Review: The World Ends With You

The World Ends With You begins when the hero, Neku, receives a message on his phone warning him that he will cease to exist unless he completes a certain mission. Check out what one of our users, Tel, thinks of this new title for the Nintendo DS.

The game could be considered hard to find, but it’s worth it to experience a jRPG that offers a new twist to fan of the genre.

Check out the full review after the jump !

Back when I got my first DS, the majority of the available games consisted of simple puzzle games, licensed trashed and a few well-polished first-party games. I recently picked up a new DS, and I’m happy to report that this is no longer the case. The World Ends With You is a great example of the kind of games that the DS is now host to.

The World Ends With You is from Square-Enix, and it does carry many trademarks of the jRPG genre. You play the slightly angsty Neku Sakuraba, and you find yourself trapped within a twisted game that you are playing for your very life. One of the things that sets this game apart from other Square-Enix games is that the setting is a twisted version of present-day Japan, rather then the traditional pseudo-fantasy world.

As you get drawn into the ‘Reaper’s Game’ you will begin to uncover the myriad of reasons that ‘The World Ends With You’ has become somewhat of an underground hit. The game has a distinctive art style that is apparently inspired by the aesthetics of Tokyo’s Shibuya shopping district in Japan and the youth culture therein. The 2d art is gorgeous; and while a few sprites can become somewhat pixelated, the overall effect is quite attractive indeed.
To compliment the art style there is a soundtrack that is considerably better then the usual hand-held fare. While the Jap-pop/Jap-rock sound will not be to everyone’s taste, they fit the game wonderfully. It’s a nice change to have full tracks complete with vocal accompaniment, rather then some synthesized claptrap.

The gameplay is typical of most jRPGs and consists of talking to various non-player characters scattered about the game world, completing quests and finding things to fight. It does avoid turn-based battles, instead utilising a system where you use different spells/powers by performing different actions on the touch screen. For example you might slash an enemy to tell Neku to slash at them, scribble on the screen to cause an earthquake or draw a circle around Neku to set up a force field. My personal favourite makes you blow into the microphone to trigger a whirlwind.
The main combat can be chaotic enough, but you also get a partner with help you as you wade through the enemy hordes. Throughout the game your companion will inhabit the top screen and you can issue commands by performing combos on the directional pad.
It can be confusing at first, trying to juggle two characters at once, but soon you’ll get the hang of it and be able to pull off some neat tricks. Your companion can look after themselves if you’re busy, but when you control are them yourself you can set up attack bonuses and special ‘combo’ moves.

The fore mentioned powers and spells are collected as you explore the game, and are bestowed via small badges that the game calls ‘pins’. Collecting the various pins is pretty addictive, especially as the pins themselves can gather their own experience and evolve.
As well as getting experience from battles, you can also get it from trading pins with your friends, and you even get ‘shut-down’ experience for whatever pins you have equipped while your DS is powered off. And various pins may evolve differently depending on how they gathered their experience points.

While I did enjoy this game a great deal, it may not be to everyone’s tastes. The characters still indulge is bursts of angst, the story gets a little contrived and half the cast seems to be underage. But if you do like the odd Japanese RPG, you should check this one out. The game could be considered hard to find, but it’s worth it to experience a jRPG that offers a new twist to fan of the genre.