, and one brand that is unpopular. This varies from day to day and zone to zone and keeps the player on their toes when a difficult fight is brewing. When in a zone, popular brands will give bonus defense and stats to clothes you are wearing from that Brand, and extra attack power to pins of the popular brands, whereas the opposite applies to the least popular brand. This gives you the opportunity to change your clothes to suit the current tastes of that area to get bonuses. The alternative is to become a trendsetter yourself. You can wear clothes and use pins of a certain brand in combat in a respective zone to boost its popularity, bravely showing off your own style and changing the hearts and minds of people around you. You can take the least popular brand, and in a few fights, make it the hot new style, supplying you with bonuses in combat. This system has a more thematic effect on the game, as I found my self personally always changing my brands to be popular when I would have trouble in a zone, as properly using the Chaining system, you may quickly change the trend leaderboards.

The last two systems to play into combat are the Pin Evolution System, and Food, and easily two of the more divisive systems in the game. Pin evolution is admittedly, perhaps too complex and outdated in the original game. Some pins evolve by use in combat, some evolve by leaving your game turned off and receiving experience when you turn it back on, or by engaging with other players via the DS’ local wireless to play minigames. While I appreciate the varied system to evolving pins, relying on an outdated system for a decade and a half old game will bring problems to people who play it years later down the line. The later ports of the game do away with the Mingle evolution method, leaving only the Battle, and Shutdown methods of evolution available, which is for the best. Despite some of its clunkiness and strict requirements on how much exp of a type a pin needs to evolve a certain way, it still supplies the player with options on where they want their pin to go, as well as giving purpose to carrying duplicate pins.

The final system, is the Food system. Shops can also carry food, which when consumed, takes up slots on your stomach gage. By fighting battles, a slot of food is digested and brings you closer to reaping the permanent buffs from said food item, once fully processed. This is a system, which at its core keeps you visiting shops, trying more new dishes to find new stats to increase, as well as trying to maximize as much food as you can eat in a day, and reasonably work off in combat. The only issue with the above system, is that as a portable game, you are expected to take breaks with your game off. Once you use a slot in your stomach, that slot is used for the day, and once all slots have been filled, you cannot eat more, even if you work all the food off. The only way to reset it, is by waiting for the next Calendar day. This ‘waiting’ mechanic is also present in some of the pins you need to level through the “Shutdown evolution pins.” This is the one part of this game that I personally feel has more division to it, as some people prefer to play through games in a compact sitting, and would rather not have to wait for a timer to get more of what you need. Other people, like myself, are not bothered by it, if only because I tend to play games slowly, which I admit is a very personal reason for not minding this mechanic. Regardless, these mechanics leave you with plenty to spend your money on, plenty to customize and many more ways to engage with the combat system outside of defeating the enemies on screen. Its not only about the pins doing damage, and the clothes having high defense.

OWARI-HAJIMARI (Themes)

This is the part of the review where things get especially subjective, as if things weren’t already subjective enough. To me, the core themes of The World Ends with You, as touched on in CALLING, is the idea that your worldview is your own, but that your experience in the world can be heightened by engaging with the people, and the rest of the world around you, without compromising your own ideas and beliefs. In this section, I will attempt to briefly tie together all the addressed themes to show how the team behind this game attempted to create an experience that breathes its message in every facet of what it does. If such a thing as a “Concept Game” were to exist, like a Concept Album, this would be it.

From the story perspective, every character has a different viewpoint on the world. Neku’s initial selfishness and self-centered nature, Shiki’s openness to others but lack of faith in her own world, Joshua’s focus on himself but inquisitiveness on the way others ‘are,’ to Beat’s selflessness in the face of love for another person. Ultimately, by engaging with all these characters, learning to care about them, prioritizing their own wants and needs, treating them with respect, and taking what they have to say to heart, Neku can change his emo, self-centered, shallow point of view into one that is more informed, and considering of the world that surrounds him.

Meanwhile, the gameplay does not just leave these themes in the story. Combat is as it is, a vessel for conflict that pushes the story forward, but between having a team mate to combo off, learning their patterns, and using your own alongside them, you excel in combat by taking in the worldview and abilities of your individual partner. Not only this, buying from various shop owners and clerks will improve your knowledge of their wares, expand your base of skills, and give you more variety to choose from, as well as making a new friend. The trend system, meanwhile, represents the connection with the general world at large, paying attention to the ideas presented by the people around you, and representing the player in either their efforts to adapt and fit in, or to blaze their own trail of ideas forward, and grow a group of people who end up following in your footsteps.

Lastly, to briefly touch on the soundtrack, you have an incredible amount of variety in the game’s tunes, from Hip Hop, to JRock, Electric, Pop, Metal, and yes, even emo, to continue representing these different walks of life and mindsets all colliding together in the Scramble Crossing, a collision of many worlds. I also thought it would be fun to name each section after a fitting song from the soundtrack, sorry for the weird naming conventions.

