As charming as a broad scope exploration of individuality via an exuberant shonen mission structure could be, especially on the Nintendo DS. The core message of the game is summarized wonderfully by the title The World Ends With You (henceforth shortened to TWEWY, for the sake of brevity). Individuals have their own inner worlds that are impossible to truly understand. But it is still worth expanding your world by reaching out to trust others, communicating with them, and experiencing new things.

This notion forms the crux for the main character, Neku’s arc. Initially, he’s a person who pursues self-isolation as a severe extrapolation of a principle peddled by his favorite graffiti artist. He’s dragged into the Reaper’s Game, a set of daily missions over a week that is almost hilarious in cruelty. It requires a partner and enables cooperation between teams, only to reward exactly one person at the end of it all. Over three weeks, Neku meets partners that guide him to a better place. Shiki, a deeply self-conscious individual who puts helping Neku over her own life. Joshua, a stubborn rascal with a smug misanthropic enabling tone who tries to pull Neku back after his initial growth. Beat, a self-sacrificial rebel who is dragged around by the powers that be after losing something fundamental to his life, providing a chance for Neku to help someone amidst abject isolation.

One of the most impactful questions for my understanding of the story comes at the very end. The final boss merely asks Neku if he likes people or not. One among numerous choices the game offers you where your decisions don’t really “matter” beyond flavor, but one where the answer reflects different tones of the thesis. Saying “Yes” implies growth for Neku and his newly attained appreciation of other people in his life, but saying “No” implies Neku understands the strengths of reaching out despite its very nature as a gamble. TWEWY’s perspective at the end is a positive answer with an asterisk. It emphasizes the difference between expanding your world to trust other people and simply liking people as a baseline.

The game's subplots also fit into this broad mold. Most explore the importance of communication over letting our preconceptions of others fester over time. However, one subplot during the second week stands out to me. A timid salesman, who you help in the first week, becomes a relentless businessman seeking to control large portions of the pin and ramen industry in Shibuya. He uses a famous blogger’s ability to sway the public’s opinion as part of a marketing campaign. You help another ramen seller discover how to survive the ever-shifting tastes of Shibuya and help the blogger rebel against the commodification of his recommendations. A surprisingly fun poke at the very nature of corporate desire to control everything in culture, balanced against the hope of reclaiming one’s identity and passions against these overwhelming forces. Even the agent learns his mistake and is guided towards a more humble life that satisfies him.

If anything, the source of the larger conflict in the story is the sandpapering tendencies of corporatization. The source of the Red Pins used to mind control Shibuya and crush all individuality arises from the marketing campaign of the agent. The very hierarchy of the Reaper’s Game mimics that of a large corporation. At the bottom, we have relatively charming and friendly Reapers doing their work guarding exits. They’ll still try to kill you when the time is right, mind you, but they’re nice to their friends and that’s what counts. But on the upper end, you have cruel and eccentric individuals who want to bend the entire city to their will for the sake of a promotion or playing god.

The setting itself, Shibuya, is elevated to a mythical warzone. An eternal clash of fashion and values, amidst various levels of artifice. Brands, music, and graffiti scream loudly as the various notions of individuality peddled melt into an indiscernible cacophony. This backdrop is further elevated by the brands themselves being modeled after the Chinese Zodiac, and how each region of the map follows one of these brands. This ideal backdrop, paying homage to the iconography of the real place, depicts the strengths and consequences of expanding one’s world.

These ideas further mesh with the combat mechanics of the game. Neku and his partner are on two screens, controlled with disparate input schemes. A point often missed in discussions is that the characters barely see each other during combat. A lot of their combat lines express the trust that they start putting in each other. When one partner hits low health, you hear them plead that Neku carries the team or heal them. This initiates a sharp learning demand as you try to split your attention between the two characters, which eventually culminates in a zen state where you expand your world and handle them in parallel.

