Not 5/5 as in flawless masterpiece, but 5/5 as in they made this game for me, personally.

With a parry system strongly reminiscent of Sekiro's (a game which has a combat system I adore) but a splash of Bloodborne's Rally system retooled to not suck absolute ass (fight me) and all this wrapped up in Dark Souls 1-esque level design except it doesn't shit the bed halfway through? Absolute chef's kiss.

So, you can block in this game, in fact (almost) everything except grabs are blockable, but a portion of your health is lost as chip damage, except you can recover that chip through attacking the enemy. How does this improve Bloodborne's Rally system? Simple, when a boss does a million fuckin attacks in 3 seconds if you have the stamina to block it all then ALL THE CHIP YOU TOOK is stored and can be healed, unlike in Bloodborne where only the last hit is healable (fuck you Ludwig). If you time your blocks well you get a parry, which causes no chip, builds up an invisible "Posture" bar (it works kinda like Elden Ring) so to speak, and if you parry enough YOU CAN EVEN BREAK THEIR WEAPON I CANNOT STRESS HOW FUCKING COOL THIS IS!!! When the boss has taken enough "Posture" damage a fully charged R2 will open then up to a Fatal Attack (Elden Ring Critical Hit). This ensures R2 attacks will always have a place in combat, which is something every Souls game has struggled with.

Bosses, mercifully leave enough time for a fully charged R2 if you know when to go for it, Lies of P maintains a great level of boss difficulty that really made me feel like I was playing Dark Souls 1 again, stuck on Taurus Demon all over. Thankfully, Lies of P does not take lessons from Elden Ring's "make them read every input and just spam a million attacks" school of thought, instead bosses are slow, methodical, baiting you to attack them at the wrong time in a way that ALWAYS feel like YOU (I) fucked up.

Yet, in opposition to these slow, methodical bosses, the game really wants you to keep hitting them, a portion of your damage is dealt as chip, and if you don't hit them they WILL heal that chip back, and if you run out of heals you can generate more by landing hits. In Lies of P, patience may be key but hesitation is (still) defeat. I was originally skeptical of the heal regeneration, but it's so hard to generate more than one extra heal, and frankly, it was more often I generated an extra heal during exploration than during a boss fight. When I did generate a heal during a boss that I desperately needed however, the tension really hits.

Lies of P additionally has many ways to modulate your difficulty, between AI summons, Fable Arts, the Wishstone, and infinite respecs, this feels like the conclusion to the idea that you can adjust the difficulty of a Souls game via the mechanics you interact with. Most of this is mandatory, and what isn't is found with just a little exploring. Lies of P may be the most accessible Souls-like thus far, without eventually making these mechanics feel necessary to progression, which just ultimately defeats the point (looking at you, Elden Ring Spirit Ash).

One of the most common criticisms of the game is that it's perhaps too inspired by Souls-likes, namely Bloodborne, and I couldn't disagree more, what is taken from Souls games are often retooled and reworked in an exploration of the mechanics, not a simple copy paste. Not to mention Lies of P brings its own new mechanics to the table in the form of the separation of weapon blade and hilt, you can put a damn dagger blade on a greatsword handle if you so please. Although, I must admit, this concept was not explored nearly as much as it deserved, it is still inspired game design regardless Also the aforementioned breaking enemy weapons this is still the coolest shit ever I do not care how underdeveloped the weapon creation mechanics are because breaking a boss's weapon is REALLY FUCKING COOL DUDE I'M SO SERIOUS!!!

But I mean, I understand that I can't convince anyone to agree that this is the best Souls-like, and I'm okay with that. I just fell in love with the entire game, the music, the characters, the stories, the gameplay, it all spoke to me in a way I can't write or articulate. I'm not kidding when I say I feel like this game was made for me, this shit really spoke to me, and at times I felt like I could speak back, I feel seen. Fuck.

