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