Less overtly incorporated are the RPG elements. TWEWY's armor system consists of Threads, which are associated with 13 different brands. A cute aspect of this is that you can eventually make Neku and his partners wear all sorts of dresses but you need to cross a threshold based on the character’s Bravery, further emphasizing the effort required and the power attained with expressing yourself. The experience system manifests itself as Pin Points of three types. The first type is based on battles and asks you to engage with the combat as much as possible. The second type requires you to set up a shop to interact with other players or play the hype minigame, Tin Pin Slammer, with others. The final type asks you to shut down your DS and stop playing for a day or so, giving you the chance to enact the game's message in the real world. The game also limits how much food your characters can eat in a day, further reinforcing this subtle call to action. It has been well over a decade since TWEWY's release, so you can’t expect to find many other people with a DS nearby, and the time-based experience system is easily broken by just changing the date settings of your DS. Regardless, these minor details are all part of the portrait TWEWY paints. A truly commendable feat that elevates the game well beyond the sum of its parts.

While on the topic, let’s change gears to more technical specifics regarding the gameplay.

TWEWY features a fascinating usage of the split-screen functionality of the DS, where the stylus controls Neku’s movement and pin actions on the bottom screen, while the D-Pad or Face Buttons controls his partner on the top screen. This creates a delightful back-and-forth since enemies are copied on both screens and you can damage them simultaneously using Neku’s pins and his partner’s combo map. The partner’s combo map contains directional inputs that end on symbols as part of a matching game. The more you successfully match the more stars you receive, and after a certain number of stars you can pull off Fusion moves that result in a lot of damage and light healing. Tying all of this together is the Light Puck that multiplies the damage of a finisher for one character before traveling across the screens to the other. A subtle dynamic emerges, where you attempt to finish the pin ability or the combo map string as the puck travels across the screen to optimize DPS. This cacophony of mechanics emphasizes parallel processing, and just like the cacophony of Shibuya, it just works!

Well kinda? I did play on as hard a difficulty I could stomach, and it doesn’t quite perfectly click. Bear in mind it still works well enough to be one of the most engrossing combat systems I’ve played in months, and TWEWY is very recommendable on that front alone. But it’s not quite perfect.

First in line is the Pin system. Neku’s actions are linked to numerous pins that perform attacks or abilities using the stylus. There’s a lot of variety to be found here, with pins covering melee attacks, ranged options, and defensive tools. You can mix and match these pins in up to decks of 6, and adapt these to the encounters and bosses accordingly. The game also stars a pin evolution system based on the 3 aforementioned types of Pin Points, and you can master these pins for minor buffs. Exciting stuff!

However, the first issue here is how certain pins don’t seem to work consistently or have bizarre inputs to pull off. Most inputs are simple enough, like slashing, scratching, and tapping. But some pins require zanier inputs include drawing circles and even screaming into the microphone! The DS’ touch screen sensitivity isn’t particularly adequate for precise movements, rendering some of the unique pin abilities extremely clunky at best and unusable at worst. Another significant hindrance is how you also use the stylus to control Neku’s movement and dodging. As a result, you can’t use certain pins too close to his sprite. You can certainly learn to deal with these limitations over time as you position yourself better and choose simpler decks, but it does leave a slightly sour taste that a few of the more bewildering pin abilities don’t pan out as smoothly.

Next up are Neku’s Partners. Each of Neku’s three partners has a combo map that functions as a way to navigate a predefined directional attack string. These strings end on symbols as part of a unique matching game that rewards you with stars the better you match. The partners further have different defensive options and air-games, changing their overall strategies.

The first of the three partners is Shiki. Functioning as a tutorial character, her attack string is fast and ends in an uppercut with a ton of I-frames. Her air attacks function as a short burst of double damage, and her defensive options include a counter-hit and a block. Her matching game is the simplest, as it quite literally is guessing and matching symbols from a set defined by the difficulty level. The next partner is Joshua who doesn’t attack per se, but rather “targets” the enemy numerous times and drops an object at the end of his attack string. He eventually unlocks a levitation ability that attacks enemies from above with sky beams, and his defensive options include a side-step and a counter that reverses enemy positions. His matching game requires you to compare numbers and is a step up in terms of complexity. He is the easiest to farm stars with since he doesn’t kill enemies as easily and has a matching game that provides you with the solution at the start. Finally, we have Beat who is a glass cannon of sorts. Rapid attack strings both on the ground and in the air, and his defensive options are a counter that lets you continue his air string or a block. His matching game is the most complex and requires you to match pairs of card suits that give you stars in bulk if you are successful, resulting in massive swings of power.

