TWEWY is one of my favourite games so a sequel like this is a dream come true for me and overall I think this is a pretty good follow up; I will draw a lot of comparisons to the original in this but do note that I still love this game.

NEO has an overhauled battle system which takes cues from the original but forges its own identity, although I wouldn't say that it's very complicated - mixing and matching pins to combo into one another is fun and rewarding. I don't think they switch things up enough that battles are constantly engaging since you inevitably run out of pins to discover and level up; due to this game being longer than the original, battles outside of boss fights can be a bit mind-numbing at times especially in the late game when you're forced to do more fights. I played on normal the whole time but I definitely recommend switching difficulties and your level every now and then. I would have liked more to do outside of battles and story sequences like a couple minigames or something but the puzzle solving missions were fun at least. Side-quests were nice additions and some tie nicely into the themes like the Eiru quests but others are very one note and exist solely to add more abilities to the social network grid. Overall I think it's solid but the game length is a bit strange - it's not like it being 20 hours or so more than the original really adds anything it just means you're doing the same stuff for longer.

As for the story: Rindo is a great protagonist, whilst I prefer Neku, I do still relate a lot to Rindo. I love how his time powers force him from his usual passive self into a more active person and they use it for some cool scenarios; the other characters are pretty good as well and I liked every member of the party but I couldn't help feeling that some big character moments were missing or executed weirdly; Fret does very little outside of pushing Rindo into action and saying funny dialogue but then all of his 'growth' is shoved into the last act of the game which felt a bit jarring. I also would've liked it if Rindo actually told the party how important they are to him at the end instead of only telling Hazuki, which would show how willing to share his thoughts he is after everything. I have yet to get all the secret reports (or other post game stuff) and I kinda want to replay it to look closer at certain aspects of the story but I liked how it increased the scale from the last game even if I think the story is overall weaker than the original.

There's a shift in focus onto the plot over the characters from the first game which might work for certain people but I really enjoyed how everything in the first game was so tightly written for Neku's arc and was really hoping for the same with Rindo but even so they didn't completely abandon the characters' stories so it was satisfying enough for me. The returning characters were hit-or-miss personally: loved Minamimoto and Beat's inclusion and the Shibuya reapers but Neku's return opened a can of worms I wasn't too fond off - taking the spotlight away from the new cast for what I felt were, at times, overly gratuitous fanservice scenes of 'the gang's back together!!' moments when it didn't contribute to the main plot.

Lastly, I'll discuss music and art direction because hot damn did they pop off. The original tracks are stellar and instantly iconic like SCRAMBLE, Last Call, Kill the Itch, World is Yours and more; the remixes whilst not always better than the originals are nice takes on the classics; loved the remixes of Owari-Hajimari and Make or Break. The presentation of the cutscenes are also amazing - the illustrations of all the characters breathe so much life into every moment and the 3D cutscenes are animated so stylishly, the voice acting is also really good I loved how real these kids sounded so kudos to the voice actors and directors. In conclusion, this is a really nice follow up and while it doesn't reach the highs of the original, NEO is still very enjoyable.

[start of review]

This very long review is an update to my demo impressions now that I've finished the game. Those original impressions can be seen below the review. Spoilers for both TWEWY and NEO TWEWY ahead - if you've not played TWEWY yet, please play the DS version if possible.

I knew going into this game that it wouldn't be the best game ever - I wanted to be realistic, but I didn't want to try being overly pessimistic. As one could see from my demo review below, I was trying to be hopeful even though I saw a lot wrong from the get-go.

This game exceeded my expectations. However, it also did little to stop itself from being barely above average.

NEO TWEWY is a game carried by its gameplay. It manages to be a new spin on the multitasking hectic battles of the original, but it does so without meaning or an understanding of what made the original good. It had plenty of missed opportunities: for example, despite the game adding in elemental and input affinities and having up to 6 characters playable at once, there are no traces of characters having specific preferences for brands, elements, or inputs. Putting even one of these things in the game would have made each individual character less bland in gameplay. In practice, this means that in NEO TWEWY the characters all feel exactly the same to play as outside of their numbers. In a game following up on another which emphasized the value of differences between people, I find it pretty sad that this flew under the radar. The closest thing to the idea I put forward was that a few pins will only mutate if equipped by a certain character. That's pitiful. (It also bothers me that Neku has been nerfed to use only one pin at a time and Beat has been semi-buffed to be able to use any pin. Bleh, inconsistency.)

