the first twewy was a fruit of its age: a game about people trying to connect with each other, understating how bounds are importants and learning to accept themselves. settled in shibuya, the epicenter of japanese youth of it’s époque and pretty much adopting all of its aesthetics too: it’s emo, it’s stylish, it sounds like japanese pop, rap, it has scratches, it isn’t “clean”, it’s urban. even in a nintendo ds game, is a city that felt alive, not only for the care they had with the aesthetics but also because you could scan people’s minds and see their feelings, worries and experiences while living in such a city that shibuya was. it was also a game that could only exist on the nintendo ds: a game about utilizing the ds’ two screens to sustain its message. you played, in combat, controlling both neku and his partner of the week, utilizing your stylus and your d-pad to fight enemies on both “sides” at the same time -- basically you had to take care not only of yourself, but also of your partner, too, and when you were in sync, you could unleash an special power. it was weird, for sure, but it worked well enough to what the game was trying to say. yeah, there’s a mobile and a switch version today -- the last one being, basically, the canon one that leads to this game story -- but the original intent still is the ds one.
now, 14 years later, the context is different: people still have the same problems, but the gravity of this is changed by the internet. your presence online is more valuable than yours offline: is easier to form bounds, since you can find your own niche just searching for some keyword on twitter. is not that people are not afraid of being themselves, is more that they can be anyone today at a level that it’s true identity is messier than their own closets. today, the people you scan don’t care anymore about which CD he should buy at tower records or which clothes she should wear on a date. today they care about which CD is worth enough to be physically buyed and which boy is prettier enough on instagram to be worth a date. neo: the world ends with you is still a game about the importance of connections. not exactly about a protagonist that does not have any, but about a protagonist that must know how important they are. you now play with a whole team instead of a partner and each button of your controller represents both a pin and a player. while it seems strange, it’s actually a show of geniality: it gives the same feeling that you should adjust itself with the most comfortable and ergonomic pins, just like the DS gave, but now in a dualshock 4. you have plenty of options to customize your gameplay and it’s basically “what if control scheme was not a quality of life but instead a central game mechanic”. it is addicting too, you know? testing new pins, seeing they evolve, comparing their animation speed and which one has less friction. it feels really great, principally because you soon unlock a mechanic known as “drop the beat”, where you gain a percentage in order to do a special move. there’s a lot going on in this game’s combat and while some enemies are not That Fun, there are some great bosses at kingdom hearts 2 level of flashy-lasers-gimmicky-thing and overall quality and necessity of mastery of it’s system.
thematically, as i said, is still about the importance of connections, but more about understanding that your friends really does matter for you. instead of the fear of knowing new people, the fear now is of missing those people -- what if your best friend just gets erased? the question about accepting your true identity is still here, too. characters wearing masks to distant themselves from who they really are -- they are in fear of being genuine. what if no one likes it? sending a sticker saying “i love you” on telegram is easier than, actually, saying “i love you” in flesh and blood. you can see how those teenagers are influenced by how the internet treats relationships, in both bad and good ways, and also how the overall communication and relation-between-people have changed since the first the world ends with you released. it also talks about The System and how shit it is, where Higher Classes has shit privileges and can do whatever the shit they want to -- they are on the top, after all. having many teams fighting each other, directly and indirectly, trying to survive a game where it seems impossible to win, is pretty much how capitalism works: sometimes you just have to take care of your own group rather than help everyone in order to survive -- and this sucks. “systematic world, killing me” etc. this system, formed by old rules that doesn’t matter for the ones on top, is also what kills the chance of the youth to express themselves better and be able to have healthier relationships. you can’t just go and blame the one on top, so you just keep quiet. you can’t just go and tell how bad you feel, so you just keep quiet. you can’t just go and tell how much something matters to you, its cringe, so you just keep quiet. in the end, either die quietly or try to change things: if you could turn back time, would you do it right? and even if you don’t, would you mind doing it right, now? going against the system? trying to be yourself a little more? trying to understand others a little more? trying to show love a little more? the world ends with you, so you better change your fate.
now, 14 years later, the context is different: people still have the same problems, but the gravity of this is changed by the internet. your presence online is more valuable than yours offline: is easier to form bounds, since you can find your own niche just searching for some keyword on twitter. is not that people are not afraid of being themselves, is more that they can be anyone today at a level that it’s true identity is messier than their own closets. today, the people you scan don’t care anymore about which CD he should buy at tower records or which clothes she should wear on a date. today they care about which CD is worth enough to be physically buyed and which boy is prettier enough on instagram to be worth a date. neo: the world ends with you is still a game about the importance of connections. not exactly about a protagonist that does not have any, but about a protagonist that must know how important they are. you now play with a whole team instead of a partner and each button of your controller represents both a pin and a player. while it seems strange, it’s actually a show of geniality: it gives the same feeling that you should adjust itself with the most comfortable and ergonomic pins, just like the DS gave, but now in a dualshock 4. you have plenty of options to customize your gameplay and it’s basically “what if control scheme was not a quality of life but instead a central game mechanic”. it is addicting too, you know? testing new pins, seeing they evolve, comparing their animation speed and which one has less friction. it feels really great, principally because you soon unlock a mechanic known as “drop the beat”, where you gain a percentage in order to do a special move. there’s a lot going on in this game’s combat and while some enemies are not That Fun, there are some great bosses at kingdom hearts 2 level of flashy-lasers-gimmicky-thing and overall quality and necessity of mastery of it’s system.
thematically, as i said, is still about the importance of connections, but more about understanding that your friends really does matter for you. instead of the fear of knowing new people, the fear now is of missing those people -- what if your best friend just gets erased? the question about accepting your true identity is still here, too. characters wearing masks to distant themselves from who they really are -- they are in fear of being genuine. what if no one likes it? sending a sticker saying “i love you” on telegram is easier than, actually, saying “i love you” in flesh and blood. you can see how those teenagers are influenced by how the internet treats relationships, in both bad and good ways, and also how the overall communication and relation-between-people have changed since the first the world ends with you released. it also talks about The System and how shit it is, where Higher Classes has shit privileges and can do whatever the shit they want to -- they are on the top, after all. having many teams fighting each other, directly and indirectly, trying to survive a game where it seems impossible to win, is pretty much how capitalism works: sometimes you just have to take care of your own group rather than help everyone in order to survive -- and this sucks. “systematic world, killing me” etc. this system, formed by old rules that doesn’t matter for the ones on top, is also what kills the chance of the youth to express themselves better and be able to have healthier relationships. you can’t just go and blame the one on top, so you just keep quiet. you can’t just go and tell how bad you feel, so you just keep quiet. you can’t just go and tell how much something matters to you, its cringe, so you just keep quiet. in the end, either die quietly or try to change things: if you could turn back time, would you do it right? and even if you don’t, would you mind doing it right, now? going against the system? trying to be yourself a little more? trying to understand others a little more? trying to show love a little more? the world ends with you, so you better change your fate.
Sometimes I fantasize about Shoka coming home drunk and beating me until I feel numb. She kicks me in the ribs until I can hardly breathe. Then she starts to cry and apologizes, begging me to forgive her. She holds me all night as I gently cry into her t-shirt. Is there any hope for me
So when Shiba says “got some red-hot news for ya” it’s cool, but when I write that in my emails at work, it’s unprofessional?
This betrayal of expectations notwithstanding, I loved NEO: The World Ends With You to the point where much of it made me wonder why more games don’t handle things the way it does. It was always a safe bet that it’d have good music, but it deserves just as much credit for how its music is used. My favourite example is how boss themes become standard overworld themes as you progress, which complements the story’s escalation of stakes as well as Rindo’s character development – encounters that were previously difficult for him become routine as his confidence grows. Soundsurfing is another really cool idea, giving you both a movement boost and a head start in your next fight if you can time button presses to the beat of whichever song is playing. Then there’s the Groove system which makes battles feel straight-up rhythmic, rewarding you for stringing your party’s attacks together with the right timing not unlike a band playing together in harmony. The soundtrack would still be amazing even if not for all this stuff, but it’s how it feeds into both the story progression and the gameplay itself that really takes it to another level.
Controlling multiple characters at once has been a trend in action games for some time now, but NEO TWEWY is probably my favourite take on this style of combat so far. The way the Groove mechanic encourages you to sync up your characters’ attacks one after the other rhythmically is enthralling and the little freeze frame that happens when you do it successfully never gets old. Positioning’s refreshingly important since your only movement option’s a dodge, but this isn’t to say that your options are limited overall; there’s great variety between all the pins you can equip. You can build your party to focus on melee, projectiles, healing, parries, specific hit reactions (e.g. splatting enemies against walls), applying status effects or a mix of all of these, and even those which get outclassed damage-wise tend to retain their niche of having less cooldown, so there’s no shortage of team compositions to try out. All the characters have unique dialogue with each other mid-combat too, which is a lovely touch and really drives home the idea that they’re all equally important to the team. It’s a really interesting spin on party-based RPG combat.
I don’t want to give away too much with regard to NEO TWEWY’s plot, but I will say it’s engaging enough that story segments felt more like a reward than exposition dumps. This game’s got one of the most charismatic, expressive casts of characters out there and they feel believable in ways that a lot of games don’t – they talk over each other, leave a lot of their feelings unsaid and make mistakes often enough that turning back time to undo them is a plot device. It probably relies on the latter a bit too often, and its implementation often feels like just sifting through a menu rather than an actually using an otherworldly superpower, but neither of those things were enough to stop me from wanting to see what happened next regardless.
My only other gripe is that I would’ve liked a couple of mechanics to have been introduced a little bit earlier into the game – you’ll probably become well accustomed to the combat long before orange beat drops arrive to spice it up, for example – but that’s pretty minor. All in all, NEO TWEWY’s easily become one of my favourite ARPGs. Everything about it, from the visuals to the combat to the music to even the difficulty design, had me wishing there were more games like it. It's an absolute, unbridled joy.
And with that, I bid you adieu.
This betrayal of expectations notwithstanding, I loved NEO: The World Ends With You to the point where much of it made me wonder why more games don’t handle things the way it does. It was always a safe bet that it’d have good music, but it deserves just as much credit for how its music is used. My favourite example is how boss themes become standard overworld themes as you progress, which complements the story’s escalation of stakes as well as Rindo’s character development – encounters that were previously difficult for him become routine as his confidence grows. Soundsurfing is another really cool idea, giving you both a movement boost and a head start in your next fight if you can time button presses to the beat of whichever song is playing. Then there’s the Groove system which makes battles feel straight-up rhythmic, rewarding you for stringing your party’s attacks together with the right timing not unlike a band playing together in harmony. The soundtrack would still be amazing even if not for all this stuff, but it’s how it feeds into both the story progression and the gameplay itself that really takes it to another level.
Controlling multiple characters at once has been a trend in action games for some time now, but NEO TWEWY is probably my favourite take on this style of combat so far. The way the Groove mechanic encourages you to sync up your characters’ attacks one after the other rhythmically is enthralling and the little freeze frame that happens when you do it successfully never gets old. Positioning’s refreshingly important since your only movement option’s a dodge, but this isn’t to say that your options are limited overall; there’s great variety between all the pins you can equip. You can build your party to focus on melee, projectiles, healing, parries, specific hit reactions (e.g. splatting enemies against walls), applying status effects or a mix of all of these, and even those which get outclassed damage-wise tend to retain their niche of having less cooldown, so there’s no shortage of team compositions to try out. All the characters have unique dialogue with each other mid-combat too, which is a lovely touch and really drives home the idea that they’re all equally important to the team. It’s a really interesting spin on party-based RPG combat.