TWISTER (Conclusion)

At every turn, The World Ends with You sews a message about staying true to yourself and what you want, while broadening your own horizons by taking in the perspectives, interests and values of the people that surround you. This is one of the strongest points in the game, and in my own opinion, shows how the designers did everything their power to keep the game feeling cohesive to its core message. The core gameplay is overwhelming at first, but highly rewarding once you learn what options you have available, and how to use them to overcome your opponents based on your own tempo, and whether or not you want to follow trends, or set them yourself. I think the game’s only notable design flaws are that some of its side systems, and the overwhelming combat system may not be for everyone. Waiting is not a mechanic that most people would find “fun” in a game, but I do personally feel that it helps the player’s own pacing, as the game is very full of dialogue and sometimes it helps to put the game down and step away from it for a bit. Some may be turned off by the linear story and dialogue, which I think is fair, its not for everyone, but my big take away is that this is a game that requires the player to invest time into it to learn its systems to give it a fair chance.

This is a game that challenges the player on many levels, but this is what the game wants, it is what it was designed to do. It is not easy to open yourself up to opposing viewpoints, or power through something that may be initially off putting or difficult. But that is the point, you open yourself up to these new paths, and you may even learn that you found something new to love in the process.

Because at the end of the day, The World Begins with You.

The World Ends With You is an undeniable unique game. I never played anything quite like it, gameplay-wise, at least. And while its drive for authenticity can be its greatest ally, it also managed to be its greatest enemy.

The World Ends With You caught me by surprise. I really didn't think much of it until I got hooked in its gameplay and setting. The first thing that captivated me was its stylish presentation. Sure, it's a product of its time, but it excels in selling its aesthetic to the player. Character design is great, art style is very well done, soundtrack is bold (although quite annoying overtime) and Shibuya is as lively as it should be.

TWEWY is good on the eyes and ears, no doubt, but once you get past that, you reach the game's true gem: the combat. It's a 'love it or hate it' situation with the battle system. When it works, it's outstanding, but when it doesn't... it can get pretty damn ugly.

The pin system is addictive and makes me want to collect them all, but although it feels great to use them in battle, they're not always responsive and A LOT of them can be pretty useless, especially if combined with others of the same type. Through sheer trial and error you can make fantastic OP combos or the worst pin combos ever.

There's an amazing sense of progression, grinding feels light and ultimately rewarding, iteration hardly gets to your brain and your fighting style is, overall, very customizable. But at the same time, the horrible movement mechanic during battles, clunky and disorganized boss fights throughout the entire game, low enemy variety and the seldom-relevant item system hinders the experience.

Not to mention that scratching, slicing, pressing, tapping and dragging things on your screen may feel surprising at first, but later down the road, just gets messy and cluttered. For example, if you play this game on docked-mode, you're in for a nightmare. It's barely playable. Gladly, it works just fine undocked.

The story could've also been handled a lot better. The whole idea and message behind the game is pretty original and creative, but the writing is obnoxious and it takes a long time before you get to the actual good parts. The 2nd week, in my opinion, destroys the pacing built by the 1st one. If it wasn't for the strong and challenging 3rd one, it would be a disaster. And that's a shame, since the cast of TWEWY is great and Neku's character development is heartfelt. If the story explored its depth a bit more, it'd transform, for example, an already strong ending, into a perfect one.

The World Ends With You is addictive as hell and Neku's gameplay loop kept me interested until the end. But I can't shake this conflicting feeling that, if the story were told differently and if the combat lessened or perfected its "unique" approach, this game would've been much better.

I kinda like it, but I'm not sure if I'd recommend it unless you're looking for a different kind of JRPG. Or, I don't know, maybe you're a Kingdom Hearts fan...

Overall a great game...could had been near perfect but it didn't all come together at the end...the gameplay is pretty good but a bit loose...the plot is interesting but falls back on hidden text dumps to try and make it make sense...and even then it really doesn't...

and semi spoilers here but

....I feel like the moral of the story was to trust people and get to know them and stuff...but other than the core 4 everyone is revealed to be an egotistical psychopath who literally lives to murder children. Like..I kept waiting for the plot twist that justified 70% of the main cast murdering kids for a living (and loving every moment of it) but...nope....Which left me really confused....I'm supposed to like these guys? The child killers? Why? Because they brought the 4 only good people back to life after killing them at the end? Also the character's actions don't really match their revealed motivations....like if someone went up and down an elevator 12 times before entering the top floor as if to say

"AHA You had NO idea what floor he would get off on!!!!"

And that's true but unless the characters know I'm watching them and are intentionally trying to trick me there's no reason for them to act that way....at all... Ehhhhh I digress....

Story is a 3

Gameplay is a 4

.....aesthetic is a falcing 5!... Seriously I love this game on sound and look alone...I just wish it was a little less flash and sizzle...and that the story or gameplay had a little more meat.