Still, the way the game plays is fun (though my fingers hurt by the end of it). Putting together cool pin combos is satisfying, and on the actual battlefield it's cool to get groove combos down as well. I found the super attacks to be underwhelming, unfortunately, and I also found it disappointing that the game had a level of legit pin powercreep that TWEWY never did. Of course, its battle system also lacked the narrative relevance that TWEWY's did, but that was to be expected. It also ran like shit on Switch, and I've heard it's not really that much better on PS4.

Aaanyway, I'm getting too negative here. To say more good about the gameplay, I think the movement on the overworld is nice, especially once you unlock Beat's extra movement abilities. Chaining Noise is easier than ever and the game practically begs to be 100%ed (though unlike with the original, I don't think I had enough attachment to this one to really try for the 100%...). The in-battle quotes, while repetitive at times, are fun and silly and certainly enjoyable (just make sure to turn down voices to 5 and sound effects to 4 while having music at 10). The music should be turned up to 10 for a reason: a few tracks did annoy me, but by and large this OST is pretty damn good and has a few standout tracks that challenge TWEWY's better ones. Oh yeah, playing as Neku and Beat is a nice throwback for sure, and playing as Sho is a treat (though he and Neku barely have time to shine due to when they appear). The NEO redesigns in general are cool, particularly for side characters like the Prince and Uzuki. Neku looked a bit off to me but besides that I was happy, especially considering Shiki's full face was finally revealed.

Speaking of which, NEO is a game filled with fanservice of varying degrees of quality. It sprinkles it fairly respectfully for the majority of its runtime but dips a bit too deep into it in the endgame to the point of overshadowing the main new characters (unsurprising considering how underbaked said characters are for 2/3 of the game). Despite the fanservice thankfully not being offensive to the characters of the original game, this once again failed to do so with any real meaning or understanding of what made them revered and beloved in the first place. I didn't need to see an extended "where are they now" reel of Neku and his friends. The ending of the first game did that job just fine by presenting a somewhat ambiguous but very much optimistic vision not only of Neku removing his headphones, but also of the gang finally getting back together to hopefully live life together with Joshua watching over them. While it's great that Rhyme found herself a new dream and Shiki's business took off in NEO, I really didn't need to see those things. I could already hope for the former based on the secret reports in TWEWY and assume the latter based on Tsugumi's image in Solo Remix (not to mention just general optimism - again, a feeling that's emphasized in the original's ending).

I guess this would be a good time to segue into the characters. I'm about to rant about the protagonist, so skip this paragraph if you don't care about that. Rindo is legitimately frustrating to watch due to his botched character arc and his genuine incompetence at almost all times throughout the story. Him learning to take responsibility and make his own choices is a good lesson to learn, but his arc is just a series of statements he and others make about how he is followed by him making some decisions to serve the plot. In reality, Rindo doesn't show his intended character flaw much at all. He constantly makes completely stupid decisions specifically so that the plot can force him into using his time powers, and even then he's taking responsibility for everything every time he goes back even if he doesn't choose to do so. I can go on about him having a very shaky base character to develop from, but that'd take too long. Rindo's problem isn't that he doesn't take responsibility or make his own choices; it's that he's incredibly dense. Even when his time travel powers supposedly come back to bite him in the ass he still fucking turns back time to fix everything. FUCK Rindo. You know what might have been neat? Maybe acknowledging that the very power he uses is not necessarily a responsibility but instead can just be a way of pushing it away. Maybe have Rindo legitimately use the power for some personal gain rather than for survival. That'd make his uses of it in early week 3 - the most intelligently written uses of the power, I might add - actually meaningful. The game's writers instead opted to only focus on the responsibility Rindo has with his power, seemingly forgetting how he'd heroically bitten the bullet and used it a handful of times long before he had moved forward in the arc he allegedly has.