I don’t want to give away too much with regard to NEO TWEWY’s plot, but I will say it’s engaging enough that story segments felt more like a reward than exposition dumps. This game’s got one of the most charismatic, expressive casts of characters out there and they feel believable in ways that a lot of games don’t – they talk over each other, leave a lot of their feelings unsaid and make mistakes often enough that turning back time to undo them is a plot device. It probably relies on the latter a bit too often, and its implementation often feels like just sifting through a menu rather than an actually using an otherworldly superpower, but neither of those things were enough to stop me from wanting to see what happened next regardless.
My only other gripe is that I would’ve liked a couple of mechanics to have been introduced a little bit earlier into the game – you’ll probably become well accustomed to the combat long before orange beat drops arrive to spice it up, for example – but that’s pretty minor. All in all, NEO TWEWY’s easily become one of my favourite ARPGs. Everything about it, from the visuals to the combat to the music to even the difficulty design, had me wishing there were more games like it. It's an absolute, unbridled joy.
And with that, I bid you adieu.
anorexic people's black panther
This review contains spoilers
I too would risk the existence of an entire city just to get a chance at a gamer goth gf.
Making a sequel to The World Ends with You proves difficult when put into perspective. Conceptually you can really do anything based off of the foundation of the first game which can either be considered good or bad depending on your viewpoint. With the reveal of this game back in 2020 I don’t think really anyone was worried that this was going to turn out a “bad” game seeing as how the trailer had the same TWEWY style we all know and love and the developers were the same people behind the first game. I was a bit skeptical though about the gameplay because of how intricate and unique the original game’s mechanics were; how well would the pin system translate in the jump to fully 3D?
Well the obvious answer here is that it turned out spectacular. Seeing the return of similar style pins is so awesome with them looking almost the same but more pronounced in their 3D environment. They also function in a unique way that yet again defines action rpg combat. Having each pin be a different button may seem a bit weird at first but in practice it’s genius. You can focus on doing certain face button actions first and foremost while your fingers on the shoulder buttons are ready to back you up, which leads to my next point: Dropping the Beat. Another genius mechanic introduced that greatly impacts the flow of combat. It’s so satisfying to successfully land a Beat Drop and hearing that chiming sound while building up the Groove gauge.
Loosely segwaying this into the next key aspect of this series; music. The music ties into the gameplay in a subtle way that makes it connected but still disconnected in a video gamey sort of way. Shit’s bumpin and jumpin especially with the surfing mechanic. Timing your button presses to the drumbeat of songs just inherently feels good. It oozes with style and its incorporation into the gameplay providing a small Groove boost at the beginning of a battle ties together a bit of seamlessness between the overworld and playing field.
‘Style.’ That’s a word that I think sums up this game pretty nicely. Everything has this immense urban Y2K street style taken even further than the first game. The paint and graffiti splatters for the backgrounds of cutscenes, how the character portraits are inside hastily drawn squares, how the cel shaded graphics are a perfect representation of the artwork; I can’t find any more ways to describe it, it’s just so raw. Absolutely love how moving throughout the city makes the far away buildings move to accommodate for the specific artstyle. This is where a fixed camera angle absolutely complements the game tenfold similar to early Resident Evil.
The last thing i wanna talk about are the characters. Stunning work here. Great voice acting and interactions. You really feel like these are just a bunch of friends talking together. Hell I’ve even had similar style conversations with my own friends which is why the story succeeds so well. Its protagonists are relatable to an extent. Rindo is the introverted thinker, Fret is the hot headed one with underlying issues, Nagi is the observant and understanding nerd, and Shoka is the lovable yet confused loner. You’ll find at least one character you’ll relate to here. I also really like the new twist with teams and such, and believe me there are a lot more twists and surprises throughout the whole game. The mystery here isn’t as good as the first game personally but I still really really enjoy it.
NEO: The World Ends with You encapsulated me for over a week. I didn’t play anything but this game for that time similar to the first game and if that doesn’t say something I don’t know what does. I love this game and if you’ve played the original TWEWY this will not disappoint. Hell of a sequel here.
og game is still better tho lol (as long as you play the ds version)
Well the obvious answer here is that it turned out spectacular. Seeing the return of similar style pins is so awesome with them looking almost the same but more pronounced in their 3D environment. They also function in a unique way that yet again defines action rpg combat. Having each pin be a different button may seem a bit weird at first but in practice it’s genius. You can focus on doing certain face button actions first and foremost while your fingers on the shoulder buttons are ready to back you up, which leads to my next point: Dropping the Beat. Another genius mechanic introduced that greatly impacts the flow of combat. It’s so satisfying to successfully land a Beat Drop and hearing that chiming sound while building up the Groove gauge.
Loosely segwaying this into the next key aspect of this series; music. The music ties into the gameplay in a subtle way that makes it connected but still disconnected in a video gamey sort of way. Shit’s bumpin and jumpin especially with the surfing mechanic. Timing your button presses to the drumbeat of songs just inherently feels good. It oozes with style and its incorporation into the gameplay providing a small Groove boost at the beginning of a battle ties together a bit of seamlessness between the overworld and playing field.
‘Style.’ That’s a word that I think sums up this game pretty nicely. Everything has this immense urban Y2K street style taken even further than the first game. The paint and graffiti splatters for the backgrounds of cutscenes, how the character portraits are inside hastily drawn squares, how the cel shaded graphics are a perfect representation of the artwork; I can’t find any more ways to describe it, it’s just so raw. Absolutely love how moving throughout the city makes the far away buildings move to accommodate for the specific artstyle. This is where a fixed camera angle absolutely complements the game tenfold similar to early Resident Evil.
The last thing i wanna talk about are the characters. Stunning work here. Great voice acting and interactions. You really feel like these are just a bunch of friends talking together. Hell I’ve even had similar style conversations with my own friends which is why the story succeeds so well. Its protagonists are relatable to an extent. Rindo is the introverted thinker, Fret is the hot headed one with underlying issues, Nagi is the observant and understanding nerd, and Shoka is the lovable yet confused loner. You’ll find at least one character you’ll relate to here. I also really like the new twist with teams and such, and believe me there are a lot more twists and surprises throughout the whole game. The mystery here isn’t as good as the first game personally but I still really really enjoy it.
NEO: The World Ends with You encapsulated me for over a week. I didn’t play anything but this game for that time similar to the first game and if that doesn’t say something I don’t know what does. I love this game and if you’ve played the original TWEWY this will not disappoint. Hell of a sequel here.
og game is still better tho lol (as long as you play the ds version)
You are Square Enix and have to do the BARE MINIMUM marketing for one of your best games ever - challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
this isn't fair where's MY catgirl gf
NEO: The World Ends With You has impeccably recreated and improved on an impactful part of my childhood in an even more meaningful and engaging way. What a wonderful world it truly is.
FULL REVIEW BELOW
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(I played this game with Japanese text and audio. Eventually I'd like to post another review comparing and contrasting it with the localized English release.)
Introduction
Set in the urban metropolis of Shibuya, a real life ward in Tokyo Japan, NEO (as I'll abbreviate it from here on out) is a follow up to its Nintendo DS predecessor back in 2008. It moves from the 2D dual screen layout and stylus of the DS to a fully 3D environment with cel shaded graphics and a new controller friendly, large party based real time combat system. All aspects of the game, in my opinion, faithfully replicate the feelings elicited by the original while also improving them greatly. Unfortunately, the game was released to very little fanfare and marketing and a few areas feel half baked or compromised on, likely due to budget constraints. However, the game overcomes these restraints to deliver an incredible experience, shooting it into its rightful place as one of my favorite games of all time.
Gameplay
-Combat 93/100 Weight 2
The original TWEWY was all about controlling two characters at once on each of the screens, and NEO continues this tradition of controlling multiple characters with the new twist being that each character is assigned a single button instead of the gestures they used before. As someone whose favorite games tend to be detail focused action RPGs, I was initially turned off by the seemingly shallow nature of the combat. Sure, there's a dodge button, but can you really have fun with one button per character? The answer is a resounding YES, especially as your party continues to grow throughout the game!
Characters are equipped with badges like in the first game that grant them a psychic power with different attributes. The most exhilarating moments in the combat come when you set up combos and assists between the various psychic attack types. For example, you might have an enemy caught in a whirlpool… before another move launches it into the air where it crashes into a massive boulder from another move! This is improved further by your special move that charges when you chain attacks within a certain timeframe.
My main issues with the combat are mostly centered around movement. Since you can have so many party members in battle, it is impossible to control the positioning of them all at once. Instead you only control the movement of one character at a time (decided somewhat arbitrarily based on attack types I think?) and the AI handles the movement of the rest of the party members. Party members constantly teleport or zoom quickly towards their targets to increase the chances their attacks will connect which is a great QOL feature, but it can be disorienting when you are controlling one character who is standing still to charge up an attack when suddenly the camera snaps over to another character flying across the stage to connect their melee attack. You get used to this quickly but it can be frustrating when these things cause you to take damage because you didn't know the character you were switching to was in the path of an enemy attack.
In all though it's an awesome new formula for real time combat that includes a lot of party members. It also seems to borrow a lot from MMORPGS with attack cooldown management and symbols on the floor to help you anticipate certain attacks. I almost forgot to mention that the party has a shared healthbar which reduces a lot of party health management stress that other RPGs tend to have.
-Navigation/Overworld 90/100 Weight 1
My biggest annoyance with NEO lies in the fact that you cannot control the camera outside of battle at all. The urban setting is beautifully recreated in 3D, but you can't control the camera to get a good look at it. I thought at first maybe they could only afford to model everything from a certain angle or something, but the fact that you can fully rotate the camera during battle (unless you're auto-locked on which is about 98% of the time…) proves that wrong. Someone should make a freely rotatable camera mod!
One unique overworld feature lies in how NEO deals with enemy encounters. There are no random encounters and instead NEO has visible enemy signs that float around the overworld. However, you don't see or interact with them unless you hold down R1. This is neat because it means you can just zip through any area without worrying about encounters if you don't feel like it.
Speaking of zipping through areas, you later unlock an ability that allows you to dash across the map in the overworld and it is AWESOME. While using this dash it adds another layer onto the music for a sort of a remix-like feel.
I'll also briefly mention the shops you are able to interact with. Each shop has a named shopkeeper that you develop a standing with and add to your "social network" of characters. These restaurants and clothing stores do an excellent job of representing Shibuya's food and fashion culture and it's incredibly rewarding to improve your standing at each store and see the shopkeepers get excited about you being there.
Artistic Elements
-Art and Design 96/100 Weight 1
Incredible character, enemy, and set designs. I have always been a huge fan of Tetsuya Nomura's art style and it's a lot more tastefully subdued in this semi-realistic setting. He wasn't the only character designer but worked closely with the other designers and they all did great. My one grip with the art is the non-leader characters in other teams you compete with. They're all basically the same model with palette swapped, super uninspired faces and hair. They have so little personality and are grating to encounter and fight.
