The World Ends with You - a DS-borne collab between Square Enix and Jupiter, became known for its visuals (hyper-stylized urban low-fantasy) but also for its twists on RPG fundamentals, marked by combat that alternates focus between the dual-screens. These fights thrive both on contrast (between 2D brawler on the lower half and code command minigames up above) and the properties, execution, cooldowns and customization found in its Pins, a skill system that pairs Battle Network-ian 'deckbuilding' with mastery mechanics a la FFVII's materia. While spammy and occasionally hard-to-follow, they succeed at generating addictive, ranking-driven gameplay in the vein of Tales and - again, Mega Man's RPG spinoffs, but its surroundings are no less intriguing. Firstly in its structure; linear chapters of 3 scenarios whose quirks (from keywords to encounters, movement, heavy backtracking and objectives) play out like a close relative of point-and-click adventure. Another key aspect is the way they spin the genre's vocabulary. In a sense, this work (more than Persona) 'modernized' JRPGs in both definitions of the term; aesthetics & accessibility, as proven by their takes on equipment (stat-gated armor), stores (shop levels in the form of a friendship system across all merchants) and even world effects (namely trends, in which certain types of equips & skills face stat changes based on location).
To reach those points, though, one has to sit through their obnoxious dialogue: Long, dramatic cascades of exclamations (and lots of it) briefly interrupted by monologues. Lacking skippable cutscenes the first time around, storytelling's worst moments indulge in arguments and speeches, whose premise is little more than JRPG's version of death games, and whose world-building dresses up stereotyped concepts with strange terms (which had always existed throughout the years but only got worse after Kingdom Hearts). On the other hand: Sometimes their casual bickering evokes the over-the-top skits of Disgaea or even Mana Khemia 2, although in a more critical than comic tone, while its best moments pack enough sincerity to rival the greats.
To reach those points, though, one has to sit through their obnoxious dialogue: Long, dramatic cascades of exclamations (and lots of it) briefly interrupted by monologues. Lacking skippable cutscenes the first time around, storytelling's worst moments indulge in arguments and speeches, whose premise is little more than JRPG's version of death games, and whose world-building dresses up stereotyped concepts with strange terms (which had always existed throughout the years but only got worse after Kingdom Hearts). On the other hand: Sometimes their casual bickering evokes the over-the-top skits of Disgaea or even Mana Khemia 2, although in a more critical than comic tone, while its best moments pack enough sincerity to rival the greats.