With that rant over, it's now time to talk about the other characters. NEO TWEWY actually did give me a pleasant surprise in that its new main characters besides Rindo were actually pretty compelling - Shoka, Fret, Nagi, and Kanon stood out with the former two having nice arcs and the latter two being great stable characters. The problem I have is mainly that the two who do develop don't really do so at all until the second half of the game; while Fret's problems are teased at by Kanon just a little bit in every encounter of theirs, it means almost nothing to the player until Fret is finally given the screentime to deal with said teases. For Shoka, she has her screentime cut early on and doesn't really return for anything meaningful until almost 2/3 into the game - at that point, the player had only ever really seen her as Reaper Megan. She didn't really have a base to develop from, which is why almost all of her development was based on recontextualization. It worked, yes, but it's just another example of an underlying problem this game has...

NEO TWEWY has some elements of the skeleton of TWEWY, but it didn't build very creatively upon it and did not improve, either. The pacing of the first third of TWEWY was quick to suit how it was an extended tutorial of sorts and a starting point for Neku. It introduced almost all the most important characters to the plot while also introducing players to the Reapers' Game as a concept (not to mention subtly setting up the Conductor's final gambit). NEO got the memo that the first week ought to be an extended tutorial but had no real ideas to work on during said tutorial. At most it gives a few nudges and hints that Sho had ulterior motives and that the Ruinbringers were cheating, as well as sooorta introducing the Reapers' Game to newcomers to the franchise. In terms of character setups it did almost nothing. The Deep River Society were erased following their introduction and the Purehearts got basically 0 screentime. The Ruinbringers had one of their members appear on one day and then had his actual (boring) characterization show up on the last one. Only the Variabeauties got more than one minute of screentime, but even then they weren't featured heavily until the next week.

Going into week 2 in TWEWY brought the player into finally getting to understand how the eponymous Reapers functioned as a hierarchy as well as what their jobs actually meant. It gave Neku a true test of his developing character in the form of Joshua, who just happened to also be an extremely crucial character in his own right. Further, it established the mystery of Neku's death and the mystery of the Shibuya River. Perhaps most importantly it set up the highest point of relevant power in the game: the Composer. By comparison, week 2 of NEO was quite a lot more barebones. Its missions were mostly filler to give more screentime to the Variabeauties and Purehearts - good on them for that - but the problem was that the missions were still just filler. It was great that Beat showed up, of course, and I love him to death... but he didn't add anything of value to things besides being an exposition dump to catch newcomers up to speed with what happened in TWEWY. Up until the tail end of week 2, little of interest happened once again. The end did at least expose the Ruinbringers' cheating ways by showing that Shiba was indeed their leader... but I personally found that twist more frustrating and immature than anything else. Perhaps others disagree.

Week 3 for TWEWY obviously ramped things up. Neku's character arc was in full swing, having gotten past the turning point and now finally meeting back with a familiar face in Beat. Week 3, while technically being an entirely 'filler' week in terms of missions, used its time to finish up Beat's own smaller arc and act as a final test for Neku to show how he'd changed. The Reapers got more screentime than ever and the stakes were ramped up high, and as more and more of Shibuya was brought into the Conductor's instrumentality plot, there was an increasing sense of dread and isolation that was palpable by endgame. While NEO tried to ape that last bit, it had long since shot itself in the foot in those efforts. While week 3 was most certainly the best part of the game in terms of actual shit happening, a lot of it happened too fast and too close together. The days in which major characters were actually erased - especially Kanon - were meaningful in that they cut the 'good guy' cast down to just the main characters. However... soon afterward the party grew to six members, two of which were veterans of the first game and considered living legends. So many characters besides them were still roaming the streets and doing their own things, too, and so the atmosphere of dread that the silver Dire Dire Docks sky brought was dulled and defanged constantly. The stakes were effectively equal in both games, but TWEWY had the balls to actually put the pressure on the player. On top of all of this general failing at atmosphere, NEO took its weird shit way too far right at the end of the week with a pretty pitiful payoff.