-Music 98/100 Weight 1
Absolute masterpiece soundtrack. I remember liking the soundtrack of the original, but listening to it again it is missing a lot of life and some of the singers can be hit or miss. NEO's soundtrack has a lot of new songs that knock it out of the park, but the remakes of the original songs hit so much harder than their originals. The battle themes are all great adrenaline-pumping beats and a lot of the set piece or overworld songs are fantastic as well. If I had to pick one favorite I'd say it's probably "Breaking Free" but I find myself constantly singing "Bird in the Hand" as well.
The only reason I don't give it a perfect score is because I wish the music didn't get interrupted each time you went into a store or opened a menu. An adaptive soundtrack would've also been great and fit well but at least the dash mechanic adds something kind of similar.
-Story 100/100 Weight 2
The story was phenomenal. As someone who played the original it was interesting to see all of the ways that they changed the rules to accommodate the new characters and ideas. I would say the main themes of the story are coming to terms with and overcoming your weaknesses, second chances, and seeing the bigger picture in life. Definitely play this game and experience how the characters grow throughout.
I felt a strong bond to almost every single main character and even to a lot of the side characters. Characters have clear and interesting growth and none of them feel shallow or inauthentic. The ways that the characters grow and interact are so fun, fresh, and realistic. They really make you despise the villains but they can also be relatable and have growth arcs as well.
It's hard for me to pick a favorite character since I love them all, but a few characters that I don't hear mentioned a lot that I was particularly impressed by are Nagi and Susukichi.
FINAL RATING:
95.7/100
FULL REVIEW BELOW
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(I played this game with Japanese text and audio. Eventually I'd like to post another review comparing and contrasting it with the localized English release.)
Introduction
Set in the urban metropolis of Shibuya, a real life ward in Tokyo Japan, NEO (as I'll abbreviate it from here on out) is a follow up to its Nintendo DS predecessor back in 2008. It moves from the 2D dual screen layout and stylus of the DS to a fully 3D environment with cel shaded graphics and a new controller friendly, large party based real time combat system. All aspects of the game, in my opinion, faithfully replicate the feelings elicited by the original while also improving them greatly. Unfortunately, the game was released to very little fanfare and marketing and a few areas feel half baked or compromised on, likely due to budget constraints. However, the game overcomes these restraints to deliver an incredible experience, shooting it into its rightful place as one of my favorite games of all time.
Gameplay
-Combat 93/100 Weight 2
The original TWEWY was all about controlling two characters at once on each of the screens, and NEO continues this tradition of controlling multiple characters with the new twist being that each character is assigned a single button instead of the gestures they used before. As someone whose favorite games tend to be detail focused action RPGs, I was initially turned off by the seemingly shallow nature of the combat. Sure, there's a dodge button, but can you really have fun with one button per character? The answer is a resounding YES, especially as your party continues to grow throughout the game!
Characters are equipped with badges like in the first game that grant them a psychic power with different attributes. The most exhilarating moments in the combat come when you set up combos and assists between the various psychic attack types. For example, you might have an enemy caught in a whirlpool… before another move launches it into the air where it crashes into a massive boulder from another move! This is improved further by your special move that charges when you chain attacks within a certain timeframe.
My main issues with the combat are mostly centered around movement. Since you can have so many party members in battle, it is impossible to control the positioning of them all at once. Instead you only control the movement of one character at a time (decided somewhat arbitrarily based on attack types I think?) and the AI handles the movement of the rest of the party members. Party members constantly teleport or zoom quickly towards their targets to increase the chances their attacks will connect which is a great QOL feature, but it can be disorienting when you are controlling one character who is standing still to charge up an attack when suddenly the camera snaps over to another character flying across the stage to connect their melee attack. You get used to this quickly but it can be frustrating when these things cause you to take damage because you didn't know the character you were switching to was in the path of an enemy attack.
In all though it's an awesome new formula for real time combat that includes a lot of party members. It also seems to borrow a lot from MMORPGS with attack cooldown management and symbols on the floor to help you anticipate certain attacks. I almost forgot to mention that the party has a shared healthbar which reduces a lot of party health management stress that other RPGs tend to have.
-Navigation/Overworld 90/100 Weight 1
My biggest annoyance with NEO lies in the fact that you cannot control the camera outside of battle at all. The urban setting is beautifully recreated in 3D, but you can't control the camera to get a good look at it. I thought at first maybe they could only afford to model everything from a certain angle or something, but the fact that you can fully rotate the camera during battle (unless you're auto-locked on which is about 98% of the time…) proves that wrong. Someone should make a freely rotatable camera mod!
One unique overworld feature lies in how NEO deals with enemy encounters. There are no random encounters and instead NEO has visible enemy signs that float around the overworld. However, you don't see or interact with them unless you hold down R1. This is neat because it means you can just zip through any area without worrying about encounters if you don't feel like it.
Speaking of zipping through areas, you later unlock an ability that allows you to dash across the map in the overworld and it is AWESOME. While using this dash it adds another layer onto the music for a sort of a remix-like feel.
I'll also briefly mention the shops you are able to interact with. Each shop has a named shopkeeper that you develop a standing with and add to your "social network" of characters. These restaurants and clothing stores do an excellent job of representing Shibuya's food and fashion culture and it's incredibly rewarding to improve your standing at each store and see the shopkeepers get excited about you being there.
Artistic Elements
-Art and Design 96/100 Weight 1
Incredible character, enemy, and set designs. I have always been a huge fan of Tetsuya Nomura's art style and it's a lot more tastefully subdued in this semi-realistic setting. He wasn't the only character designer but worked closely with the other designers and they all did great. My one grip with the art is the non-leader characters in other teams you compete with. They're all basically the same model with palette swapped, super uninspired faces and hair. They have so little personality and are grating to encounter and fight.
-Music 98/100 Weight 1
Absolute masterpiece soundtrack. I remember liking the soundtrack of the original, but listening to it again it is missing a lot of life and some of the singers can be hit or miss. NEO's soundtrack has a lot of new songs that knock it out of the park, but the remakes of the original songs hit so much harder than their originals. The battle themes are all great adrenaline-pumping beats and a lot of the set piece or overworld songs are fantastic as well. If I had to pick one favorite I'd say it's probably "Breaking Free" but I find myself constantly singing "Bird in the Hand" as well.
The only reason I don't give it a perfect score is because I wish the music didn't get interrupted each time you went into a store or opened a menu. An adaptive soundtrack would've also been great and fit well but at least the dash mechanic adds something kind of similar.
-Story 100/100 Weight 2
The story was phenomenal. As someone who played the original it was interesting to see all of the ways that they changed the rules to accommodate the new characters and ideas. I would say the main themes of the story are coming to terms with and overcoming your weaknesses, second chances, and seeing the bigger picture in life. Definitely play this game and experience how the characters grow throughout.
I felt a strong bond to almost every single main character and even to a lot of the side characters. Characters have clear and interesting growth and none of them feel shallow or inauthentic. The ways that the characters grow and interact are so fun, fresh, and realistic. They really make you despise the villains but they can also be relatable and have growth arcs as well.
It's hard for me to pick a favorite character since I love them all, but a few characters that I don't hear mentioned a lot that I was particularly impressed by are Nagi and Susukichi.
FINAL RATING:
95.7/100
I feel like you gotta be fine with the absurd amount of filler and padding to give this anything close to 5 stars. This game is basically style over substance which is kinda in stark contrast to the original TWEWY which oozed both.
Rindo's main gimmick sounds cool on paper, but it only serves to drag out the game in the most repetitious way possible, especially in the late game where it becomes NEO's main crutch. All I'm saying, this game could do with being about 15 hours shorter. The soundtrack, cast of characters (even though they aren't given as much depth or time to shine as the original cast), and combat are awesome, but everything else about this game makes it unreplayable to me.
Rindo's main gimmick sounds cool on paper, but it only serves to drag out the game in the most repetitious way possible, especially in the late game where it becomes NEO's main crutch. All I'm saying, this game could do with being about 15 hours shorter. The soundtrack, cast of characters (even though they aren't given as much depth or time to shine as the original cast), and combat are awesome, but everything else about this game makes it unreplayable to me.
(finished at release and realized i never wrote a review oops)
i think it’s great because it captures the essence of TWEWY without feeling like a rehash. it touches on a lot of the same things the first game touched on except this time it’s tailored to a new audience.
yeah yeah, gen z tiktok cringe whatever. 2007 was just as cringe, you were just 13. let the kids have their fun this time around. shed your layers of irony and accept that what’s cringe is actually often cool
i think it’s great because it captures the essence of TWEWY without feeling like a rehash. it touches on a lot of the same things the first game touched on except this time it’s tailored to a new audience.
yeah yeah, gen z tiktok cringe whatever. 2007 was just as cringe, you were just 13. let the kids have their fun this time around. shed your layers of irony and accept that what’s cringe is actually often cool
This review contains spoilers
Genuinely did not expect this to become one of my favorite games ever when I impulse bought it. Seriously, everything about this game was incredible.
I honest to god cannot think of a single issue I had with this game. The cast is really fun, the dub is fucking hysterical, the music is incredible, and the story is super gripping. I really wish I played the first game before I played this one, because there's a lot of moments that would have hit way harder if I had played the first game. Kanon, an NPC, was my favorite character, and god dammit they did her so dirty. I...guess that is an issue I had... but who cares, Fret says sus and imposter in the same cutscene, that scrubs away any wrongdoing.
The final boss fight, man. THE FINAL BOSS FIGHT. The most euphoric shit I've experienced in a game since Cold Steel 4's finale. Shit still sends chills down my spine months after beating the game. The visuals, the music, the tone, the fight itself, all culminate into what is easily one of the best final boss fights in video game history, without a shadow of a doubt.
If I only count 2021 games, this is easily my game of the year, and it's gonna be really damn tough for another 2021 game to surpass it. (2022 update: nothing ever did.)
I honest to god cannot think of a single issue I had with this game. The cast is really fun, the dub is fucking hysterical, the music is incredible, and the story is super gripping. I really wish I played the first game before I played this one, because there's a lot of moments that would have hit way harder if I had played the first game. Kanon, an NPC, was my favorite character, and god dammit they did her so dirty. I...guess that is an issue I had... but who cares, Fret says sus and imposter in the same cutscene, that scrubs away any wrongdoing.
The final boss fight, man. THE FINAL BOSS FIGHT. The most euphoric shit I've experienced in a game since Cold Steel 4's finale. Shit still sends chills down my spine months after beating the game. The visuals, the music, the tone, the fight itself, all culminate into what is easily one of the best final boss fights in video game history, without a shadow of a doubt.
If I only count 2021 games, this is easily my game of the year, and it's gonna be really damn tough for another 2021 game to surpass it. (2022 update: nothing ever did.)
This review contains spoilers
Despite generally enjoying my time playing through this game, I cannot think of a less satisfying sequel than this. It just doesn't feel warranted in any way whatsoever by the end of it all and just kinda falls flat in the character development and writing department for it, specially in no small part thanks to its atrocious pacing at points.
The OST is nice enough, I had much more fun with the gameplay than in the OG TWEWY, and I felt Neku was overall handled pretty well. But the game as a whole won't leave much of a mark on me, and it feels a lil disappointing to admit. All in all though,, I still somewhat enjoyed the experience I had with it.
