I'm mostly bitching about minor gripes in this review as someone who had 300+ hours in the original DS title way back when and knew this wouldn't live up to its predecessor, so if you're not extremely invested in the series or you think I'm an obnoxious whining loser for doing that, look at my score instead and don't read the rest of this. I'd still recommend buying this game and playing it, even completing it.

The good parts are just simple, really, they click with me well so I can't articulate them as finely. Great story, great characters, still one of the best video game aesthetics of all time, pin designs look insane, they managed to condense the gameplay loop better than Final Remix, voice acting is phenomenal.

But.

I'm a little more than slightly miffed that the series whose entire point was making connections with other people didn't implement any sort of online play or friend activities, or at least any kind of multiplayer, especially since it was so nuanced in the original. Making an obnoxious shop with the weirdest merch possible and farming pin points for specific evolutions was one of the most fun parts about TWEWY. At least 10% of the time I spent playing it had to be using the multiplayer capacities.

The gameplay is definitely still fun, the aesthetics are all there, and it's still a really nice time capsule into the general vibe of the mid-2000s, minus a few jokes and writing decisions here and there that really date its development period (I will destroy whoever made Beat say "finna" this many times).

The collection screens are the biggest improvement. Everything feels a lot more laid out in a clean, precise manner, encouraging you to make progress with post-game rewards more than the original (even if the missions aren't as inventive and aren't really exclusively post-game). Because of the lack of variety and challenge in finding them, however, it really feels like there's a lot less legendary-tier items in the game to go "holy shit" over, compared to the litany of threads in the original that let you take clothing from iconic characters in the game. The closest you get is Neku's clothes, and they just like, give you those right away and don't even give them unique abilities. The best you get is a +5 drop rate that like at least 10 other threads also have as an ability.

In terms of the pre-post-game (which is just the game, I guess), the story is really good. All the newcomer characters are interesting, the old cameos/returning characters are freshened up and continuing where they left off last game. Above all, they brought Kariya back, so I can't complain. They really looked at his original design and said "we got it perfect the first time, redesign him the least" and were absolutely right to do so.

My second huge complaint next to the loss of multiplayer mechanics however, and somewhat related, is that Shibuya Scramble was a really abysmal replacement for Tin Pin Slammer. I would have preferred if they just did not try to replace it at all instead of making a dressed up variant of "make big reduction chain and spam beatdrop until you get big number." I should not have to explain why, it's just obvious.

Still, through all this, it's still probably one of the best JRPGs out there, and one of the most fun times I've had with an RPG in general since replaying Nethack recently. It probably shows how much the original holds up 15 years later that I have this many complaints to a successor and I'd still unflinchingly give it a 4. I'm complaining a lot, but TWEWY is that promising and that impossible to replicate that even managing to make something comparatively dwarfed by it is still incredibly impressive.

Play NEO, but play the DS original more.