The World Ends With You (DS) Review

It’s strange to see a game being released by Square Enix that isn’t a part of their acclaimed Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest series’, however, some may argue that this is simply because there is no reason for them to stray from their respective comfort zones and risking a release of something new. With the release of “The World Ends With You”, an entirely new adventure RPG designed for the DS, Square Enix have proven they can still come up with something new without losing their well-deserved reputation.

The World Ends With You starts off in an ambiguous manner, placing players in the shoes of Neku. Neku is everything you’d imagine a teenager to be; apathetic, distrustful and to put it bluntly, he just doesn’t want to be here. He loves listening to music and creating stylish graffiti. Once waking up without any recollection of who he is, in the middle of a sprawling Japanese metropolis, Neku finds himself equipped with what is known as a “player pin”. It’s not long before Neku realises he’s part of “The Game” run by a shady group of characters known as “The Reapers”. If Neku doesn’t complete the game in time, he will find himself “erased” by the Reapers. It’s all a little threatening, but the story is intriguing enough to encourage the player to progress.

The World Ends With You is one of the most impressive games on the DS both in terms of its graphical features and it’s art direction. It’s definitely one of the most interesting and unique art directions ever seen in a video game, particularly on the DS. Although cartoon-ish in nature, the designs of the characters and the enemies are very adult in nature. The game as a whole is highly stylised from the cutscenes to the menus. The main gameplay segments show two-dimensional anime-styled sprites, which move on pre-rendered backgrounds drawn in similar styles. In terms of the amount of activity on screen at any given time, World Ends With You ranges from having two people roaming a quiet street or in excess of fifty in a busy intersection in the metropolitan areas of the game’s setting. Suffice to say, while rendering all this in a smooth and beautiful 60 frames per second, The World Ends With You is an exceptionally good looking game. There is one major fault that really stands out however and that is the fact that although there are some short FMV sequences which feature full animation which looks amazing, there simply are not enough of them. Suffice to say it may be a limitation of the DS’s hardware, but otherwise, the presentation of the story advancing scenes are confined to a simple screen with two character’s portraits and text scrolling between them.

The World Ends With You has some of the most unique gameplay mechanics ever seen in both a DS game and in RPGs. The general gameplay involves searching each area for clues in order to complete the missions of “The Game”, set by the ominous “Reapers”. At the start of each day, The Reapers send a text message to Neku or his partner’s phone, giving him a cryptic clue in what he must do in order to survive The Game and move on to the next day. During the main investigation phases, Neku can use his player pin in order to scan the general area and pick up on people’s thoughts. Touching on each NPC with the stylus allows Neku to read their thoughts. In addition to reading people’s minds, Neku can also use his Player Pin to “imprint” thoughts into people’s minds. Upon receiving what the game calls “Memes” from The Reapers, Neku can then proceed to “imprint” memes into people’s minds. An example comes from the first one found in the game. In order to progress Neku must restore power to a room so he can see properly. The guy who is responsible, however, has gone out to find equipment to restore the power. He has forgotten, however, and is too nervous to go back and ask the owner of the building. So, what can Neku do? Well he just so happens to have a meme, “Blackout” which he imprints into the nervous repairman’s mind, thus reminding him without actually speaking to him. This element is pretty fun to pull off and using it on the wrong people can also produce some humorous results.

However, when activating the player pin, Neku can also see what’s known as Noise. Noise are essentially enemies that The Reapers employ to do their bidding, and are representing by floating symbols, the size of the symbol denoting the difficulty of the Noise. Commonly, their presence will affect the reactions you receive from certain characters, so sometimes destroying them is required to progress. Tapping on any of these symbols initiates a battle in a similar vein to Final Fantasy. Think of it as random encounters, minus the random. In order to increase character stats, players must equip their characters with the appropriate clothes and eat the appropriate foods. There are a few catches to this system. In certain areas of Shibuya, the game’s setting, certain clothing brands are more “trendy” than others and thus only provide effects in that certain area. For example, buying Brand A of T-Shirt and wearing it in the area where Brand A is considered “cool” allows an increase in defence of, say, 5. However, wearing the Brand A T-Shirt in an area where Brand B is considered “cool” means a decrease in defence by 5. It’s a cool and clever system that reflects the pop culture setting that the game is pretty much built upon. Also, when characters eat food, they must wait for it to digest in order to receive it’s full effects – and the time taken is real time, meaning you can only digest so much food in one day (literally a time span of 24 hours).