The OST is nice enough, I had much more fun with the gameplay than in the OG TWEWY, and I felt Neku was overall handled pretty well. But the game as a whole won't leave much of a mark on me, and it feels a lil disappointing to admit. All in all though,, I still somewhat enjoyed the experience I had with it.
The soul returns, once more with true feeling
NEO: The World Ends With You had a lot to live up to as the sequel to cult classic The World Ends With You releasing 14 years later on the dot. The unique gameplay, soundtrack, setting and charm sets up The World Ends With You as something extremely memorable as it was for me when I played and completed the original DS entry only 3 months before completing NEO: The World Ends With You. After watching the final cutscene here and having the amalgamation of the entire experience finally sinking it, I can say it almost feels like the series never lost its magic. The sequel manages to bring the world of Shibuya into the high definition and three dimensional and still managing to bring the charm, the eccentric and catchy soundtrack and an important and relevant message in terms of how we perceive ourselves in the real and living flesh and the information age.
Shibuya has never felt more alive and vibrant with the game finally entering the modern realm of graphics and relegated to a main console from its handheld predecessor. The crowds of people and viewing angles do a good job of feeling like you're in this huge and sprawling area of Tokyo with the way that even the camera bends and twists the buildings around. Accompanying the many aspects of the game is the catchy and avant-garde soundtrack compared to what you would heard in other Japanese role playing games. Female vocals, rapping and metal screaming isn't something you would usually hear in the same soundtrack yet it fits extremely well here including some old favorites and remixes accompanying the new sound as well. The gameplay is radically different but shares the same style to an extent due to the fact we aren't working with dual screens anymore and the story's dynamic also adjusts to that too. Combat consists of having each member of your party carrying a pin which is an ability that is linked to a button on your controller and basically you want to link beat drops or special markers that pop up when you perform specific conditions. I can say they knocked it out of the park with how the gameplay flows here, it feels more realized here and there's a lot of pins and combinations you can pull off here that feels satisfying and make each combat encounter unique with how often you'll be switching pins and new abilities with you getting more tools outside of the gameplay loop to further customize your gameplay experience with the difficulty choice and level modifier returning as well. Leveling works the same before and gaining stats works differently in that it doesn't rely on actual real time but by burning calories by fighting noise which is a insanely good quality of life feature. The story and characters here share a different dynamic in that the main characters are a team in it of itself more than one specific person and each of them have their own specific "psych" power that lets them interact with people and the world a bit differently than before while the story still maintaining a huge air of mystery into the dilemmas the cast gets in and manages to feel almost like a coming of age story in a sense with more lore being there for longtime fans of the series to jump into. Also not to mention there is a lot to do here if you're a completionist as well and the game easily tracks it for you as well which is always nice and actually rewarding since side quests do reward with you with important perks and upgrades that really help in all facets of the game as well.
Not much really ruins the experience here other than huge frame dips during highly intensive moments (at least on Switch) and some bad pacing when you use one of your "psych" powers that pretty much kills the anticipation of what happens next since you have to retread a bit but it's nothing too egregious here.
NEO: The World Ends With You was a pleasant surprise for me and personally nails what I would want in a The World Ends With You sequel. It's really hard to nail "the cult classic sequel to a game that was released 10+ years ago" that seems to be happening with The World Ends With You, Psychonauts and No More Heroes and especially with The World Ends With You since it was a unique game in every factor of the word. Despite all that, NEO: The World Ends With You is a breath of fresh air in the current gaming space and feels like a passion project from Nomura that probably wanted this to happen for a while now and I'm glad this game exists. In this day and age, we're all mostly online but we're still human beings in the end of the day.
NEO: The World Ends With You had a lot to live up to as the sequel to cult classic The World Ends With You releasing 14 years later on the dot. The unique gameplay, soundtrack, setting and charm sets up The World Ends With You as something extremely memorable as it was for me when I played and completed the original DS entry only 3 months before completing NEO: The World Ends With You. After watching the final cutscene here and having the amalgamation of the entire experience finally sinking it, I can say it almost feels like the series never lost its magic. The sequel manages to bring the world of Shibuya into the high definition and three dimensional and still managing to bring the charm, the eccentric and catchy soundtrack and an important and relevant message in terms of how we perceive ourselves in the real and living flesh and the information age.
Shibuya has never felt more alive and vibrant with the game finally entering the modern realm of graphics and relegated to a main console from its handheld predecessor. The crowds of people and viewing angles do a good job of feeling like you're in this huge and sprawling area of Tokyo with the way that even the camera bends and twists the buildings around. Accompanying the many aspects of the game is the catchy and avant-garde soundtrack compared to what you would heard in other Japanese role playing games. Female vocals, rapping and metal screaming isn't something you would usually hear in the same soundtrack yet it fits extremely well here including some old favorites and remixes accompanying the new sound as well. The gameplay is radically different but shares the same style to an extent due to the fact we aren't working with dual screens anymore and the story's dynamic also adjusts to that too. Combat consists of having each member of your party carrying a pin which is an ability that is linked to a button on your controller and basically you want to link beat drops or special markers that pop up when you perform specific conditions. I can say they knocked it out of the park with how the gameplay flows here, it feels more realized here and there's a lot of pins and combinations you can pull off here that feels satisfying and make each combat encounter unique with how often you'll be switching pins and new abilities with you getting more tools outside of the gameplay loop to further customize your gameplay experience with the difficulty choice and level modifier returning as well. Leveling works the same before and gaining stats works differently in that it doesn't rely on actual real time but by burning calories by fighting noise which is a insanely good quality of life feature. The story and characters here share a different dynamic in that the main characters are a team in it of itself more than one specific person and each of them have their own specific "psych" power that lets them interact with people and the world a bit differently than before while the story still maintaining a huge air of mystery into the dilemmas the cast gets in and manages to feel almost like a coming of age story in a sense with more lore being there for longtime fans of the series to jump into. Also not to mention there is a lot to do here if you're a completionist as well and the game easily tracks it for you as well which is always nice and actually rewarding since side quests do reward with you with important perks and upgrades that really help in all facets of the game as well.
Not much really ruins the experience here other than huge frame dips during highly intensive moments (at least on Switch) and some bad pacing when you use one of your "psych" powers that pretty much kills the anticipation of what happens next since you have to retread a bit but it's nothing too egregious here.
NEO: The World Ends With You was a pleasant surprise for me and personally nails what I would want in a The World Ends With You sequel. It's really hard to nail "the cult classic sequel to a game that was released 10+ years ago" that seems to be happening with The World Ends With You, Psychonauts and No More Heroes and especially with The World Ends With You since it was a unique game in every factor of the word. Despite all that, NEO: The World Ends With You is a breath of fresh air in the current gaming space and feels like a passion project from Nomura that probably wanted this to happen for a while now and I'm glad this game exists. In this day and age, we're all mostly online but we're still human beings in the end of the day.
This review contains spoilers
Shoutouts to Rindo for being the first introvert to actually get the elusive goth gf, proud of him
Play Bird in the Hand even if we scare the hoes away
OHHH I'M BOUT TO LOSEE ITTTT
it's pretty telling when you know even upon a game's release that it's gonna be the title people think of in a decade or two as the definitive time capsule for the 2020s, but neo isn't just topical future nostalgiabait. it really is one of the best sequels ever made - one that's both a love letter to its predecessor and a total jump in quality all at the same time
it's pretty telling when you know even upon a game's release that it's gonna be the title people think of in a decade or two as the definitive time capsule for the 2020s, but neo isn't just topical future nostalgiabait. it really is one of the best sequels ever made - one that's both a love letter to its predecessor and a total jump in quality all at the same time
they say the word sus and imposter in the same sentence this is the greatest game of all time
This review contains spoilers
The original game was lightning in a bottle, the way it impresses will only have ever impressed the first and only time due to how unique of a game it was. Fortunately NTWEWY does not fall into the trap that so many nostalgic returns of the past decade have fallen into, it claws its way into being its own entity, and it succeeds in being a great follow up, and game in its own right.
Starting off with the gameplay, which is probably the weakest aspect for me, the new system is honestly pretty good, if not for a few quirks that hold it back, namely enemy design and frustrating dodging mechanics. While there were good bosses in this game, many of the multi phase bosses fell into the trap of having fucking long ass phase transitions that really hampered my enjoyment when retrying failed attempts. The dodging is probably the worst part of the new gameplay for me, since pressing other pin buttons flies the camera over to the character using that pin, in the heat of battle dodging and pressing a pin on hard mode often leads to lethal consequences that I cannot say is on the part of the player. The side quests are also mostly not very interesting in this game, oft being dives into negative human feelings and helping them move on, while I could see them being in-line with the minor theme of moving on while change is happening around you, reflective of how much Shibuya has changed since 14 years ago, these side quests are still lacking in any depth to meaningfully connect to these themes like the main story does.
The real meat of this game, much like the last for me, is the story and setting and NTWEWY delivers, although I'd have to sit on whether it was as strong as the original entry. The main character Rindou captures a very different kind of modern angst compared to Neku from the previous, he embodies a very relatable modern sensibility of indecisiveness and not putting yourself out there which often gets him into situations where he's forced to turn back time to repeat his actions. A strong point in this game's favour is how Rindou never really invites comparison to Neku, they're completely different people and they each have their own ways of devising a solution and capability to achieve it. Rindou also embodying the meaning of "The World Ends with You" in a similar but different way from Neku also demonstrates how this game is worthy of the series name, while the phrase applied to Neku to mean expand your horizons, for Rindou it means the similar "open yourself up" something he consistently struggles to do due to his insecurity and indecisiveness throughout the story. Fret and Nagi are also good characters, although their character examinations come a bit too late, and (Nagi especially) are fairly abrupt and underexplored compared to the partners from the first game. However, Fret's storyline about his beliefs on being genuine versus being what people want you to be rings strong in the image focused world that has always surrounded Shibuya. Rounding out the party are returning characters Beat, Neku, Minamimoto, and newly introduced Reaper Shoka (Best girl).
A pitfall a modern follow up to an old game often runs into is how it beholds itself in reverence to the old game, and letting that get in the way of trying to be it's own entity and the game cleverly avoids that in how it positions the returning characters. Minamimoto is the crutch and mentor that gives the group the confidence to tackle the first week, and his absence is what causes the flaws of the individuals of the group to display, which is why the next party member is Beat who is someone that has overcome themselves and offer guidance and mentorship in a way I never thought the himbo could. Beat's positive vibes highlights not only how the people in the previous game had grown up and moved on from their dilemmas, but can actively wedge themselves into a group struggling through similar issues and give them guidance. Neku also fulfils a similar purpose, and it's very pleasing to see what a calming and confident presence he's become in this game, contrasting to his depiction in the awful A New Day from the switch re-release.
The aspect of the game that surprised me most is the final week, and makes me wonder when this game started development. Perhaps it is a projection, but the week being about a type of Noise called plague noise and spreading rapidly thoughout the city making people depressed, listless, and depriving the city of the energy it once had sounds very familiar to me, in 2021. Yes, people bustle like there isn't a pandemic but I'd be surprised if the pandemic had nothing to do with the direction the story takes in this game, and the soliloquys from the characters about the state of the city in the face of this syndrome hits close to home, as someone that has a love of Shibuya and what it represents to culture at large. If there's anything the developers of this game had managed to reproduce, it's their love for this city. Detail is still abundant with all the modern additions to Shibuya in beautiful detail. Much like real life fashion brands, while there are returning ones, new brands have replaced a lot of the older ones, although it maintains the same theme of Zodiac animals.