For some reason NEO had to try copying some of the base ideas that TWEWY's big endgame twist had. First, the idea that the supposed main antagonist was truly a puppet of sorts for someone who seemed to be their lesser - while admittedly I think NEO did it just fine, I found that the actual resolution was handled sloppily. That brings me to the second similarity - that some kind of final gambit would have to be overcome in order to save Shibuya. However, again, the resolution was uh... strange in one. In NEO's case, it was...

- Kubo summoning a fuckton of Noise coming from Rindo's special time pin, then slaughtering all of Rindo's friends
- Going back in time in order to get Shiba not to attack the party
- Kubo summoning a fuckton of Noise coming from Rindo's special time pin, then slaughtering all of Rindo's friends
- Meeting Haz, then going back in time in order to get Shiba to help the party, but also bringing in Rhyme to help hack shit and discover the Noise's weakness, and also bringing in Shiki to repair Tsugumi's Mr. Mew doll to free her from her prison, but also convincing that one Reaper with the ugly haircut to talk to Shiba
- Beating up the Noise, then summoning up a super attack to finish them off

In TWEWY's case, it was...

- Having a 10-second Western-style duel with Joshua

The difference between these two, besides the former being hilariously convoluted, is that the second one was a big bow meant to tie up Neku's character arc as well as Josh's much more subtle one. The first one included as some part of it the idea that Rindo's character arc was being fulfilled, but as I described before it was effectively just him going through the time travel motions. This time, he just had higher stakes. ... I would argue that him making the choice to go back in time after meeting Haz was just due to some reverse psychology, not as some powerful indication of his growth of character. It frankly isn't anything I wouldn't expect him to do on day 1.

Oh gosh, the comparison game is getting a bit old by now, isn't it? I'll do one last one before I move onto talking about NEO as a standalone game again. As I stated in my demo review, NEO uses the title of TWEWY with basically zero substance and very little understanding of the first game's merits. The very end of the game gives you a little screen showing the title going from NEO The World Ends With You to NEO The World Begins With You, clearly echoing the way the first game did that in its own secret ending. Funnily enough, it was that exact point which convinced me to sit down for an hour and write this whole review down. The way "The World Begins With You" was used in TWEWY, while pretty cheesy, was actually meaningful. It flipped the title (and Mr. H's statement) in a way that didn't invalidate it, but instead complemented it: with Neku finally removing his headphones in the RG, the growth of his world could finally begin. In NEO, the title change meant literally nothing in the context of the game. If anything, it reminded me of how NEO and Final Remix effectively robbed Neku of the world 'beginning' with him. Fuck that shit. I could also go on about how the secret post-credits conversation between Josh and Haz was just a subpar attempt at doing the one-sided convo Josh and Mr. H had in TWEWY, but I'm already making this 'final comparison' way too long.

It's high time we get back to NEO as a standalone game. I think that in terms of it being 'what it is' - an anime-styled modern JRPG marketed for mass appeal - it works fine. Hell, it might even be a quality example of such a thing. It certainly didn't talk down to the player with its writing very often, and it put forward enough interesting ideas to hopefully draw newcomers into playing the original game (hopefully on the DS). It does play well as I said and for newcomers there's likely little to complain about there, as my gripes were largely made up of "okay but why didn't you take [idea X] further?" based on my experience with the first game. I think the extra mechanics added for the main characters were all passable, with Rindo's having the most wasted potential.† Obviously the game running like shit on consoles is something that wouldn't be good for anyone, so I'm imagining the PC version (unfortunately on Epic Games) will be the definitive one.