These partners provide ample scope for mastery with their matching games and DPS/build optimization. However, it’s hard to ignore that even on the highest difficulty it’s quite easy to kill practically every enemy and boss with a lot of mashing in one direction. This is particularly noticeable with Shiki. Her combo map is incredibly short and it’s really easy to build up stars for her Fusion by mashing one direction. This ends up in higher DPS as you don’t have to process the matching game at all and only have to pay attention to enemy attacks every once in a while. Heck, the I-frame packed uppercut at the end of her string reduces the cognitive load as well! Joshua is a bit better about this since his attack string doesn’t damage enemies until the very end, demanding some amount of reaction. Beat is probably the most button-mashy partner, but Week 3 manages to somewhat alleviate this by packing the screen with enemies during regular encounters and making bosses much faster.

It eventually boils down to preference in the post-game. Shiki is the easiest to control, has high counter damage, and consistently builds up stars. Joshua is the most technical to control and build around, but the post-game’s superboss practically demands his levitation abilities. Beat has the best attack strings, the most content balanced around him, and fits in almost every build. I like Beat the most as he fits my playstyle, and Joshua as a close second since he’s a fun character to optimize around.

Poor Shiki. She was a real one...

A core element of combat that is not communicated is the notion of Efficiency, where each pin class and partner has an associated hidden multiplier to their attacks. This functions as an interesting attempt at balancing pins by generally giving the harder-to-execute or slower pins a leg up in terms of damage, and incentivizes using a blend of rapid pins with low efficiency for filler damage and heavy hitters for puck-passing. There are still a few pins that slip through the cracks, combining both high efficiency and fast usage/recharge time (and on the opposite end low efficiency and slow use-time), but this system mostly works well. Pins are further classified into Positive, Negative, and Neutral based on if they are Melee, Ranged, or “Weird” attacks. This doesn’t play a significant role in the combat until you reach the post-game, where some enemy variants have noticeable defenses against them. If I had to complain here, I would have wanted to know about these systems earlier and be tested on them more often.

Now onto the enemies and encounter design. TWEWY’s enemy roster (labelled Noises) consists of numerous noise classes with variations based on in-game progression. The roster generally covers a lot of ground and threatens Neku and his partner in unique ways. There’s some overlap in roles based on in-class variation, but here’s the way I broadly classify them.

Passive noises serve as a threat over time or have slow attacks that can heavily punish you. As a result, these noises require you to occasionally divert your attention from the more aggressive enemies and keep their numbers in check. Frog noises try to leap off the characters and occasionally summon bubbles to slow Neku down. Some of them spawn Tadpole noises, which heavily slow Neku’s movement and poison him. Jellyfish noises are incredibly passive but slowly split to form small armies that pass lightning around to damage the characters. They can also inflict the debilitating immobilization debuff on either partner, but these attacks occur rarely.

Light noises are a higher priority than passive noises, but they function more as aggressive fodder to keep your characters busy. Wolf noises are the standard fare. They run around and jump at Neku and his partner to damage them. Crab noises scuttle around the ground and attempt to catch you off guard with grabs and ranged attacks. One variant can also block damage outright! Penguins are the most interesting of this class of noises. They have a long duration slap attack and can slide at you from a noticeable distance. To top it off, stronger variants can command a powerful coordinated attack against Neku that can set you back severely.

Medium noises function as the most common high priority targets throughout the game. Bear noises initially appear as towering creatures with a powerful swipe attack and an attack buff. However, they slowly disappear over time to make way for more dangerous targets. Mink noises are a great all-rounder with a slow melee and ranged attack, but their highlight is the invincible whirlwind attack where they move around the screen trying to damage you. I’d have preferred more aggressive homing with this attack, but these noises are exciting regardless. Hedgehog noises fill the ranged role. They try to run away often, launch quills that land on the ground, and even try to pierce Neku with a wall of spikes in case he gets too close. Kangaroo noises are my favorite enemy class by far. They have high health, a powerful kick attack, and a deadly jump and homing land attack. This makes them the most engaging noises, even on a one-on-one basis, as you have to move around constantly to avoid getting hit.

