The World Ends With You - DS Review

It's been a while since I've reviewed a "sqeenix" game. Actually for any of my hardcore devotees the last and only Square-Enix game I reviewed was Kingdom Hearts, an overated sack of bland, which is actually rather disappointing because Square-Enix have many great games under their belts like, for example, the whole Final Fantasy series and I have been quite happy to play them without going to any lengths to blog about them. Perhaps when they decide to fuck some of their shitty side projects off and decide to finally release Final Fantasy XIII I'll review that. I guess the main reason I haven't been reviewing them is because I'd inevitably end up mostly reviewing the story. Because let's face it, despite tweaks and refinements the gameplay in these games is all very much the same and doesn't leave alot to discuss. Even beyond gameplay there are alot of recurring themes and shit in JRPG's that I wouldn't mind seeing the back of for a while. That said, The World Ends With You is a refreshing take on the JRPG formula and coincidently I have just finished it. So shall I review it? I think I shall.


The World Ends With You see's you taking control of the introverted, society loathing Neku who has ended up locked in a parallel world with a handfull of other characters in a twisted game where first prize is the chance to not die. The story for the first half of the game is quite intriguing. I liked the idea of being one of many pawns in a game of chess that is totally tilted in the other teams favour in a world being manipulated by an omnipotent being known only as The Composer. The story get's less good towards the ending as the game decides to expand and develope the less interesting parts of the story. The ending is good enough but I felt it should've been so much more. I feel the same way about a lot of JRPG's that delve into nihilistic ideas and I suppose the reason is that the designers feel that the characters need meaning in their life in order to fight the antagonist. I mean what's wrong with the motivation of not wanting to die? JRPG fans are probably all familiar with this scenario; characters lined up in front of the final boss each elaborating on the lessons they've learned and the reasons they must win while the final boss ignores them and laughs. Why does a meaningless view of the world translate into not being motivated to live? I honestly would like game writers to consider that sometime soon.

The combat in the game is quite diverse when compared to the usual JRPG method of mashing A to select attacks from a menu. The top and bottom screen can be controlled simultaneously using two different control schemes. It actually feels a little bit like a rhythm style game during combat, akin to Dance, Dance Revolution. Using this control scheme can be difficult to pull off at times but luckily there's an auto-play option that automatically kicks in for the top screen controls if you stop using them for a while. Difficulty can be adjusted in a variety of ways by the player at any point in the game and players are rewarded appropriately for toughing it out by earning more, and better, stuff. This gives the game a replayability that is lacking in most JRPG's. It also gives the game an "easy to learn, hard to master" demeanor that works well and I instantly wished that more JRPG's had adjustable difficulty at any point in the game because it also does away with the need for heavy grinding sessions.


The main thing I didn't like is that the story and gameplay don't mesh, as with a lot of JRPG's. Oddly enough it's probably even more so for TWEWY because moving the story along inevitably involves navigating your character around the same old places. The combat, the dialogue and the world map all have different screens and so they feel disconnected. It's like you'll be getting into the story and then you're interrupted by a battle or required to go somewhere else which cuts everything up a bit. Outside of combat all you're really required to do is search the map for the next round of dialogue. It's all triggered depending on where you are so the game ultimately bloils down to searching and reading with small bursts of required combat tossed in as well.

But overall The World Ends With You is pretty good and certainly worthy of at least some of your time. While it ultimately falls into a few tired JRPG trends it does enough different and has a unique enough style to stand out from the crowd.