The game has two main themes I've surmised: Taking things into your own hands and not relying on a higher power, and trying to surmount a system working against you. In this game, the Reaper's game is rigged and the main three find themselves relying on more powerful people than them to solve their issues for them. Week 2 begins with the cast concerned that they will be erased simply because they don't have Minamimoto with them despite the three having their own unique abilities that they could not have navigated the first week without. As I've drunkenly ranted about to my friends before, the feeling of being part of a system stacked against you strikes very true, especially nowadays with so much out of your control, it's very easy to just accede to whatever higher power dictates it all. Staying to it's punk roots, this game defiantly and proudly shouts to keep pushing and eventually you'll find your way forward, and I can't help but admire this game for such a wonderful and relevant message, it's hard to not smile and cheer when the characters persistently trudge through a blatantly rigged system and come out on top.
The original game is one that I've analysed and immersed myself into completely. While I don't think this entry is as strong as that one, it's entirely possible with more time and research the hidden detail of this game will shine just as brightly as it's predecessor, but for what I just experienced, it was well worth my time and the follow up to the original I never thought I'd have.
And the music fucking slaps, of course.
Starting off with the gameplay, which is probably the weakest aspect for me, the new system is honestly pretty good, if not for a few quirks that hold it back, namely enemy design and frustrating dodging mechanics. While there were good bosses in this game, many of the multi phase bosses fell into the trap of having fucking long ass phase transitions that really hampered my enjoyment when retrying failed attempts. The dodging is probably the worst part of the new gameplay for me, since pressing other pin buttons flies the camera over to the character using that pin, in the heat of battle dodging and pressing a pin on hard mode often leads to lethal consequences that I cannot say is on the part of the player. The side quests are also mostly not very interesting in this game, oft being dives into negative human feelings and helping them move on, while I could see them being in-line with the minor theme of moving on while change is happening around you, reflective of how much Shibuya has changed since 14 years ago, these side quests are still lacking in any depth to meaningfully connect to these themes like the main story does.
The real meat of this game, much like the last for me, is the story and setting and NTWEWY delivers, although I'd have to sit on whether it was as strong as the original entry. The main character Rindou captures a very different kind of modern angst compared to Neku from the previous, he embodies a very relatable modern sensibility of indecisiveness and not putting yourself out there which often gets him into situations where he's forced to turn back time to repeat his actions. A strong point in this game's favour is how Rindou never really invites comparison to Neku, they're completely different people and they each have their own ways of devising a solution and capability to achieve it. Rindou also embodying the meaning of "The World Ends with You" in a similar but different way from Neku also demonstrates how this game is worthy of the series name, while the phrase applied to Neku to mean expand your horizons, for Rindou it means the similar "open yourself up" something he consistently struggles to do due to his insecurity and indecisiveness throughout the story. Fret and Nagi are also good characters, although their character examinations come a bit too late, and (Nagi especially) are fairly abrupt and underexplored compared to the partners from the first game. However, Fret's storyline about his beliefs on being genuine versus being what people want you to be rings strong in the image focused world that has always surrounded Shibuya. Rounding out the party are returning characters Beat, Neku, Minamimoto, and newly introduced Reaper Shoka (Best girl).
A pitfall a modern follow up to an old game often runs into is how it beholds itself in reverence to the old game, and letting that get in the way of trying to be it's own entity and the game cleverly avoids that in how it positions the returning characters. Minamimoto is the crutch and mentor that gives the group the confidence to tackle the first week, and his absence is what causes the flaws of the individuals of the group to display, which is why the next party member is Beat who is someone that has overcome themselves and offer guidance and mentorship in a way I never thought the himbo could. Beat's positive vibes highlights not only how the people in the previous game had grown up and moved on from their dilemmas, but can actively wedge themselves into a group struggling through similar issues and give them guidance. Neku also fulfils a similar purpose, and it's very pleasing to see what a calming and confident presence he's become in this game, contrasting to his depiction in the awful A New Day from the switch re-release.
The aspect of the game that surprised me most is the final week, and makes me wonder when this game started development. Perhaps it is a projection, but the week being about a type of Noise called plague noise and spreading rapidly thoughout the city making people depressed, listless, and depriving the city of the energy it once had sounds very familiar to me, in 2021. Yes, people bustle like there isn't a pandemic but I'd be surprised if the pandemic had nothing to do with the direction the story takes in this game, and the soliloquys from the characters about the state of the city in the face of this syndrome hits close to home, as someone that has a love of Shibuya and what it represents to culture at large. If there's anything the developers of this game had managed to reproduce, it's their love for this city. Detail is still abundant with all the modern additions to Shibuya in beautiful detail. Much like real life fashion brands, while there are returning ones, new brands have replaced a lot of the older ones, although it maintains the same theme of Zodiac animals.
The game has two main themes I've surmised: Taking things into your own hands and not relying on a higher power, and trying to surmount a system working against you. In this game, the Reaper's game is rigged and the main three find themselves relying on more powerful people than them to solve their issues for them. Week 2 begins with the cast concerned that they will be erased simply because they don't have Minamimoto with them despite the three having their own unique abilities that they could not have navigated the first week without. As I've drunkenly ranted about to my friends before, the feeling of being part of a system stacked against you strikes very true, especially nowadays with so much out of your control, it's very easy to just accede to whatever higher power dictates it all. Staying to it's punk roots, this game defiantly and proudly shouts to keep pushing and eventually you'll find your way forward, and I can't help but admire this game for such a wonderful and relevant message, it's hard to not smile and cheer when the characters persistently trudge through a blatantly rigged system and come out on top.
The original game is one that I've analysed and immersed myself into completely. While I don't think this entry is as strong as that one, it's entirely possible with more time and research the hidden detail of this game will shine just as brightly as it's predecessor, but for what I just experienced, it was well worth my time and the follow up to the original I never thought I'd have.
And the music fucking slaps, of course.
After 100%ing the game and getting absolutely everything it had to offer, I can safely say that it is by far one of the best sequels I’ve had the pleasure of playing. Whether or not it surpasses the original is something that can be debated on but I find it to be easily on par.
The storytelling and characterization this time around goes for a more subtler approach compared to the original and relies on character interactions and the way these evolve throughout the game, which ties into its main theme: identity. If OG TWEWY was about how relationships can change and affect the individual, then NEO TWEWY is the opposite in that it’s about how individual change affects that person's relationships. On the surface, they might seem like the same thing, but they’re really not because it’s through this lens that you’re able to see how the characters evolve and change, with our main character Rindo being the perfect examples of this.
Rindo’s an almost painfully realistic depiction of your average teenager: a guy that has no confidence in himself and the decisions he makes and tries to pass off his responsibilities onto other people whenever he gets the chance to. He’s quiet, reserved, and very closed off, only ever truly opening up to his friend Swallow, and you can see this constantly when you peer into his head and observe how he neurotically commentates on every move he or someone else does. He also has the tendency to take the people around him for granted. In some ways, he’s lot like Neku in the sense that he’s cut himself off from other people but whereas Neku actively rejected other people, Rindo just doesn’t care to get close to them. Even when their team needed more people so they could survive just one week, Rindo preferred relying on the skills Sho had already shown them rather than even trying to meet Nagi, and he might not’ve recruited her if not for him trying to avoid having her Dive into his head again. There’s also how he didn’t confide into his teammates about his time travel abilities until Sho dragged it out in the open for the others to know about. To Rindo, following along with who he already knew while not confiding in them kept him safe and able to just slip through life without having to worry. In that sense, I honestly feel that his arc is more organic and fluid compared to Neku’s and I say this as someone who loves Neku’s character arc. As the game goes on, he learns to takes charge, listens to his teammates fully, seeks and reaches out to people, and overpasses his aversion of going towards people to make the first connection. He’s actually the one willing to do the first step and remind people of what’s at stake, instead of being lead around on a whim by others.
Over the course of the game/Game, Rindo grows from someone not deciding anything to avoid the responsibility of a bad outcome and bristling when called out on that, to someone becoming brave enough to fully undertake the weight of such decisions, willing to risk himself in a bit more and as a leader, and fully expressing his opinion about things and plans instead of just poking holes into others’ ideas and appropriating their advices as his like he did with certain influences in his life.
You get to see this progression for most of the other characters in the game, with Shoka in particular being one of the best written characters across both TWEWY games in my opinion thanks to her characterization and the subtleties in her actions. That’s not to say this approach is perfect as the pacing can be pretty slow at times and some characters could’ve definitely benefitted by having more screentime but overall, I still found that NEO had a valuable message and theme to deliver in spite of it all.
Next up is the combat and hoo boy do I have a lot to say about it. It most definitely isn’t perfect, with its issues mostly boiling down to the lower enemy variety compared to the original (which had its fair share of recolors as well, mind you) and the camera being an annoyance at some points but by God, they somehow nailed the combat and it’s honestly tied with the original as one of my favorite JRPG battle systems. This time around, each character is mapped to a button to the controller (you can switch around which characters has what pin so it isn’t set in stone for which character can use a certain pin). Each attack type in the game has a condition that requires you to “Drop the Beat”, basically a combo finisher that’s tacked onto each pin and they each have their own variations. For example, some will have you inflicting status ailments on enemies, others will have you launching enemies in the air or into walls and some will have you piledriving them into the ground and so on and so forth. You do this in order to gradually build your Groove meter and unleash Mashups, which are 15 different elemental attacks that each have their own unique effect and can be activated and used on the battle field while you’re doing combos, such as summoning a giant gravitational ball of energy to suck enemies in, covering the ground with ice spikes that freeze enemies on contact and can have you bounce them around on the spikes for additional damage, stopping time to freeze absolutely everything to place, and more. There are pins with special abilities that reward you greatly when you set certain combos up right, whether it’s using knockdown pins to activate Grave Marker’s finisher, using launcher pins to increase the power of aerial pins such as Leo Armo or Meteor Strike, using chain pins to entangle enemies and increase the power of Drift Tackle or Swift Strike pins and more.
You have a wide variety of options that range from straight attacks, wide attacks, knockbacks, launchers (and following launchers), knockdowns, quick safe attacks, slow high investment attacks in exchange for higher damage/combo opportunities, repositioning attacks, crowd AoEs and more. You also have options for ranged attacks (with bullets, lasers, sweeping shockwaves, rockets for differing effects), charge attacks, staggering enemies and dispersing crowds, repositioning (enemies and yourself), multi-hit and freezing enemies, planting mines, and more.
On top of all of this, each pin has different attack speeds, damage outputs, ranges, and special utilities, which encourages you to mix and match in order to find the best possible combination for you and equip a deck that is highly synergized. Even low-powered pins end up being useful in the lategame thanks to quick reboot time compared to the higher damaging types, which is also great for building up Groove faster and getting those 6x Mashups, making for an incredibly balanced system for the most part.
Any good action game worth its salt rewards good positioning and NEO does that and then some and even expands on it compared to the original in multiple ways, both in regard to how you can lay down traps to catch Noise off guard and how you can utilize Mashups in extending your combos or take down enemies quickly. This also applies to how pins work as well.