Heavy noises appear more often in the final week, and function as mini-bosses with unique requirements to damage. Rhino noises have high defense on one side, requiring you to move around to hit them. They are fairly slow and easy to avoid, but their tankiness makes them important to keep at bay. Shark noises are quite exciting! They hide underground with only a small hurtbox on their fin above the surface, leaping occasionally to bite either character. They can also eat smaller noises to buff themselves (which does make the encounters featuring Sharks much easier). Trapping them in a damage stun loop before they can get away makes for some hectic situations.

Two other noise classes function more like pseudo-bosses more than anything – Mammoths and Drakes. Mammoth noises are incredibly tanky enemies that are impossible to stun or juggle. Getting caught in any of their attacks will result in a rapid game over (at low levels, they just one shot you). Drakes have numerous long-lasting high damage moves that demand rapid dodging from Neku or high air-time from his partner. They’re also impervious to stuns and juggles. These two noises rarely feature any support.

The last few classes of noises fill the most unique roles but are unfortunately much rarer than I’d like. Flying noises like Bats and Ravens are mostly boss fodder, but they still stand out since they demand certain ranged pins or require melee attacks with vertical hitboxes from Neku, and force his partner into a constant air attack state. Shrew noises constantly hide away in holes and pop out occasionally to surprise you with a bomb or a dive attack. Fox noises are really rare and work as weird shapeshifters that change between noise classes.

Halfway through the game, you meet the Taboo variants of the noise classes. These have more complex and deadly moves compared to any other variant (apart from optional boss variants). But the unique aspect of these noises is how you can only deal high damage to them with a partner only when they have the puck. Finally, you have Reapers, who don’t seem to do much of anything? Not sure what these guys are on. They can phase between screens, but only occasionally do a ranged attack. Somewhat annoying since they start to replace the much more interesting Taboo Noises in the final week.

Finally, I want to briefly mention the bosses of this game. They’re generally excellent! Especially in the latter half. Early bosses amount to slightly beefed-up versions of regular enemies or have tons of basic fodder elongating their fights, but once you hit the second week you start cooking with gas. Numerous aggressive bosses show up, forcing you to master the combat system or die. Some require you to survive for a fixed amount of time, and others feature almost laughably powerful fodder enemies. The final week is where all safeguards are removed. Brutal dual boss pairings, the hardest optional boss noises, and devastating debuffs galore. Fun for the whole family!

Another commendable aspect of TWEWY is how the difficulty and leveling systems are implemented. You can customize how you want to control your partner, change your difficulty level at any time, and you can reduce your in-game level for a higher pin drop rate. The reduction system allows you to chain numerous encounters together and makes them harder as you progress. An excellent step for accessibility, while letting players challenge themselves as much (or as little) as possible without compromising the message of the game.

However, despite a great admiration for what TWEWY accomplishes, there are some story additions to the game via Final Remix that sour me on the direction the series could be taking, especially since those are rendered canonical via the existence of NEO. Somewhat surprising that I ended up here since the NEO demo was what convinced me to play TWEWY in the first place! I was rewarded with this gem of a game, but now I somewhat question the integrity of the sequel. For a game that extols the bittersweet threads of individuality and stands as a unique cultural capsule of mid-2000s Shibuya, it’s surprising to see the sequel's demo so strongly flaunt its return like a phoenix only to end up in TWEWY’s shadow. I certainly hope NEO doesn’t end up as a milquetoast celebration of the strengths of the original.

There could very well be an interesting story to tell here. Shibuya’s culture has aged by more than a decade, and the bombastic war between multiple brands and countercultures has shifted heavily in favor of homogenized corporatization. The demo hinted at a pushback against this new culture, so it can’t hurt to keep an open mind I guess? Especially since Neo comes out like tomorrow. Might even try playing TWEWY Final Remix afterwards, even if the basic implementation of the combat engine is a far cry from the more thematically coherent vision of the original. However, I have heard interesting things about the co-op as an alternative approach, and the gameplay additions are alluring.

But gosh darn it, trepidations about the future of this series are best left for another time. I will heartily recommend this game to anyone. A delightfully unique combat system that pushes the limits of its console. An endearing story with one of the coolest sounding titles ever. All wrapped up in one of the most stylized and thematically cohesive shells I’ve seen in gaming.

Get a DS for this one.