Please don't let Round8 Studio be a one hit wonder, please let the DLC and whatever they make next be as successful as this, please do not let their next game be another Bless Unleashed I am BEGGING.

To right the countless wrongs of our day, we shine this light of true redemption, that this place may become as paradise. What a wonderful world such would be...

I don't remember what my first exposure to The World Ends with You was, or when. For the longest time I thought it was this video but since replaying the game I'm no longer so sure, the date that video was uploaded is April 15th, 2019, but having combed through old Discord messages, I can see that I had played this game at least by March 14th. Regardless, what I do know is that one day, back in early 2019 I saw The World Ends with You: Final Remix on the shelf at EB Games, and having heard good things about the DS version I picked it up.

I was a lot like Neku, which isn't something I'm proud to admit. I had the same mindset of keeping people out, being unable to "get people", the whole nine yards. Although, maybe that was a learnt behaviour, when I was in high school the group of friends I hung out with had a big falling out and basically split in two overnight. I was told that this happened at my birthday party because I had invited people from both sides and most of them didn't show up or say anything to me. I haven't wanted to celebrate my birthday since.

"Trust your partner" are words spoken to Neku and echoed in his mind throughout the course of the entire game. To have to put your entire faith in someone for the sake of both of you, it's a big ask, and completely impossible with a mindset like that. Despite this, the game never presents Neku's mindset as wrong, instead it is presented as an unfulfilling and unnecessarily more challenging way of living, a key distinction in my mind. If you share Neku's sentiments about life and people you don't have to change, but you'd probably be better off if you did.

I don't think I really internalised these messages when I first played the game, but to be fair I was 17. I do know that I experienced the life changing affects of the game that everyone harps on about at that time, but I don't think I really changed as much as I could have, I don't think I wanted to.

And then I realised I was transgender.

"Listen up, Phones. 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 don't think this is one of those cases where a piece of media causes someone to realise they're trans, although the timing of me playing The World Ends with You to me figuring it out is pretty close.

Suddenly, my world changed just as much as Neku's did except now I was a stranger in my own walled garden, I no longer understood myself, I hardly had a hope of understanding others. I started hormones on 10/09/19, and shortly after I found myself in a local community of trans people. I was pushing out my horizons just a little bit.

I tried to be just like them, talking about subjects I didn't really want to, forcing myself to the point of deluding myself into thinking I did. I was accepted, but only as an accidentally created artificial version of myself I had bludgeoned myself into thinking was who I really was. That I was "discovering" myself. It makes me sick to look back on. It didn't last and I was sinking back into my old mindset of asocial apathy, but at least it was actually me.

I met my girlfriend in this community, and her single influence on me has been more positive and influential for me than any sense of belonging derived from a community I didn't fit in with ever could be.

The World Begins with You

I completed work trainee-ships, I'm getting my life together (maybe only a little bit), and I feel better about myself, not because of a false self of belonging but from an internal sense of direction for my own life. I have hope and prospects for my future, and my ideals are clashing with the people I'm actually keeping around, and I'm letting people in, just a little. While it's true that it's not hard to understand people, it's impossible, I figure I still might as well try.

"Same streets, same crowds too. Yeah, Shibuya hasn't changed a bit, but still, I don't think I can forgive you yet. You don't see it, but, those few weeks were very hard for me. Learning to trust people, having that trust broken. Finding out the town I pegged as small, and stifling, and empty, wasn't any of those things. I'm glad I met you guys, you made me pick up on things I probably would've just gone on ignoring. Trust your partner, and I do. I can't forgive you, but I trust you. You took care of things right? Otherwise Shibuya would be gone, and my world with it. Hey, did I mention, I've got friends now! We're getting together for the first time in a week! See you there?"

Oh yeah btw the games good, the controls are kinda hard to get used to though, funnily enough I think being left handed like me makes the game easier. Fuck the final boss though I dropped my difficulty to easy cuz it just kills you in 4 hits.