The World Ends With You is an RPG through and through, though and continues to incorporate the integration between the in-game world and the real world. Characters and their abilities are levelled up, there are ultimate finishing moves and what you equip on your characters influences how well they respond to damage and/or how hard they hit. The main form of points that many players will be worrying about is PP, or Pin Points. Pin Points accrue to each pin Neku has equipped after battle, until they level up. Levelling up pins increases their potency – for example levelling up the telekinesis pin allows Neku to throw an object further than before, and harder in order to inflict more damage on enemies. But, what’s possibly the coolest thing about PP is the main way you’ll be accruing them. Imagine this – you save your game, turn it off, go to sleep, wake up and start playing again. What’s this? You’ve gained experience?!?! That’s right – The World Ends With You will calculate how long it’s been since you last played and automatically level up the pins you’re wearing by allocating PP to each pin. Some gamers may find this feature a little deterring as it does take some hassle and difficulty out of the game, but in all honesty it really makes the game more accessible for your standard RPG hater. That being said, just removing Neku’s badges will stop the feature from working anyway.

The battle system is where The World Ends With You gets really interesting. An entirely new concept created by Square Enix, the “Stride Cross Battle System” is a battle engine which uses both screens of the DS and as such many may find it a little daunting at first. When a battle is initiated with Noise, the world is split into two. One “plain” is occupied by Neku’s partner and the other by Neku himself. Noise exists on both plains, but defeating the noise in one plain removes it from the other. In addition to this, health is shared by Neku and his partner, who changes depending on which chapter is being played. Here’s where it gets tricky – both characters are controlled at the same time, though it is possible to assign the partner to be controlled by the computer. Now, for the combat itself. On the bottom screen, Neku equips himself with different pins which correspond to an attack known as a psyche. To give a few examples; a fire trail that is cast by drawing the trail itself, an icicle that impales enemies by drawing a line from the bottom up, and a general slash attack done by scratching enemies. The combat system is definitely frantic, allowing for all types of Pins to be equipped, from lightning even to telekinesis, allowing Neku to throw objects at enemies. To top that off, players will also have to control Neku’s partners, who’s attacks are input via the directional pad (face buttons for left-handers). Players will see it in their best interest to coordinate attacks so that each character alternates between attacking – simply because it builds a chain and thus increases damage dealt to enemies. To further this, constantly synchronized attacks between Neku and his partner increases stats and allows for a Fusion attack to be performed – similar to a Limit Break in Final Fantasy games. Finally, each of Neku’s partners has different abilities so there is a bit of variation to the system. It sounds like an extremely complex, difficult and fast-paced system to get to grips with, but after several battles the system becomes something of a second nature and really isn’t that complicated at all.

What would a DS game be without wireless interaction? After certain progress in the game has been made, Neku is given the ability to “mingle” in order to earn points he can use to upgrade his abilities. Mingling with friends via the DS’s wireless system enables players to successfully power up their pins (which as we covered previously, are Neku’s main source of attacks) as well as to add “friend shops” to the game’s menu. Interacting, or “mingling” with other DS systems that are not currently running “The World Ends With You” will see the Pin’s Neku has currently equipped being levelled up or at least accrued points towards levelling up. However, if a friend has a copy of the game and trades friend codes, Mingling brings about the ability to trade cards which also have certain abilities associated with them. All in all, it’s a pretty neat implementation of the DS’s wireless features.

Aurally speaking, The World Ends With You is an audio delight. At first glance, the soundtrack does seem slightly repetitive and sometimes even annoying to the most resilient of players, but over time, the tunes (which are an eclectic mix of techno, RnB and very mild jPop sounding tracks) eventually grow on you and don’t overstay their welcome. Upon realising you’ve been hearing the same battle theme over and over again, the game throws in another just to mix things up a bit. It’s definitely one of the most impressive soundtracks ever heard, particularly on a handheld and more so on the DS.

In terms of replay value, there isn’t a whole lot of reason to play through the game again besides a New Game+ option, where Neku can choose which partner he takes on his earlier missions. Completists may want to play through the game again to collect all of the pins and max out their players stats, but outside of this there really is no incentive. The main game itself though takes a good amount of time to complete, boasting extensive dialogue and some pretty impressive boss battles.

The World Ends With You is a high quality and highly enjoyable original game from Square Enix. Both great visuals and gameplay come together to create something that every DS owner should experience in some way or another. Don’t pass up The World Ends With You until you’ve at least given it a go. That being said, the battle system may be a bit too complicated for younger players, but otherwise, it’s a brilliant game and we cannot stress enough how essential it is for DS owners to try it out. Once again another third party title done right, from none other than Square Enix.

Rating: 4.5/5