REVIEW: The World Ends With You

The World Ends With You

Developers: Square Enix, Jupiter
Publisher: Square Enix
Genre: Action RPG
Platform: Nintendo DS
Release Date: 18/04/2008
Rating: 12+

The World Ends With You is the latest handheld game to be released from the sacred fortress of Square Enix. The game sticks with the innovative trends of the Nintendo DS and offers a modern, fresh and stylish action RPG influenced heavily by Japanese youth culture. It’s been a while since Square have released an original new title. So does it hit the mark?



Story

Being developed by Square Enix, a deep and well thought out story is always an integral part of the game, and as usual to begin with The World Ends With You might have you a bit puzzled. Your main man or boy in this case, is Neku Sakuraba. Neku is a detached, self centred, antisocial 15 year old. He cares for nothing and trusts no one; spending most of his time in his own head, with just his music for company. Neku wakes up in the middle of a bustling high street in the Shibuya shopping district of Tokyo. With his mind wiped, all he has is his name, a black pin and a phone. A message on the phone reads:

"Reach 104. You have 60 minutes. Fail, and face erasure. - The Reapers."

Neku is part of a sinister, Battle Royale-esc, contest of life and death called the ‘Reapers Game’, which lasts for seven days, with trials being set each day for the ‘players’ to complete. To take on the challenge Neku is forced to make a pact with a girl named Shiki Misaki. Shiki is stylish, sociable and unlike Neku, realises the danger of situation. The pair is invisible to the general public; after a bit of playing around they realise the pin they started with can be used to read the publics minds, and more importantly, find what hunts them. Only together can the defeat the street lurking ‘Noise’, which vary from colossal bears, to rhinos, to porcupines (yes, porcupines, they piss me off to no end), to what I can only think to be tadpoles. But hey, cannon fodder ftw.

As of yet I haven’t fully completed the game for reasons I will mention below, but the story kept me involved and engrossed in the characters and their journeys. You watch as Neku and Shiki’s views on life change through the experience, which is highlighted the Japanese translation for the title of ‘The Wonderful World’. The combination of flashbacks and physic control give you freedom and the storyboard like cut scenes allow the story to develop as you continue to patch things together, with some plot lines and twists on the way that you would not expect but may be obvious to some.

Story: 9.0/10

Gameplay

When playing The World Ends With You, it is truly apparent is was built around what the Nintendo DS could do. In Square Enix fashion you have the free roaming aspect, which I will get onto in a minute, and from there you enter your battle mode. The battle mode takes place on both screens with Neku at the bottom and your second character at the top. Throughout the game you can play as several characters who accompany Neku, however controlling them is very similar.

Right, so bottom screen. This is Neku’s zone. Neku is controlled completely with the stylus; both movement and attacks. Throughout the game you will collect your fair share of pins all of which have different abilities that Neku can control. Depending on how special the pin is its maximum level and chance to evolve will be different. For example you could have 2 pins, both which fire a shock wave. One is not branded; this will probably only have a maximum level of 3, whereas a branded pin could have a maximum level of 6 or 7 with a chance of an evolution. When a pin evolves its level resets to zero but it doesn’t lose any of its power. If the pin is good enough, it will evolve again. Watching how the pins change and level up is a nice touch by Square and really adds an addictive Pokémon edge to the game.

As far as using the pins, you have 4 decks. Each deck can hold a maximum of 6 pins. You start with only two slots in each deck but as you progress you unlock extra slots. You can only take your currently equipped deck into battle. But any more than 6 would just be stupid right?

Depending on the pin, they usually require different moves with the stylus. The movements can vary from a horizontal slash to a tap or to a flick in the right direction. Learning about your pins is vital otherwise you could scratch all over your touch screen and nothing would happen. The stylus makes the Gameplay extremely smooth and easy the only problem comes when two pins have the similar movements; which is fair enough considering there are around 100 of these things. This problem is easily overcome with button mapping to the L or R bumper.