THERE IS A TAPE IN THE DINING ROOM

Like most of Anatomy, it is not a line that should be utterly terrifying. Consciously - thanks to it being the first moments of the game, and having absorbed enough of the game through osmosis to know the game is not heavy on jumpscares/whatever - I knew there was nothing truly to be scared of in that room that is going to rip my head off IRL. And yet the first two times I tried playing this game, the sheer intensity of just walking around the few innocuous rooms at the start of the game was enough to have me Alt-F4 before anything had even really happened.

And yeah, I will concede, when it comes to this sort of thing I am a bit of a wuss. Particularly when it comes to the interface screw-y glitchy horror you get in a lot of Itch games, which Anatomy does like to throw at you.

But whilst that stuff always freaks me out, the general presentation of Anatomy is what really hooks under my skin. Just moving around the house has this weird feeling of intensity to it. The sound design is impeccable, the lighting just right, with a narrow field of view that makes it feel like the whole time you're never really sure you're alone. And of course, the fact that the game's setting is so deliberately ordinary adds this extra, primal layer to it all. Like an old memory of being alone in the house I grew up in and the fear that came with it resurfacing.

The main conceit of the horror is also really cool and well done. The concept of a place or location being the source of the horror itself is nothing new, but the intimacy of Anatomy adds a nice layer to it, especially with the very erudite sounding sciencey person who reads most of the tapes to you - the game's horror thesis is still gnawing at me a little, and I do kinda buy the point the guy on the tapes is saying...

So for a 30 minute experience of dread, Anatomy is fucking great. Probably the best horror game i've played since PT, even, and frankly, is very comparable to that game in general but for having less of a focus on direct scares. I do think it has issues - the game desperately, desperately needs subtitles and an actual options menu. It wouldn't clash with the game's aesthetic even as it basically already uses VHS closed captions on occasion. Without them i literally had to go find a subtitled playthrough on youtube to parse the entirety of some of the last tapes you collect. I would also say the game's one big actual scare is a bit dissapointing - its ok, and a perfect rounding out of the game's big theme, but looks a little goofy compared to the rest of what is an immaculate aesthetic, and is nowhere near enough of a crescendo to match up to the sheer dread built up before it.

Also, and this is the smallest of nits to pick, but the UNITY PERSONAL EDITION logo popping up every time you boot, for game that you will have to do so 3 times in 30 minutes to finish, is a bit immersion breaking for something that is otherwise so utterly captivating.

But don't let that take away anything too much from Anatomy. The small issues I have with the game are also mostly in retrospect. When playing it I haven't been as scared by media since PT, and it's theme is one that feels like it's going to linger with me for a while just like it. When a game makes walking down a simple Hallway I KNOW has nothing at the other end scary, that's when you know you're dealing with a properly excellent Horror creator.

Wife’s Reaction:
“How can a game so disgusting have a protagonist so dreamy?”

Remakin’ Me Crazy:
It’s been over 15 years since I played Resident Evil 4 back on the GameCube. Since it’s been so long, this remake felt as fresh as a new, original game. This was the perfect blend of horror and action with intense fights and encounters. I want to jump back in for another round. I’d love to go and replay the original RE4. I just need more Resident Evil.

Signalis has lived rent free in my head since the moment I started it. It is both a game I want to go on about endlessly, dissecting it's thousand details and it's lineage of inspiration - and a game that I think everyone should just straight up play for themselves. Brilliant in worldbuilding and aesthetics, strong puzzle-boxy game design ripped straight from Resi 1/2, Surrealism that both comes in spades and is perfectly balanced to keep you on your toes, and a story that slowly forces its way under your skin, unravelling in a manner that is currently living rent free in my head.

I would concede that Signalis appeals particularly to my sensibilities - theres a bit of the thing, bit of lynch, bit of alien, and a whole lot more. But it's reference and reverance is never out of line and never takes away from what's an insanely compelling experience. It is a game that uses the best of the past to set a baseline for a good horror game and set up the game language, only to twist the knife.

Its not flawless, but to even broach the flaws feels like doing a disservice. Like, there's little niggles with the difficulty, enemies, and one or two puzzles in retrospect. But Signalis is such a ridiculously compelling game that it never really matters, it was never something I was thinking about actually at the time. Only progressing onward, unpicking it's puzzle box levels and slowly unravelling it's story.

Easily game of the year, and one of the best horror games in a long, long time. This game made me buy a damn book, play it.