The World Ends With You
Square Enix
Nintendo DS

We’ve all known Square Enix to put out some of the most popular and (in some cases) most enjoyable RPG games out there, such as Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, and, once in a blue moon we get a new Mana game.

But when the dynamic duo puts out a role-playing game that isn’t one of these popular franchises, it definitely raises interest, and with good reason. Examples: Radiata Stories, Drakengard.

Well, Square Enix has done it again with this new Nintendo DS title, “The World Ends with You.” It combines a modern-day Tokyo with a stunning use of the touch screen, interactivity with the world around you, and a tiny pinch of magic, to form a must-have title for your Nintendo DS.

The game starts off following the main character, a teenage boy named Neku who’s harboring angst issues to the point that he’s just an a**. He’s walking through the bustling Shibuya streets one day when he trips and falls, and no one helps him up. He then looks around and finds a strange pin with a skull drawing on it. Curious about it, he picks it up, and as soon as he does he starts to hear voices in his head. It is that second that he discovers he has the power to read minds. He hears his phone ring, and gets a text message that he must “get to 104.” He has 60 minutes. He deletes the message, dismissing it as junk mail, but it won’t go anywhere.

When that happens, his hand starts to burn sharply and he sees a timecode of 60 minutes burned on his hand, steadily decreasing with each second. And if things couldn’t get any worse—he gets attacked by frogs that show up out of nowhere. No idea what to do, he runs away to the Statue of Hachiko (famous dog), where a girl shows up and demands he form a “pact” with her. He reluctantly accepts, not knowing what it would do, and the frogs stop attacking. She introduces herself as Shiki, explains to him that they are part of a “game” now that they have something called “Player Pins”. The game is seven days, controlled by The Reapers, an enigmatic group of higher-level people that use the Noise, monsters Neku encounters, as pawns. Players must complete every mission they get within the time limit or they will face “erasure”.

"The World Ends With You" is definitely worlds of fun. The gameplay in the overworld isn’t just moving around, it mostly revolves around “scanning” your surroundings using the Player Pin in the bottom right of your touch screen. By using this you can read the minds of the civilians around you (though they rarely have anything to say that benefits your mission, simply for entertainment value), as well as detect where the Noise are, so YOU can challenge them. Eventually you'll come across a part where you can "chain battles". Chaining battles is when you select two or more Noise to fight when challenging them. Then the battles will happen consecutively one after the other.

The battle system is probably the strangest part, which can be frustrating at first, but you get used to it eventually. Each pin you acquire for battle throughout the game are used in a different way with the touch screen. To move (this doesn’t require a pin) you simply touch his feet and drag Neku somewhere else. Certain pins are activated by dragging the stylus across the screen on your enemies, slashing the stylus on your enemies, pointing, etc. Each different movement triggers a different pin. When a pin’s PP is used up, it has to “reboot”. At that time, try using a different pin. biggrin Certain pins have to "boot" at the beginning of the battle, unlike most which can be used automatically.

Here’s the sketchy part—you’re initially in control of both you AND your partner in battle. Your partner is on the top screen. The partner is maneuvered by choosing a certain attack with the D-pad, but you can choose the have the computer do it. I recommend you choose that setting, because controlling both of them at the same time just ends up being cumbersome. A green “light puck” will switch between characters depending on who is doing better in battle. Whoever has the light puck does more damage.

By beating Noise in battle you get EXP, which level up your character, or you get PP, which level up your pins. Gather a certain amount of levels on a certain pin depending on its stats and you will "Master" the pin. But for the life of me, I cannot tell what the significance is of any of these. No matter what level you or your pins are on, you still do relatively the same amount of damage.

After defeating certain enemies, completing objectives or getting to a certain point in the story you acquire new pins, which can be used in battle, or used to trade in for money, as well as other purposes. Pins can be managed in the “Phone Menu”. You choose the Phone icon and select pins, and it chooses which pin you’re going to wear. This is probably the most fun part, because after testing out all the pins you can arrange them in your deck (pins you're wearing) to form a strategy to approach each battle with. Also after doing certain things you can acquire cards, which improve certain attributes of you or your partner, such as adding a new slot to wear another pin, improving attack/defense, etc. These take effect automatically.