So while your slashing away on your bottom screen your top screen is controlled by the D-pad or A, B, X, Y for the lefties. The top screen requires as much skill as the bottom if you want to be successful. In a similar way to Dance Dance Revolution you have to lay out combos with your D-pad, each combo finishes with a different symbol and aligning these symbols correctly from right to left increases your fusion level. When high enough this releases some awesome attacks. My only tip is once you have unlocked higher fusion levels, be patient and collect enough fusion for the UBER attacks. You will see what I mean… With jumps, counters and blocks the top screen still keeps you watching, however if you like to focus more on Neku the computer takes over on the top screen. However you won’t be seeing your fusion very much if this is the case.

The last note about the battle gameplay is the combo ball. Depending on who attacks first a green ball is passed from one screen to the other. Whoever has the ball does a lot more damage; batting it back and forward is tricky at first but is the key to a successful fight. Overall the battles take some getting use to but once you know how to allocate your time to either screen effectively the game is fast paced and addictive as hell. The wide variety of noise make you think about how to fight, and the boss fights even more so, with a wrongly equipped pin the difference between success and failure

Enough about the battles, this game has way too much too it. To stop me giving away too much I’ll make a list, I like lists:
· Free roam. Shops! Lot’s of shops. Top up on your top brands, depending on how ‘cool’ the clothes and pins you wear are you will reap the rewards or the pay the penalty. The more you shop the more the shop owners like you, giving you new products to buy and new abilities. Food shops allow stats to be boosted, only a certain amount of food a day though. Don’t want Neku getting fat!
· Collecting goods and materials. Trade in for unique pins or uber clothing.
· Unlimited enemies. If you love collecting and levelling you will be hooked. HOOKED. · Mingle Mode. You can set up your own shop, sell your stuff to your friends. It’s all good.
· Ten Pin Slammer. A mini-game which you play in the story and you can buy with in game money (don’t worry not a lot) you can play against the computers or your friends. With specific pins made just for the game. Setting up your deck is essential.
· Difficulty settings. The harder you play the less life you have. But more reward.
· Save whenever you want. I like this function on anything portable means you can pick it up and play for even 5 minutes and keep the story going.


Depending on your play style you could rush the story in 10 hours. Personally my play through looks to be around 25 hours, but to fully complete the game you will be looking at close to 50-60 hours. Square love the replay value and so do I, with the in depth noise library and pin collection you might never get everything.

Only niggle, one save file per card? No issue to me but sorry Ryan you can’t play.

Gameplay: 8.7/10



Presentation

Having played on all the latest consoles from the PSP to the Xbox360 it is clear that the DS is at the back of field as far as graphics are concerned. But Square Enix has produced a vibrant and aesthetically pleasing product against the technical limitations that were thrown at them. The Japanese art style is done perfectly; the characters and their surroundings are full of colour and style, and generally the game just feels stylish. It’s a cool game to play. Which is understandable considering most of the game is about wearing the most fashionable clothes and using the top brand pins.

The ‘Noise’ for the most part look bad ass. The Japanese art style really played an impact on their creation; graffiti and tattoos styles cover parts of their bodies and in some cases replace their limbs with tribal looking claws. The character models aren’t bad either, with smooth movement and attack sequences, you forget about the HD graphics people are raving about on the next gen consoles. My only complaint is that the models don’t change. In my opinion when a game has customisation options, I LOVE it. The levelling system in The World Ends With You functions well; rather than a level requirement to wear a better items of clothing it all comes down to your Bravery stat. But my only criticism is that when you equip a new item of clothing it would be cool if your look changed in response. But if that’s the only issue I have with the presentation of this game then I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

Music in the game is a funny one. There’s no doubt The World Ends With You has a terrific soundtrack with Japanese tracks ranging from Urban to Dance to Jap-Rock but for the first few hours you play the main game with one track. There is still an alternative track for battles and cutscenes but the first track (Underground) stays with you for way too long and believe me sticking on your mp3 player makes the experience a lot more enjoyable. However, once you make your way to the first record store and stock up on tunes (with over 30 in the whole game) the music is a joy to listen too and keeps you wrapped up in that warm Japanese blanket.

Presentation: 9.2/10



Conclusion

The World Ends With You really is a great game. All I can is buy it. The amount of play you get from just the small card is insane. The fights are fluid and enjoyable, the game is in-depth and well designed, the story is well thought through and immersive and the whole concept is unique and beautiful. The game is a masterpiece, so buy it.

Overall Rating: 9.0/10