Take how Massive Hit targets enemies for example. If you line it up just right, you can catch multiple enemies in your line of fire while you're on your way to kick the target into next week or up into the sky. Same thing also applies to Assassin Strike and I actually used this trick to stun multiple enemies at the same time. There's also some cool stuff that you can pull off with Patrol Rounds. The thing about them is how they ALWAYS come back to you after you launch them and if you position yourself to have the Patrol Round come back at you in a specific way by running to a spot, you can catch multiple enemies in the arc as the rounds makes their way towards you. This method also makes taking down Chameleon Noise a breeze since they're usually right by enemies and when you target the Noise next to them, they tend to get caught in the crossfire, which makes them easy to spot. Grenade Launcher, Patrol Round, Psychic Shotgun, Storm, and Diffusion Beam pins are especially useful for this.
Another cool thing about NEO is how even pins with the same Psych archetype actually have differing ways to make them stand apart mechanically.
For example, the Patrol Round pins each have different arcs that effect how they return towards you and impact enemies.
Cony x Cony (the Gravity variant) shoots out 5 different boomerangs and come back to you as five while Stop the Music (Burst variant you win from Scramble Slam) shoots out 3 different boomerangs but come back to you as one.
On paper, this might make Stop the Music sound worse but you have to keep their Beatdrop conditions in mind. Cony x Cony requires for an enemy/boss to be knocked down to the ground and/or launched in order for you to activate its Beatdrop whereas Stop the Music just has you hitting the enemy with the explosion it activates in order to get the Beatdrop. Little stuff like this can have an impact on how you approach combat when it comes to the bosses and mob design and it's like this for a lot of pins in the game, which I appreciate.
All in all, it’s a very robust and fun battle system with a lot of depth to its various mechanics and the bosses show these aspects off quite nicely, providing fun and unique mechanics of their own as well as a decent challenge if you’re fighting on the higher difficulties. A lot of people are under the impression that button-mashing is the optimal strategy and while that can probably get you through the main game on the lower difficulties, they fail to consider these factors:
-Noise have built-in forced retaliation (think revenge values from Kingdom Hearts.) The enemies will flash yellow, while during this, the damage they received, during combos after the fact, multiplies the enemy attack by how much damage was done to it, then it will flash red and instantly counter attack you with the damages built up in its system. The system is different for a few enemies but will instantly begin the moment they flash yellow. Which means that just button mashing can get you killed, especially when you’re engaging in long chain battles and the revenge values become far more frequent throughout each round.
-There are multiple pin set-ups that highly reward you for timing your combos right in order to build up the most Groove in one go, especially when you unlock the Beatdrop sweetspot mechanic later on that can increase your Groove intake when hitting the Beatdrop in a certain spot (which also differs depending on the pin)
-Ememy design has a decent amount of variety, forcing you to think about what sort of pins and threads to bring into battle as there’s not really one deck that makes short work of every enemy. The dinos, mammoths, and birds are prime examples of these
-Just mashing the buttons all at once will leave you unable able to properly counterattack against particularly troublesome enemies and will most likely lead to you dying multiple times
-The game itself ranks you on how much time you’ve taken playing through a chain as well as how much damage you’ve taken overall, incentivizing you to get better at the mechanics as higher rankings leads to higher PP intake, which is incredibly handy for leveling up and evolving pins.
Another thing I want to talk about is the music and man, they absolutely nailed it yet again. Much like the original, NEO covers a large variety of genres while also going for it’s own distinct vibe at the same time. Whereas the original went for a mix of J-pop, disco, and J-rock, with some stray metal, piano, and rap here and there, NEO goes for a more balanced mix of J-rock and metal, with more rap and pop mixed into tracks with heavier sections, as well as a greater emphasis on mashups, electric instruments, and blended-up and crunchier versions of old songs. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its own fair share of genre variety, however, as the game also contains various genres such as liquid DnB, techno, acoustic, club, drum n bass, power pop, symphonic nu-metal, and more. On top of that, the songs in NEO are much more closely tied to the themes of the game and the progression of the characters, with some even cleverly foreshadowing character details that get revealed later on, such as We’re Losing You and Shibuya Survivor. One thing in particular that I want to talk about in regards to the soundtrack is the inclusion of Soundsurfing and how much I love it’s implementation. Not only is it a clever way to speed up overworld traversal and make traversing through Shibuya a breeze, it’s gives you additional Groove intake bonuses that carry over to a round, which is an incredible use of gameplay mechanics synergizing well with one another. On top of that, Soundsurfing gives almost every song in the game additional and unique percussive elements to spice up the soundtrack even more, giving the music even more variety, which is genuinely impressive as hell. And lastly, it adds up to one incredible usage in the final boss fight.
All-in-all, NEO is a fantastic game and a more than worthy successor to one of the best games on the DS and I tip my hat off to the devs for managing to create another compelling experience even after all of these years.
And with that, I bid you adieu.
The storytelling and characterization this time around goes for a more subtler approach compared to the original and relies on character interactions and the way these evolve throughout the game, which ties into its main theme: identity. If OG TWEWY was about how relationships can change and affect the individual, then NEO TWEWY is the opposite in that it’s about how individual change affects that person's relationships. On the surface, they might seem like the same thing, but they’re really not because it’s through this lens that you’re able to see how the characters evolve and change, with our main character Rindo being the perfect examples of this.
Rindo’s an almost painfully realistic depiction of your average teenager: a guy that has no confidence in himself and the decisions he makes and tries to pass off his responsibilities onto other people whenever he gets the chance to. He’s quiet, reserved, and very closed off, only ever truly opening up to his friend Swallow, and you can see this constantly when you peer into his head and observe how he neurotically commentates on every move he or someone else does. He also has the tendency to take the people around him for granted. In some ways, he’s lot like Neku in the sense that he’s cut himself off from other people but whereas Neku actively rejected other people, Rindo just doesn’t care to get close to them. Even when their team needed more people so they could survive just one week, Rindo preferred relying on the skills Sho had already shown them rather than even trying to meet Nagi, and he might not’ve recruited her if not for him trying to avoid having her Dive into his head again. There’s also how he didn’t confide into his teammates about his time travel abilities until Sho dragged it out in the open for the others to know about. To Rindo, following along with who he already knew while not confiding in them kept him safe and able to just slip through life without having to worry. In that sense, I honestly feel that his arc is more organic and fluid compared to Neku’s and I say this as someone who loves Neku’s character arc. As the game goes on, he learns to takes charge, listens to his teammates fully, seeks and reaches out to people, and overpasses his aversion of going towards people to make the first connection. He’s actually the one willing to do the first step and remind people of what’s at stake, instead of being lead around on a whim by others.
Over the course of the game/Game, Rindo grows from someone not deciding anything to avoid the responsibility of a bad outcome and bristling when called out on that, to someone becoming brave enough to fully undertake the weight of such decisions, willing to risk himself in a bit more and as a leader, and fully expressing his opinion about things and plans instead of just poking holes into others’ ideas and appropriating their advices as his like he did with certain influences in his life.
You get to see this progression for most of the other characters in the game, with Shoka in particular being one of the best written characters across both TWEWY games in my opinion thanks to her characterization and the subtleties in her actions. That’s not to say this approach is perfect as the pacing can be pretty slow at times and some characters could’ve definitely benefitted by having more screentime but overall, I still found that NEO had a valuable message and theme to deliver in spite of it all.
Next up is the combat and hoo boy do I have a lot to say about it. It most definitely isn’t perfect, with its issues mostly boiling down to the lower enemy variety compared to the original (which had its fair share of recolors as well, mind you) and the camera being an annoyance at some points but by God, they somehow nailed the combat and it’s honestly tied with the original as one of my favorite JRPG battle systems. This time around, each character is mapped to a button to the controller (you can switch around which characters has what pin so it isn’t set in stone for which character can use a certain pin). Each attack type in the game has a condition that requires you to “Drop the Beat”, basically a combo finisher that’s tacked onto each pin and they each have their own variations. For example, some will have you inflicting status ailments on enemies, others will have you launching enemies in the air or into walls and some will have you piledriving them into the ground and so on and so forth. You do this in order to gradually build your Groove meter and unleash Mashups, which are 15 different elemental attacks that each have their own unique effect and can be activated and used on the battle field while you’re doing combos, such as summoning a giant gravitational ball of energy to suck enemies in, covering the ground with ice spikes that freeze enemies on contact and can have you bounce them around on the spikes for additional damage, stopping time to freeze absolutely everything to place, and more. There are pins with special abilities that reward you greatly when you set certain combos up right, whether it’s using knockdown pins to activate Grave Marker’s finisher, using launcher pins to increase the power of aerial pins such as Leo Armo or Meteor Strike, using chain pins to entangle enemies and increase the power of Drift Tackle or Swift Strike pins and more.
You have a wide variety of options that range from straight attacks, wide attacks, knockbacks, launchers (and following launchers), knockdowns, quick safe attacks, slow high investment attacks in exchange for higher damage/combo opportunities, repositioning attacks, crowd AoEs and more. You also have options for ranged attacks (with bullets, lasers, sweeping shockwaves, rockets for differing effects), charge attacks, staggering enemies and dispersing crowds, repositioning (enemies and yourself), multi-hit and freezing enemies, planting mines, and more.
On top of all of this, each pin has different attack speeds, damage outputs, ranges, and special utilities, which encourages you to mix and match in order to find the best possible combination for you and equip a deck that is highly synergized. Even low-powered pins end up being useful in the lategame thanks to quick reboot time compared to the higher damaging types, which is also great for building up Groove faster and getting those 6x Mashups, making for an incredibly balanced system for the most part.
Any good action game worth its salt rewards good positioning and NEO does that and then some and even expands on it compared to the original in multiple ways, both in regard to how you can lay down traps to catch Noise off guard and how you can utilize Mashups in extending your combos or take down enemies quickly. This also applies to how pins work as well.
Take how Massive Hit targets enemies for example. If you line it up just right, you can catch multiple enemies in your line of fire while you're on your way to kick the target into next week or up into the sky. Same thing also applies to Assassin Strike and I actually used this trick to stun multiple enemies at the same time. There's also some cool stuff that you can pull off with Patrol Rounds. The thing about them is how they ALWAYS come back to you after you launch them and if you position yourself to have the Patrol Round come back at you in a specific way by running to a spot, you can catch multiple enemies in the arc as the rounds makes their way towards you. This method also makes taking down Chameleon Noise a breeze since they're usually right by enemies and when you target the Noise next to them, they tend to get caught in the crossfire, which makes them easy to spot. Grenade Launcher, Patrol Round, Psychic Shotgun, Storm, and Diffusion Beam pins are especially useful for this.
Another cool thing about NEO is how even pins with the same Psych archetype actually have differing ways to make them stand apart mechanically.
For example, the Patrol Round pins each have different arcs that effect how they return towards you and impact enemies.
Cony x Cony (the Gravity variant) shoots out 5 different boomerangs and come back to you as five while Stop the Music (Burst variant you win from Scramble Slam) shoots out 3 different boomerangs but come back to you as one.
On paper, this might make Stop the Music sound worse but you have to keep their Beatdrop conditions in mind. Cony x Cony requires for an enemy/boss to be knocked down to the ground and/or launched in order for you to activate its Beatdrop whereas Stop the Music just has you hitting the enemy with the explosion it activates in order to get the Beatdrop. Little stuff like this can have an impact on how you approach combat when it comes to the bosses and mob design and it's like this for a lot of pins in the game, which I appreciate.
