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Well, one thing that I had been told occasionally is that I tend to have a rather outrageous bias when it comes down to games, basically along the lines of "Hey Nintendo is great, the other two consoles/companies can go screw themselves." Well, let me try to take the chance to see if I can't change any minds because believe it or not I taken a bit of a step out of my element when it comes down to games on the NintendoDS. No Metroid game, no Mario game, not even Tetris. I got my hands on a RPG that is known as "The World Ends With You" made by Square Enix, the same company that has been known to make guys look like girls and visa versa in their Final Fantasy games. How does this game hold up in my hands? Find out...
STORY
An Orange haired, headphone wearing kid, clad in purple and white, goes by the name of Neku, wakes up right in the middle of a large crosswalk in a city named Shibuya. With no recollection of how he got there, he is instantly confronted by monsters known as Noise then suddenly finds himself on the next thing to being forced to forming a partnership with someone and later finding out that he is part of a game where he has to complete missions or get wiped out of existence.
At least though...that's how it is on the surface...
Underneath, you come to learn that this game has one of the well known cliches of having to make friends and such, just as you would typically see on Anime cartoons on saturday morning. Neku, starts off as a rather anti-social being, tuning people out with the help of his headphones, with his own values, beliefs, and could care less about others. He then learns later on that he can't really stay that way in life, otherwise, like in the predicament he's in, his life may depend on it.
Story itself wasn't exactly my cup of tea, truth be told. If I wanted the whole friendship bit, I'd went for Pokemon Cartoons. It wouldn't really be so bad if it wasnt for the fact that this kind of story wasn't done in the dirt as in many games and television shows.
Graphics/Art Style
Though the story underneath isn't what one calls original, especially for Square Enix, their art style is. It plays off of the whole trends, street art, and anything modern punk culture quite well which is a highly unusual change, but hey, at times, change is good.
The graphics themselves, though not really pushed to the DS limits, do rather shine in this game. Colors are vivid, the spites comes in all shapes and forms. Not to mention in such quantity and quality, its almost unheard of. That's not to mention the areas you roam and fight in has that pseudo 3D effect that makes the look all the more stunning.
Sound
The sound is a iffy subject to me. As far as sound effects go, they were great, as well as the voice overs that were in there.
The music though is a different story. The music is a 'you can love it or hate it' bit. I didn't care for it, then again, I wasn't one for modern punk, pop, etc type of music anyways, though I will admit, that said, for what it is, its pretty well done, so much to the fact that I actually did pick out a couple of favorites, but generally, it was something that I could of done without and settled for something else as long it was well done.
Gameplay
Ah, the Gameplay, what I believe what is supposed to be the meat of the game. Now in TWEWY's case, I'm going to have to break this up a bit, I got quite a bit to say on it.
The game at times makes you want to, right off the bat, believe you have a whole city to explore whenever you want, however you want. Not the case I'm afraid. Areas are blocked off by invisible walls, rather to keep on story purposes or the developers were afraid you may get lost. There are areas where you can open invisible walls, but you really don't get the chance to fully explore the city until way later in the game. Even when you do fully explore the city, one can't help but to realize, the grand massive city...doesn't really feel that big.
However, that is all forgiven with stuff to find, and things to do during your stay in Shibuya. One thing you do...fight. And that option is totally up to you in most cases. There is no random encounters, you make your own encounters. Pick a fight with whatever you see fit. You are given a few pins, which is your only way to defend yourself. They contain different powers, known as Psychs, to burn, electrocute, pummel, stab, freeze, and just generally beat the living hell out of your enemies. There are a large assortment of pins for you to collect and master. Now what usually in typical RPGs would be a borefest grinding like crazy to give more power to these pins, if you were anything like me, you'd find yourself trying to find more ways to end foes with such finesse because the attacks tend to be rather diverse to the point where you can string attacks together where the hit count can hit triple digits in one combination strike.
Now to activate such psychs, you have to do a bit of reading on figuring up how to activate them which really boils down to making some gesture on the DS. Drawing circles, scratching enemies, tapping enemies all resorts all sorts of chaos upon your foe.
The game also utilizes the top screen, where your partner is, which I personally though could never get used to. The game and the instruction manual suggests that to make things easier, keep your eyes on the lime green light that moves back and forth between your DS screens. Well that lies the problem for me. Because if I take my eyes off the bottom screen, Neku gets the living hell beaten out of him while Im trying to make my partner do something, and visa versa. Now the CPU when you leave your partner idle for a couple of seconds hops to it and goes ahead and takes control, which then raises the question of why the hell allow you to control your partner when the CPU can do a lot better than what you could ever do? Truth be told, I made it through the whole game without paying any mind to the top screen except in only ONE fight in the whole game because most of the damage was coming from my bottom screen anyhow.
To help aid you along the way, you also can purchase clothes to bolster your abilities, not to mention affect the trends in the area you are in to give your pins even more power, eventually tipping the scales in your favor.
And if you are in dire need of pins, no need to fret...much. In this game, this game rewards you the more that you punis-erm...challenge yourself. Though like in any RPG, you can level up like crazy all you want. However, you can adjust your level between your minimum and the maximum. Lower your level, more pins you can pick up. However, that said, that comes at the expense of your HP.
The level doesn't affect your attack strength and defensive prowess though. Any foods you eat, any clothes you wear affects this instead. Meaning you could perhaps be Lv 50 in the game, and still only have a meager 10 attack stat. One has to manage what goods they consume or wear accordingly.
The game in general, despite its limitation in the overworld scenario offer, the fights make up for it, offering plenty of depth that I can't really get into it all without spoiling the whole game in general.
Replay Value
Unfortunately, this game only comes with one save file. Meaning if by chance you wanted to start over, you'd have to erase your last game. However, that would be only reserved as an option if you done EVERYTHING the first time. At End game you'd get the chance to find some special hidden things and accomplish extra objectives within the levels by selecting whatever chapter you feel and playing over chapters over again.
However, that still raises the question of even after beating the game and doing EVERYTHING, would this game still be worthy of a complete do over? Eh...I guess like most games that would vary with the person. Now me personally? I honestly don't know unless I wanted to go down memory lane or wanted to recall how the game went but given that I can simply choose chapters since I'm post game, I don't really have that need to do it.
Summary
So is TWEWY a good game? Eh, for the most part it actually is, and this is given though the fact that its a game based around a punk genre that I don't really give that much of a care about which is actually saying something. That said, personally the game could of allowed things to be done easier, like managing the top screen if someone actually did want to actually get the alleged full experience of the game which I really don't think I got. Thats not to mention, the story though nice on the surface, needed a better moral to go by instead of the usual anime cliche of "friends make everything better". The customization, affecting the city trends to give yourself a winning edge, and the multiple ways to lay a serious hurt on all sorts of monsters, as well as the option to pick your battles however you see fit though makes for the game to be a rather enjoyable experience. On a scale, I'd give The World Ends With You a 8 out of 10.
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