However, I think to players of the first game it's far more of a mixed bag. By that I don't only mean that it'd be more of a mixed experience like my rating suggests, but also that I'm sure plenty of TWEWY players will love this while a lot of others will see the faults and chips in the game that I have. I do hope that all those fans who (for some reason) wanted a sequel to TWEWY were satisfied with this game. I didn't want one, and this didn't really satisfy me more than the bare minimum. It's a shame, really, and I hope that this doesn't spawn a franchise; if it does, I hope they take the direction that I mentioned in my demo review below. A proper jump away from Shibuya or even Japan to see how Reapers' Games (and Angels) work in different parts of the world would be ideal, particularly if we get a character-focused game with a fairly comprehensible plot rather than the fanservice-focused and weirdly complicated-yet-railroady mess that NEO put forward.

NEO TWEWY is a whole lot of things, but a great game it is not. It tries too hard to be TWEWY-ish to forge an actually notable identity of its own, but it doesn't commit hard enough into its TWEWYness to do too well in its department either. While it's still a good enough game in its own right, more objective problems like its framerate and choppiness take it down to less than properly playable. Indeed, every positive I have to say for it has a negative to face it, and even playing the game just for its good gameplay can be hard because of how wordy and laggy the damn thing is. As I said before, I really do hope that the missteps of this game will be learned from if we are to get another TWEWY game in the future. If we never do, that's fine too - I was never really asking for this one in the first place. After months of wondering whether my favorite game of all time would be soiled by its successor, I'm glad to finally be free of the burden of worrying about this game's quality. It's just... decent. And in a world of shitty unneeded sequels, this decent unneeded sequel might as well be a blessing.

[end of review]




† I thought it was a pretty weak stand-in for most players only being able to use a few pins in TWEWY, but I didn't mention it since that'd bring in another comparison and is frankly far more nitpicky than the other comparisons. Also unrelated but Shooter Dan/Tin Pin Slammer aren't in NEO which really fucking saddened me.

==============================

[demo review]

Just putting down some general thoughts and demo impressions here to look back on when the final game releases.

I'm firmly in the camp (if there is one) that is saddened by the fact that this game exists as it does. The extra content in TWEWY Final Remix did everything it could in those final few minutes to undo the solid ending the original game had. This game being a sequel presumably to the anime recreation of that content is sad, and it being a sequel at all is kinda pitiful.

Everything about this game just seems needless and artistically disingenuous: the original TWEWY, down to its title, had a strong emphasis on broadening your awareness and horizons and opening up your world. The sequel borrows the title seemingly without the nuance or purpose it had, and it makes sure to pick up not only with a bunch of returning characters from the first game but also without actually moving outside the small tight-knit "world" of Shibuya. Not only is this a missed opportunity (seriously, imagine a Reapers' Game in a different country!), but it also seems tone-deaf. The game also had no reason to exist as a direct sequel considering how well-contained the first one had been, and what I've seen and what I know of its premise make it seem almost cashgrabby (it further worries me in that sense that Neku is being made into way more of a bland shonen protagonist in the anime and the pre-release media for this game).

Now for actual demo impressions. As a general character action game/ARPG, it's pretty solid. A little bit too button-mashy, but there were a few interesting pin/psych combos that I thought synergized well. I'm hoping this means there'll be plenty of opportunities to put together a cool pin set that works around the player's unique playstyle.

The dialogue is hit and miss - the slang feels a little more out-of-date than TWEWY's did for its time, but it works. The chocobo stickers in the texting app are adorable, so props for that. The general writing for the first two days doesn't seem to take itself too seriously, and I do hope that that's how the game stays for the whole thing. If it was intended to just be a soulless and disrespectful project, I'd rather it not give a shit than to try to be Serious(tm) and ruin things further. The few serious parts that did show up throughout the game were genuinely cringeworthy. The first game's characters at face value weren't too terribly inspired, but here they're... somehow even less so, and certainly uninteresting. They seem like very typical fandom-bait type characters in the vein of something like Danganronpa, which is pretty worrying. It makes it significantly more difficult to take the serious parts, well, seriously.

The music is good but I'd call it pretty overhyped. I don't enjoy any of the remixes in the game but the new tracks have all been good shit from what I could tell, though. The game has pretty slick and well-placed UI elements, though they feel very of-the-times in a way that will probably date this game almost as much as the dialogue.