All in all, it’s a very robust and fun battle system with a lot of depth to its various mechanics and the bosses show these aspects off quite nicely, providing fun and unique mechanics of their own as well as a decent challenge if you’re fighting on the higher difficulties. A lot of people are under the impression that button-mashing is the optimal strategy and while that can probably get you through the main game on the lower difficulties, they fail to consider these factors:
-Noise have built-in forced retaliation (think revenge values from Kingdom Hearts.) The enemies will flash yellow, while during this, the damage they received, during combos after the fact, multiplies the enemy attack by how much damage was done to it, then it will flash red and instantly counter attack you with the damages built up in its system. The system is different for a few enemies but will instantly begin the moment they flash yellow. Which means that just button mashing can get you killed, especially when you’re engaging in long chain battles and the revenge values become far more frequent throughout each round.
-There are multiple pin set-ups that highly reward you for timing your combos right in order to build up the most Groove in one go, especially when you unlock the Beatdrop sweetspot mechanic later on that can increase your Groove intake when hitting the Beatdrop in a certain spot (which also differs depending on the pin)
-Ememy design has a decent amount of variety, forcing you to think about what sort of pins and threads to bring into battle as there’s not really one deck that makes short work of every enemy. The dinos, mammoths, and birds are prime examples of these
-Just mashing the buttons all at once will leave you unable able to properly counterattack against particularly troublesome enemies and will most likely lead to you dying multiple times
-The game itself ranks you on how much time you’ve taken playing through a chain as well as how much damage you’ve taken overall, incentivizing you to get better at the mechanics as higher rankings leads to higher PP intake, which is incredibly handy for leveling up and evolving pins.
Another thing I want to talk about is the music and man, they absolutely nailed it yet again. Much like the original, NEO covers a large variety of genres while also going for it’s own distinct vibe at the same time. Whereas the original went for a mix of J-pop, disco, and J-rock, with some stray metal, piano, and rap here and there, NEO goes for a more balanced mix of J-rock and metal, with more rap and pop mixed into tracks with heavier sections, as well as a greater emphasis on mashups, electric instruments, and blended-up and crunchier versions of old songs. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its own fair share of genre variety, however, as the game also contains various genres such as liquid DnB, techno, acoustic, club, drum n bass, power pop, symphonic nu-metal, and more. On top of that, the songs in NEO are much more closely tied to the themes of the game and the progression of the characters, with some even cleverly foreshadowing character details that get revealed later on, such as We’re Losing You and Shibuya Survivor. One thing in particular that I want to talk about in regards to the soundtrack is the inclusion of Soundsurfing and how much I love it’s implementation. Not only is it a clever way to speed up overworld traversal and make traversing through Shibuya a breeze, it’s gives you additional Groove intake bonuses that carry over to a round, which is an incredible use of gameplay mechanics synergizing well with one another. On top of that, Soundsurfing gives almost every song in the game additional and unique percussive elements to spice up the soundtrack even more, giving the music even more variety, which is genuinely impressive as hell. And lastly, it adds up to one incredible usage in the final boss fight.
All-in-all, NEO is a fantastic game and a more than worthy successor to one of the best games on the DS and I tip my hat off to the devs for managing to create another compelling experience even after all of these years.
And with that, I bid you adieu.
SYSTEMATIC WORLD KILLIN ME
Week 2 sucks
This review contains spoilers
NEO: The World ends with You, unfortunately had all of the odds stacked against it. from Square Enix's frankly moronic marketing decisions and unrealistic expectations. (Square, you are actually fucking high for thinking this would even compare Final Fantasy 7 Remake sales wise. ) Which is quite sad considering how great this game really is. While I do prefer the first game a bit (mostly for story reasons) to say NEO isn't a worthy sequel would be a bit of a lie in my eyes.
Let's start off with the gameplay, the way you can experiment with so many different types of pins and the synergies they all have pretty much almost always allows you to approach battles differently. chaining a bunch of attacks together feels satisfying especially when you get to top it all of with a huge super move like the elemental killer mixes (which also can also be used as combo tools depending on which element of the pin you last used so it's really not just your generic powerful damaging move) or the 300% one if you're low on health and want to increase drop rates. Now, I totally understand that this game's gameplay doesn't really have the same ludonarrative storytelling as the first game with it's partner system, which is a bit of a disappointment. but for me, this comes with the strength of the game being much easier to go back to since I don't have to deal with touch controls. both have their inherent strength and weaknesses, I cannot possibly say which one is "objectively better". though I do find myself having more fun with NEO's combat. Now, if there was one complaint I have about the combat is that some of the enemies are really, REALLY damn tedious to fight. the Wolf and ESPECIALLY the Chameleon noise come to mind. The Wolves absolutely love running around the field which can make your slashing and projectile pins whiff, not only that. the gold ones you fight in week 2 can leave a trail of fire, meaning you get BURNT EVERYTIME YOU TOUCH IT! not only that, some of these mongrels absolutely love jumping from off screen and then binding one of your party members. you have to target them and damage them enough to let them go...this feels incredibly frustrating especially since the game, especially in week 3 loves throwing a pool of enemies at you. this gets even worse when you account for the dive missions, WHICH ARE TIME BASED! so you can lose time for essentially getting attacked off screen...the Chameleon noise is another one that enjoys wasting your time since you have to wait for it to appear before you can deal any sort of damage for it. now, I wouldn't really mind this if these waiting times weren't so DAMN long. oh and to add the cherry on top of the shit Sundae, in week 3. you fight a variant of chameleon noise that can heal enemies back to full health. But thankfully, for the most part. the other enemies are tolerable or actually pretty damn fun to fight (the bosses, the Grizzly noise, Stingers etc). Overall, I still think NEO has a great combat due it's sheer variety of pins and the synergies they can have with one and other.
Let's get to the characters, shall we? to say we have a great cast of characters on our hands would be an understatement. I think all of them are really likeable and serve some purpose in the plot at least, on top of just being really interesting and well written. I will not be going over all of them because frankly, we would be here all day. so I'm thinking of doing dives on Rindo, Beat and Shoka. Despite me not doing dives on a lot of them, I do think a lot of these lads are genuinely entertaining (Kubo is such a fun villain, same with Minamimoto. and Nagi, while she can be a bit annoying at times, was still great to have around.)
Rindo's arc is about overcoming the struggles of making hard decisions and being generally passive, this is somewhat obvious as he pretty much entirely relied on Minamimoto for Week 1. his morale was absolutely destroyed when he left the team, losing all hope of winning the game. However, his development at the end of the game changes from him being passive to making incredibly huge decisions such as going back in time to save his friends after they were killed at the risk of making the "boss" fight even harder since every time he used this time travel abilities, the "boss" would get stronger...plus, seeing all of the characters in the game team up at the end of the game was just really awesome to see. while I much prefer Neku as a protagonist, Rindo is still pretty good.
to say I was excited when I saw Beat again in week 2 would be an understatement in the century, he's probably one of my all time favorite characters in all of gaming. and I'm happy to say he's absolutely great here, I love his vulgar attitude towards the reapers but he's like a genuinely caring bigger brother (pretty fitting, huh?) to the wicked twisters and their allies. I'd say he's like the second leader of the team. I was so happy everytime I saw this blonde shithead spoke. I wouldn't love this game THIS much if it wasn't for the GOAT himself #BeatSupremacy also, I'm not exactly sure if Breaking Free is his theme (I'm confident it is though since it aligns with his backstory pretty well) but my god Breaking Free is such an amazing song, the lyrics hit too fucking close to home ;_; I'm literally him fr
Shoka is probably my favorite New-comer from NEO. She was a huge dickhead to the Wicked Twisters at the start of the game. Seeing her get more and more discontent with being a Reaper, eventually rejecting her closest form of family (being Ayano and the other Reapers) to live for herself was an amazing moment. Also damn...her reaction to Ayano getting erased was genuinely sad :( the only real issue I had is that Ayano was the closest character in this game to feel like a "plot device" for another character's development, Kanon and Motoi had enough screentime to make an impression to make you feel SOMETHING at least for them...but Ayano just feels like she didn't do that much sadly. But still, Seeing Shoka being so vunerable to her friend's death was heartbreaking, man ;_; but also really heartwarming to see her eventually open up to the twisters and her "fearless leader". I think out of all of the characters Shoka has the most "noticable" development out of all of them...but saying the others were underdeveloped would also be really disingenious to me. (ESPECIALLY fret, he may not be a favorite of mine but I can't deny that him learning from Kanon to be genuine to those around him was absolutely fucking great.)
Overall, I highly recommend this to anyone who has played the first game. trust me, it won't disappoint. but please, play the first game before playing this one because a lot of scenes just don't feel that impactful if you haven't played the first one and you'll also just be somewhat lost as well.
I would like to thank you all for reading this, I love both of these stupid ass games and probably impacted the way I see life. Remember y'all,The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, expand your world. You gotta push your horizons out as far as they'll go. I shall bid y'all adieu, sheeple of Backloggd. <3
Let's start off with the gameplay, the way you can experiment with so many different types of pins and the synergies they all have pretty much almost always allows you to approach battles differently. chaining a bunch of attacks together feels satisfying especially when you get to top it all of with a huge super move like the elemental killer mixes (which also can also be used as combo tools depending on which element of the pin you last used so it's really not just your generic powerful damaging move) or the 300% one if you're low on health and want to increase drop rates. Now, I totally understand that this game's gameplay doesn't really have the same ludonarrative storytelling as the first game with it's partner system, which is a bit of a disappointment. but for me, this comes with the strength of the game being much easier to go back to since I don't have to deal with touch controls. both have their inherent strength and weaknesses, I cannot possibly say which one is "objectively better". though I do find myself having more fun with NEO's combat. Now, if there was one complaint I have about the combat is that some of the enemies are really, REALLY damn tedious to fight. the Wolf and ESPECIALLY the Chameleon noise come to mind. The Wolves absolutely love running around the field which can make your slashing and projectile pins whiff, not only that. the gold ones you fight in week 2 can leave a trail of fire, meaning you get BURNT EVERYTIME YOU TOUCH IT! not only that, some of these mongrels absolutely love jumping from off screen and then binding one of your party members. you have to target them and damage them enough to let them go...this feels incredibly frustrating especially since the game, especially in week 3 loves throwing a pool of enemies at you. this gets even worse when you account for the dive missions, WHICH ARE TIME BASED! so you can lose time for essentially getting attacked off screen...the Chameleon noise is another one that enjoys wasting your time since you have to wait for it to appear before you can deal any sort of damage for it. now, I wouldn't really mind this if these waiting times weren't so DAMN long. oh and to add the cherry on top of the shit Sundae, in week 3. you fight a variant of chameleon noise that can heal enemies back to full health. But thankfully, for the most part. the other enemies are tolerable or actually pretty damn fun to fight (the bosses, the Grizzly noise, Stingers etc). Overall, I still think NEO has a great combat due it's sheer variety of pins and the synergies they can have with one and other.
Let's get to the characters, shall we? to say we have a great cast of characters on our hands would be an understatement. I think all of them are really likeable and serve some purpose in the plot at least, on top of just being really interesting and well written. I will not be going over all of them because frankly, we would be here all day. so I'm thinking of doing dives on Rindo, Beat and Shoka. Despite me not doing dives on a lot of them, I do think a lot of these lads are genuinely entertaining (Kubo is such a fun villain, same with Minamimoto. and Nagi, while she can be a bit annoying at times, was still great to have around.)
