The Fashion-Core combat philosophical gourmet World Ends With You
My first experience of The World Ends With You (TWEWY) was gleaned looking over my Japanese friend's shoulder, and consisted of a bewildering array of flying cat dolls, self-replicating jellyfish and, even more perplexing, my chum's attempts at explaining it to me whilst his higher faculties struggled heroically with fighting with two different characters across two screens at once. TWEWY is a game you do not attempt in media res. It is however, a quirky, anime inspired mystery wrapped up in addictive combat and enough pin collecting to satisfy even the most compulsive-obsessive amongst you. Flawed in places, perhaps, frustrating at times, definitely, but nevertheless this is one of the few DS games that I would class as 'essential' – and that's not just because of my unquenchable need to collect pins.
The first thing you're likely to notice as you power up TWEWY (apart, that is, from the cryptic title and scratch-heavy intro music) is the sense of scale. Iconic sections of Shibuya, Japan are recreated accurately in all their bustling, fashion conscious glory. The game itself doesn't feature that many areas in a sense, but the fact that the landmarks and distinct flavour of each district are true to life is impressive, atmospheric and draws you instantly in to what I believe to be the strongest of TWEWY´s myriad positives – the story.
Without giving too much away, your protagonist Neku wakes up at the start of the game in the middle of a Shibuya crossroads, lacking memory and amiability but possessed of the ubiquitous gravity defying hair. Tasked shortly thereafter with surviving a game set up by beings known as `reapers` within 7 days, Neku is subsequently thrust into a dangerous web of intrigue, in a Shibuya mysteriously but almost intangibly different to the one he presumably fell asleep in. Like my previous sentence, you might be forgiven for thinking that the game is riddled with clichés and classic anime – style narrative shortcuts (read: Laziness) You would, however, be sorely mistaken. Frustratingly, any further evidence to support my following praise would utterly ruin one of the better character development arcs in many, many years, along with a story riddled with twists and turns emblematic of the sinister Shibuya´s backstreets. In an profoundly well-paced narrative, Neku evolves from an annoying Squall-esque badboy to a well-rounded, believable, sympathetic and genuine hero. Considering that TWEWY was indeed made my Square-Enix, such (eventual) deviation from their angsty stereotype is a heartily welcomed change. By the rather epic climax, like me, you may well have learned a few things about yourself on the way, as Neku´s moral compass, as well as his over-arching introverted musings, become increasingly personal whilst transposing perfectly to the player.
Now, if all this seems like high praise, it is; rarely has a game, let alone one on a handheld, pulled philosophical pondering off quite so well. It IS high concept, and whilst this elevates the game beyond many, it does seem that the developers were, as a result, a little negligent in other areas.
The combat, for example. In a curiously bold move, combat in TWEWY is handled across both screens and once, with both characters (Neku meets a number of different partners throughout the game) sharing the same health bar. Neku occupies the bottom screen, and responds to stylus movements, depending on which `pins` you have equipped him with. Shiki, like the other partners, fights on the top screen, and instead is controlled by the D-pad, attacking as you press directions to navigate through a combo grid, ultimately ending on a symbol that matches with turned-over cards at the very top of the screen. Matching enough of these symbols will unleash a combo, restoring health and dealing out some serious psyche damage, often in the form of falling buses or meteorite showers; if that sentence doesn't make you curious to try it, I don't know what will.
Unfortunately however, some pins have awkward commands, and things can often end up in a furious scribble fest, whilst you simply allow your top screen partner to dish out the damage on the ´fast-auto´ setting, often with greater alacrity and finesse than you could. Likewise, dodging with Neku can, ironically, be hit and miss; perseverance is essential, the learning curve being more of a glacial, spiked wall. To alleviate this however, in what transpires to be both a saving grace and one of the most exciting features of the combat system, is the way your characters' level bar and the difficulty settings are both adjustable at any time within the game, save combat. The higher your level, the higher your hitpoints, but the less chance you stand of scoring some rare and badass pin – allowing you to manipulate this setting makes for a fantastically tense risk/reward mechanic. Add to this your ability to choose when to fight, by 'scanning' the area for Neku's enemies the 'Noise', and then with successive taps of the stylus on the enemy icons chaining together fights for a greater percentage chance of cash and rare pins, and you have a refreshing degree of control. This freedom often had me setting Neku to the lowest level, getting repeatedly caned but foregoing escape just for the sheer satisfaction of noise erasure. That, of course, along with my compulsive need to collect the more powerful pins, which, if you haven't already guessed, will haunt my dreams for many more nights to come.
In another sparkle of inspiration, currency in TWEWY is not, like in so many others, redundant. Virtually any keen RPG aficionado will, at one point, have understood that their newly, impulse-purchased Armour of Furious Beatdown will, with heart-breaking rapidity, be rendered obsolete by a quest item, usually something like The Incendiary Double-Plate-Mail of Omni-Death. Not so, thankfully, in TWEWY, where you will gawp early on at unfeasibly expensive headgear that your wallet is literally not big enough to afford. This, it becomes evident upon beating the game, is because there are plenty of reasons to play through the game a second time, wherein you will have a significantly bigger purse, better items, and more purchasing power. On first play through however, there are still plenty of shiny things to catch your grossly consumerist eye. In the fashion conscious bustle of Shibuya, the trend of a given area affects the effectiveness of your items, all of which are branded. Conversely, a good showing in a big battle can impress the mindless sheep among the crowds, and thus you will be considered a trendsetter, meaning that with a little stubbornness, you can work-around having to alter your gear for every single area for maximum firepower.
Unfortunately, and this is a trend across many RPGs and action games that I seriously Lament, your fashion choices aren´t reflected visually in combat. The visuals as a whole however, are striking, well animated and colourful. Cut scenes feature static character models and what will prove rather too much text for some gamers, but still get their messages across effectively – on strength of the witty penmanship and unique character aesthetic. Indeed, whilst enemies take the form of stylised animals with parts of their anatomy re-textured as colourful 'noise', they manage to impress on virtue of their variety, and boss-fights, excepting the final one, are huge and challenging, but often confusing spot-tests in weak-spot spotting. The final boss fight differs from this template only in that it is even more huge, and without the right pin set up, virtually impossible.
TWEWY then, is a game with its sights set firmly on the big picture, with an epic storyline just begging to be translated into a real anime, and plenty of high concepts. It is also, for the best part, able to balance this possible pretentiousness with many smaller scale ideas, of which there are too many to credit properly in one review, but include the wonderful equipment system, the touch screen controls, the humour, the 'food' system and the rewards for taking your time finishing it – and then coming back for another go. The game struggles at times with touch-screen precision, pacing and coherency, but miraculously with a little patience, all of these can be justified, or at least happily forgiven and forgotten, in favour of what is a touching, addictive and constantly innovative foray into hand held gaming. The World Ends With This Game…you'll know what I mean.
DNNY