Jessinta Cheng
The stage is set. The Players are in and the Reapers are ready. You have 7 days and 7 missions. Failure to complete a mission will lead to Erasure, that is, you vanish, without a trace, forever.
Your character is Neku, a loner who wakes up one day to find himself in the middle of the famous scramble crossing (a traffic junction where all traffic comes to a halt periodically and pedestrians are free to cross in any direction), with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. He soon realises that no one else can see him and meets a girl, Shiki, the only one who can see him, and they are forced to partner to survive the Game.
Battle System
If you pick up this up expecting to play in the familiar battle system in other RPGs in the market, you’re in for a big surprise. There’re no swords and spell casting. Instead, The World Ends With You uses a system of Pins, which look like little buttons and give Neku his abilities when he goes into battle.
Each Pin is activated by a stylus move played on the touchscreen. For example, one Pin might kick in when you slash at the “Noise” (enemy monsters) while another ability is only triggered by your drawing a circle around Neku on the touchscreen.
There are about 300 different types of Pins in the game and they are all customisable. Some of these combos can evolve, while others can only be learnt by fighting a type of Noise at a higher difficulty level.
If you think remembering the moves can’t be that hard, remember that you’ll be fighting on both screens at the same time on the DS.
Shiki, whom you control with either the direction control or buttons on the DS, will be on the top screen, and you have to simultaneously dictate Neku’s moves with the stylus on the bottom screen.
The key to winning the game is being able to control both screens so that you effectively use the green puck travelling between both your characters in amplifying the power of the attacks. Attacks get stronger the more times the puck travels between Neku and Shiki.
If you’re hopeless at multi-tasking, fret not, you can set Shiki to auto-play, which allows you to concentrate on Neku if you haven’t gotten the hang of controlling both characters at the same time.
Neku and Shiki share a health bar in the game, while the Noise each have their own health bars. Though your heroes are fighting on different planes, they fight the same enemies. So when Neku destroys a Noise on the bottom screen, the Noise disappears on Shiki’s screen too.
Unique Points to Note
While some other games only let you dress your character up for fun, what Neku and Shiki wear actually affects their performance in The World Ends With You. There are 12 fashion brands in the game and dressing each character up according to the fashion trends can increase your attacking power, while weak brands will weaken your attacks. The clothes can increase your stats and using Pins of popular brands can further increase the power of your attack. Some Noise will even drop money Pins when defeated, and you can then cash them in for some money to spend in shops scattered around the map.
As with all other RPGs, The World Ends With You has a levelling system too. However, what’s unique to the games is that it you’re allowed to level down as well, exchanging experience for better and more Pins. Also, you can change the difficulty level of the game at any time and the Noise drop different Pins when played at different difficulty levels.
In other RPGs, you can’t choose your battles as they randomly happen when you’re exploring the map. In The World Ends With You, however, you get to choose your own battles. Neku is allowed to scan the area and detect any Noise in the vicinity. To fight them, just tap on the floating Noise symbols. This gives you the freedom to fight only when you want to. You’ll still advance to the next day even if you don’t fight any of the Noise floating around, so don’t worry if you’d rather ignore them.
Visual appeal
With characters designed like manga characters, playing the game feels like reading a chapter of your favourite Japanese comic.
Though the battle graphics and map transitions aren’t particularly impressive, the character designs are noteworthy. Done in 2D by Tetsuya Nomura, who has a fabulous portfolio of previous projects like Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, the image of each character brings out all his unique characteristics. For example, main character Neku, who’s a loner, perpetually has a huge pair of earphones covering his ears, symbolising his desire to be cut off from the rest of the world as much as possible.
While the game might be interesting to most hardcore gamers, some casual gamers might not like it due to the complicated gameplay with all its many variables and customisations. However, persevere and you’ll get a sense of satisfaction and enjoy your gaming experience a lot more when you get the hang of the game.
Also, as there is no proper map showing the different sections of the game area, you might end up running in circles to locate a specific place for a mission. On one occasion, UrbanWire spent a frustrating 5 minutes running around before finding the correct location.
Overall
The World Ends With You might be a little too complicated and hard to catch for gaming rookies and so UrbanWire recommends it for gaming enthusiasts, who will appreciate the fact that this is a game you can play over and over again without feeling bored because of its countless customisations. It’s a welcome breath of fresh air and is one of the few games that still manages to breathe new life in a market saturated RPG titles with its innovative battle system.
Score
Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Plot: 9/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Addictive Rating: 9/10
Overall Rating: 8.5/10
Pictures are courtesy of Game Press.