There are a few more gameplay elements that are completely different from battle yet quite important to character growth and getting a handle on the game. First is the Food system. Food can be bought at any store. Now, food isn't like the Sims, where it's used to cure your hunger that will kill you if you don't eat something. Food is the primary means aside from leveling up for improving your stats. Each food has a certain stat which they increase by a certain number (attack, defense, bravery, etc.) and also has a certain number of "bytes". Bytes are sort of a time increment that measure how full you are and how long it will take to digest the food depending on how many battles you fight. Once you've eaten, though, you can't eat again for another 24 hours--in REAL TIME. :'(

Probably the most fun non/battle gameplay element is the threads/trend system. Threads are clothes you wear. Different threads require certain amounts of bravery (BRV). Bravery is increased by doing certain amounts of battles or eating food. Threads, along with pins, each have their own brands, which can be popular in one part of Shibuya and hated in another. These popularity rankings are called "trends". Trends vary depending on what section of Shibuya you are in. On the pause menu (called the "Phone Menu" in the game), you can see what the trends are in this area and in other areas through a map (but the map isn't a real MAP. It's solely to show trends and doesn't really show locations or streets). If you are wearing threads and pins that are the number 1 brand in the area, your attack power will be doubled. If it's number 2, it'll be increased by 50%. If it's number 3, it'll be 20%--and if it's dead last, your attack power will be cut in half.

But here's the fun part--YOU can set the trends. Not far into the game the world of trend-setting comes to light, where you discover that by wearing certain threads brands and using certain pin brands in battle enough times, you can change around the trends to make what you're wearing number one on the charts in the area! Now imagine my excitement when I thought that I could make every section of Shibuya love "Jupiter of The Monkey" threads and pins, making Neku's attack power off the charts EVERYWHERE!!!! Well, that's not gonna happen, because the longer you're not fighting in an area, the quicker the area goes back to its original trend. This way the balance of power keeps in check.

To progress through the world, it's pretty simple--just go there. Until, of course, you come across a Wall. Reapers you come across will usually set up invisible walls to block you from where you need to be, and will give you criteria you need to meet for him to open up the wall. This is the Reapers's way of being asses, I suppose. Usually the criteria will vary from bringing him a certain pin to defeating a certain amount of Noise to making a trend the highest trend in the area.

In terms of how the story of the game progresses, it’s well-flowing and steady. Things aren’t crammed down your throat, and if they are they explain it again enough times in dialogue for you to figure it out. Things become clear to you as they go.

But that leads the game to its biggest problem—the dialogue. THERE’S WAY TOO MUCH. I don’t think I would mind it so much if the dialogue was voice acted. But unfortunately, it’s presented through character illustrations on the top screen with small word bubbles next to the character’s images. Which means you’re reading EVERYTHING.

What saves it, though, is that everything in the conversations is important information, and while that may not sound too interesting, the snarky comments from the attitudinal Neku towards everyone around him (not just his partners) make the conversations humorous and worth sitting through, especially if you want to know the story.

Getting back to the story. As I said, it's extremely well-told, especially since you'll come across numerous plot twists that'll leave you mouth agape. One such example is *SPOILER* Shiki confesses that before she died she hated her appearance, and when she entered the game took the appearance of her best friend, who she always envied. *SPOILERS END* If you read the spoiler, you're probably like "And...?" It doesn't seem like much, but once you've played the game and gotten what it's all about, things like this will be a lot more surprising.

When it comes to sound, this game is on and off. The soundtrack isn’t the best, at least not in my opinion. It’s all Japanese hip-hop, and if that’s not you’re thing, you might want to play this with the volume off, because in most dialogue it’s the same song over and over. In times of extreme emotion during dialogue, you’ll hear a character say “WHAT?!!” or “HUH?!” or “AHH!” But that’s the closest you’ll get to voice acting. The sound effects, however, are awesome to listen to, especially in battle. Fire sounds like fire. Lightning sounds like lightning. Swords sound like swords.

We’ve gone over gameplay. We’ve gone over sound. We’ve gone over the presentation. What about the visuals?

I’m very happy to say that the visuals are great. It’s a 2D game, don’t be mistaken. But it’s a marvel of a 2D game, with a 3D environment. The characters are all sprites moving around on the bottom screen. The streets look just like Tokyo, they’re always FILLED with people. Walking through Tokyo is like walking through Manhattan in Times Square—a chore. That’s what makes it fun! The illustrations of characters on the top screen change poses every time a character’s emotion changes. They’re detailed and great to look at.

Now you've been barraged with a wall-o-text of information on this awesome Nintendo DS game. But just because it's great at first doesn't mean you're going to be playing it forever, right? WRONG. This game is so addictive, you might as well be lighting the end on fire and smoking it. I've been playing this game since 9:00 saturday and have not stopped playing it 25 hours later. Now I'm a very slow gamer. Let's get this out of the way. Most people say you can beat Uncharted in a single afternoon, I don't think I've gotten halfway through the game. So I'd say this game will take you about 6-8 hours to beat. If I'm wrong, may permabanhammer strike me where I stand.

It’s DEFINITELY a great game. It’s got excellent gameplay, great visuals, and a good story that progresses well, despite the overamounts of dialogue. Sound could be better, but not a total loss. Bottom line is, you will LOVE this game, and play it for a long, long time. Square Enix has definitely done it again.

Final Score: 9.0