Rindo's arc is about overcoming the struggles of making hard decisions and being generally passive, this is somewhat obvious as he pretty much entirely relied on Minamimoto for Week 1. his morale was absolutely destroyed when he left the team, losing all hope of winning the game. However, his development at the end of the game changes from him being passive to making incredibly huge decisions such as going back in time to save his friends after they were killed at the risk of making the "boss" fight even harder since every time he used this time travel abilities, the "boss" would get stronger...plus, seeing all of the characters in the game team up at the end of the game was just really awesome to see. while I much prefer Neku as a protagonist, Rindo is still pretty good.
to say I was excited when I saw Beat again in week 2 would be an understatement in the century, he's probably one of my all time favorite characters in all of gaming. and I'm happy to say he's absolutely great here, I love his vulgar attitude towards the reapers but he's like a genuinely caring bigger brother (pretty fitting, huh?) to the wicked twisters and their allies. I'd say he's like the second leader of the team. I was so happy everytime I saw this blonde shithead spoke. I wouldn't love this game THIS much if it wasn't for the GOAT himself #BeatSupremacy also, I'm not exactly sure if Breaking Free is his theme (I'm confident it is though since it aligns with his backstory pretty well) but my god Breaking Free is such an amazing song, the lyrics hit too fucking close to home ;_; I'm literally him fr
Shoka is probably my favorite New-comer from NEO. She was a huge dickhead to the Wicked Twisters at the start of the game. Seeing her get more and more discontent with being a Reaper, eventually rejecting her closest form of family (being Ayano and the other Reapers) to live for herself was an amazing moment. Also damn...her reaction to Ayano getting erased was genuinely sad :( the only real issue I had is that Ayano was the closest character in this game to feel like a "plot device" for another character's development, Kanon and Motoi had enough screentime to make an impression to make you feel SOMETHING at least for them...but Ayano just feels like she didn't do that much sadly. But still, Seeing Shoka being so vunerable to her friend's death was heartbreaking, man ;_; but also really heartwarming to see her eventually open up to the twisters and her "fearless leader". I think out of all of the characters Shoka has the most "noticable" development out of all of them...but saying the others were underdeveloped would also be really disingenious to me. (ESPECIALLY fret, he may not be a favorite of mine but I can't deny that him learning from Kanon to be genuine to those around him was absolutely fucking great.)
Overall, I highly recommend this to anyone who has played the first game. trust me, it won't disappoint. but please, play the first game before playing this one because a lot of scenes just don't feel that impactful if you haven't played the first one and you'll also just be somewhat lost as well.
I would like to thank you all for reading this, I love both of these stupid ass games and probably impacted the way I see life. Remember y'all,The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, expand your world. You gotta push your horizons out as far as they'll go. I shall bid y'all adieu, sheeple of Backloggd. <3
the persona 5 of weathering with you
A fun game with a few major issues. I liked all the games characters and the story was great with a few twists I really enjoyed. One thing I disliked was the protagonists ability to rewind time making it so the game would go 'Whoops! you messed up! Go back and do it again.' which wouldn't matter as much if I could make choices, but I can't. Combat is also mostly fun, picking pins to synergize to max the groove and rain hellfire on your enemies. The biggest issue comes from your entire party sharing a health bar, so if you take a strong attack it's a big problem, and enemies with wide AOE attacks like the fucking chameleons (Seriously, even Steve Irwin would hate chameleons if he played this game) having the potential to one shot your party. And while the story is good, it tries to relate to the problems of modern teenagers while also being a direct sequel to the DS original, who's original players would be in their late 20's-early 30's by now, leaving the game floundering for a demographic outside of the small pool of people who played the switch remake or watched the anime adaptation when it came out (which I luckily fit into so I got a lot out of it, but it needs to be said.)
While I personally really enjoyed this game, I can't fully recommend it to people due to it's extremely small demographic of teenagers who also stumbled upon and played the (very good) original. But if you do fall into that, you'll find a great but flawed experience waiting for you
While I personally really enjoyed this game, I can't fully recommend it to people due to it's extremely small demographic of teenagers who also stumbled upon and played the (very good) original. But if you do fall into that, you'll find a great but flawed experience waiting for you
Zero Seven Seven Three Four.
Peak fanservice
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
TAKE A LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEEEE
TAKE A LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEEEE
NEO: The World Ends With You might be one of the best games I've played in recent years and slowly crept its way up as being one of my all-time favorites. The original The World Ends With You became one of my favorite games due to its excellent story, interesting characters, and great usage of the Nintendo DS through its gameplay. On top of being one of the most delightfully stylized video games I've ever played.
It’s not like Persona 4 (from the small amount I've played) where it feels like a game not really as stylized as people tend to make it out to be. And the stylization just amounts to having colorful menu screens and an OST composed of mid2000s anime openings. It’s not inherently a bad thing, but it makes the game feel aesthetically awkward in how hard it tries to push its presentation in relation to its own game design.
TWEWY, on the other hand, oozes with style. Every single aspect of the game is heavily deep fried, drenched, and marinated with the aesthetics of Japanese youth culture in Shibuya. It isn’t just from the punkish graffiti inspired UI, the absolute banger soundtrack, the usage of fashion trends as part of important game mechanics, the beat ‘em up rhythmic combat, or even the intimate map to engross you into the livelihoods of the people wandering Shibuya, it also relates to the game’s narrative.
Like every character in TWEWY, Neku’s story revolves around his connection to Shibuya and what it means to him. To Neku, Shibuya is his world. But it’s also a world that doesn’t have to end with him. His journey is learning to broaden his horizons, form human connections, which lets the world begin with him. Neku’s iconic design featuring his signature headphones, showing him literally tuning out the people of Shibuya but himself, which he throws away at the end of the game shows this change. Even the game’s combat hinges on Neku being able to cooperate and sync with rotating partners to progress throughout TWEWY. It’s taking the aesthetics and themes of the story and turns them into important parts of the gameplay.
The World Ends With You isn’t a game where style is over substance --- the style is the substance.
In many ways, NEO almost functions as a soft reboot of the original game. It intentionally retreads many beats from the original to compare how much Shibuya has changed since then. The biggest difference between the two is how NEO presents a Shibuya affected by the presence of the internet and modern Gen Z millennial youth culture. While I think the original TWEWY might have stronger individual characters, NEO: TWEWY has a more dynamic cast. Rindo would feel like “Neku but a millennial”, which isn’t wrong, but weirdly his character is more like a better executed Max from Life is Strange. Right down to one detail that I won’t spoil. His arc isn’t quite as interesting as Neku’s but I think it works well enough to complement the running themes of the game.
NEO still follows up on the theme of letting “the world begin with you”. This time around it’s more about the importance of opening who you really are to form these connections with people. While Neku’s arc was the Hedgehog’s Dilemma, Rindo’s is him overcoming his insecurity and indecisiveness. NEO emphasizes this through controlling an entire team of characters instead of rotating partners. This new combat feels like a perfect synthesis of Hades’ customizable hack-n-slash combat and Re;Chain of Memories’ more strategic action oriented card-based combat. Which is funny to mention because the original Chain of Memories was also developed by h.a.n.D. NEO's combat is great because not only is it a natural improvement of the DS game’s combat that still keeps intact what made it unique, but it also ties into the improved theme of forming connections. The better you get the handle of customizing your party’s pins and combos, the more you really begin to feel these characters get together as one team.
I could see the structure and pacing of the game being a turn off. It recycles the same weekly structure as the original albeit not as tight, with some days feeling padded out with not too much to do. Not to mention the backtracking you’re going to have to do for a lot of days. Especially when you’re playing it on hard mode where you do a lot of grinding which I didn’t mind because of how addicting it was. Aside from that, the writing is just great, the characters are all fun yet realistic, it probably has the best soundtrack for a video i’ve heard in years, and is overall a worthy successor to the original.
It’s not like Persona 4 (from the small amount I've played) where it feels like a game not really as stylized as people tend to make it out to be. And the stylization just amounts to having colorful menu screens and an OST composed of mid2000s anime openings. It’s not inherently a bad thing, but it makes the game feel aesthetically awkward in how hard it tries to push its presentation in relation to its own game design.
TWEWY, on the other hand, oozes with style. Every single aspect of the game is heavily deep fried, drenched, and marinated with the aesthetics of Japanese youth culture in Shibuya. It isn’t just from the punkish graffiti inspired UI, the absolute banger soundtrack, the usage of fashion trends as part of important game mechanics, the beat ‘em up rhythmic combat, or even the intimate map to engross you into the livelihoods of the people wandering Shibuya, it also relates to the game’s narrative.
Like every character in TWEWY, Neku’s story revolves around his connection to Shibuya and what it means to him. To Neku, Shibuya is his world. But it’s also a world that doesn’t have to end with him. His journey is learning to broaden his horizons, form human connections, which lets the world begin with him. Neku’s iconic design featuring his signature headphones, showing him literally tuning out the people of Shibuya but himself, which he throws away at the end of the game shows this change. Even the game’s combat hinges on Neku being able to cooperate and sync with rotating partners to progress throughout TWEWY. It’s taking the aesthetics and themes of the story and turns them into important parts of the gameplay.
The World Ends With You isn’t a game where style is over substance --- the style is the substance.
In many ways, NEO almost functions as a soft reboot of the original game. It intentionally retreads many beats from the original to compare how much Shibuya has changed since then. The biggest difference between the two is how NEO presents a Shibuya affected by the presence of the internet and modern Gen Z millennial youth culture. While I think the original TWEWY might have stronger individual characters, NEO: TWEWY has a more dynamic cast. Rindo would feel like “Neku but a millennial”, which isn’t wrong, but weirdly his character is more like a better executed Max from Life is Strange. Right down to one detail that I won’t spoil. His arc isn’t quite as interesting as Neku’s but I think it works well enough to complement the running themes of the game.
NEO still follows up on the theme of letting “the world begin with you”. This time around it’s more about the importance of opening who you really are to form these connections with people. While Neku’s arc was the Hedgehog’s Dilemma, Rindo’s is him overcoming his insecurity and indecisiveness. NEO emphasizes this through controlling an entire team of characters instead of rotating partners. This new combat feels like a perfect synthesis of Hades’ customizable hack-n-slash combat and Re;Chain of Memories’ more strategic action oriented card-based combat. Which is funny to mention because the original Chain of Memories was also developed by h.a.n.D. NEO's combat is great because not only is it a natural improvement of the DS game’s combat that still keeps intact what made it unique, but it also ties into the improved theme of forming connections. The better you get the handle of customizing your party’s pins and combos, the more you really begin to feel these characters get together as one team.
I could see the structure and pacing of the game being a turn off. It recycles the same weekly structure as the original albeit not as tight, with some days feeling padded out with not too much to do. Not to mention the backtracking you’re going to have to do for a lot of days. Especially when you’re playing it on hard mode where you do a lot of grinding which I didn’t mind because of how addicting it was. Aside from that, the writing is just great, the characters are all fun yet realistic, it probably has the best soundtrack for a video i’ve heard in years, and is overall a worthy successor to the original.