There's not much else to comment on here. I'm hoping I'm supremely and horribly wrong and that this game winds up being great, but this is something I don't think I can be all that optimistic about. When it does come out I'll do my very best to have a good time with it, that much I know. And hey, the soundtrack will probably be good too.

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.

7.5/10

if this game taught me anything, it’s that twewy lore is fucking crazy cool. i really missed out when i never read the secret reports in the last game and as a matter of fact i’ll go read them after this review. as for the rest of the game, is it the worst thing ever? no. is it the sequel twewy deserved? also no.

i can count on one hand the amount of character development i noticed. the cast doesn’t hold a candle to the first game’s great cast of characters. most of them don’t really fit the mold for a twewy character and i’m not really fond of any of their designs, except sho’s. sho’s design fucking looks great. i love every aspect of sho’s design.

as for the gameplay, it’s a mindless button masher and you move the analog stick every century. not exactly great, but tbf honestly that’s probably how twewy 1 would play if it wasn’t touch based. and although i can’t comment on the DS’s combat, final mix’s combat was almost as brain dead as this one. except i actually did have fun at quite a few points in final mix. every fight in this game i just wanted to get it over with asap lol.

the ost, as expected is spectacular. most of the brand new songs are groovy enough, but the real meat is the remixes of the OG songs. i don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. but one thing’s for certain, Breaking Free is my favorite twewy song and probably my favorite song in general. been that way since it got released on the website in like april.

anyway, as for the story, i didn’t like it. it makes sense why The Reaper’s Game is so different from twewy 1 from a lore perspective, but it just doesn’t from a theming perspective. a battle royale doesn’t feel like twewy. also, what happened to entrance tickets? anyway, i also don’t like HOW THEY BROUGHT BACK EVERY SINGLE ORIGINAL CHARACTER. sure it’s a cool feeling when you see the real Neku drop down from above, or “Neku” being revealed as Beat with twister or hybrid playing in the background. soon enough, though, that feeling fades, and you start thinking for just a second “didn’t they already complete their character arcs? why are they being dragged back? for fan service?” but you quickly push the feeling away. every so often it comes back, with each old cast member being reintroduced until you slowly realize that the new cast is so weak the only way they could make it work was by dragging every single old character back. joshua and to an extent, beat, i understand. one is the composer, so why wouldn’t he come back? and beat isn’t as titular as neku so i don’t have as much of a problem with him being in as neku, but the problem remains regardless. but why bring back neku? or rhyme? or shiki? let the new characters shine. the cast of twewy 1 didn’t have any vets to call on when shit got tough, they just had to deal with it. but neo’s cast is so weak that they have to bring back every twewy 1 character to round out the plot. there is no way for the new characters to shine since they never had luster to begin with. i really liked how they indirectly characterized shiki throughout the first 2 quarters of the game. it never directly tells you “hey, shiki made her brand work and is a fashion designer now”. it just kinda leaves it there for you to piece together, and gives a nice characterization to her without saying anything. i would’ve been fine if the rest of the old cast had moments like that. little nods and things like that. hell, even the “legend of neku” i woulda been fine with if he didn’t actually appear. but nope, they have to go in your face and be like “GUYS LOOK TWEWY 1 CAST”.

overall it was still a mostly enjoyable experience, even with all the deus ex machina and less than stellar gameplay. i would’ve enjoyed it a lot more if there was more focus on the new cast and if the plot went in a “take back shibuya from the shinjuku guys” direction. but thats just personal preference so i can't fault it.

play twewy 1.

Definitely worth the wait. NEO: The World Ends with You is a worthy successor of the first game.

At first I had my problems with the game due to the pacing (the time travel parts added too much padding) and the characters were kinda undeveloped until(!) week 3 happened.

The game was a 7/10 for me until week 3. Week 3 is the best week in the game, especially to the end. Returning characters from the first game, basically all of them besides Hanekawa, is a blessing.

The gameplay is such an improvement and so much. If you have the right pins, it's a blast. The new remixes of the songs and the new songs in general are top tier again. This time clothing works properly.

PLAY THE FIRST GAME FIRST!!