The World Ends With You
Another great DS RPG from Square-Enix
Tags: The World Ends With You Categories: DS Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on May 18th, 2008
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| The World Ends With You (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Role-Playing | No | ||
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Square-Enix creates small worlds that players can get lost in. While many argue that the 16-bit era was Square’s creative peak, the combined company has still turned out some of the best RPGs in gaming. I argue that the company’s recent handheld releases have become on par with the SNES RPG’s. The handheld nature alone makes these like great books that are hard to put down, and The World Ends With You seems to up that ante even further. Built of equal parts manga and videogame, this title had me rapt into its world immediately.
The game picks up on the recent trend of games within games, as the characters find themselves stuck in the Reaper’s Game. Neku awakes to this game inside the Shibuya district in Tokyo, with a simple text message “Reach 104, you have 60 minutes. Fail, and face erasure.- The Reapers” What unfolds is a dark melodrama of Neku and the other players of the game. The aloof teenager is forced to take on a partner, and trust them if he is to live through the week of challenges.
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The World Ends With You deals heavily in Japanese culture, not just by setting alone. It carries that very distinctive flavor that a lot of Manga and Anime have, where there are personal feelings worked out in the middle of intense battles.
Square-Enix always has a keen eye for game design, and making RPG’s more interactive. Action-RPGs haven’t gotten the same treatment, much of the interface has always been left to hack and slash. The World Ends with you seeks to expand upon the concept, but doesn’t change the fundamental mechanics. The battles that Neku fight are on the touch screen. His attacks are determined by the pins he is wearing. The pins are each a unique attack, and each one has its own stylus command. This allows for deep customization, and with a huge selections of Pins, players should be able to find something the suits their style.
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The player’s partner battles on the top screen, and can be controlled by pushing either the D-Pad or the ABXY buttons, depending on your handedness. This adds intensity and frantic attention splitting that poses quite a challenge. However, if that split attention is too much for you, or your hands aren’t that nimble you are able to allow the computer to take over the partner’s combat. It isn’t a bad AI, but choosing this option does limit some of the bonuses you will receive.
There are some multiplayer elements to the game as well. Two options are available with multicard play, you can trade your items and pins between you, or you can play the mini-game Tin Pin Slammer. This is a pretty simple game where you attempt to push your opponents pin off a table by pushing it around with the stylus. There are various bonus attacks you can use to save yourself, or stun the other player. As with most of the Square-Enix minigames, it is a good distraction, but it lacks substance.
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There are also some interesting non-gameplay related wireless functions. Your pins will grow if you pass people who are playing any DS game in wireless mode, and you can set it run in the background, so if you walk past someone playing Mario Kart with a friend at a café, you gain some points. Of course this is designed for Japan where the DS is as widespread as oxygen. Here you may have to coordinate a bit.
The World Ends With You is another great gem for the DS. Squae-Enix has really shown off that RPGs can manage to be even more engaging when you can carry them with you everywhere. This is a great game, and everyone with a DS should own it
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Great character design + Strong narrative that manages to escape many of the trappings of RPG writing + Gameplay is challenging and keeps your interest, and the challenge comes on very slowly allowing you to adapt to the unique scheme |
10 |
| What Doesn't | |
| - Control scheme is going to be more than some player can handle, and the AI partner just doesn't get the job done | |
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| This is a great game, it stole my attention completely from the moment I put it in the DS. There is no excuse for you not to get this game. It's an absolute masterpiece. | |
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Tags: The World Ends With You
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on May 18th, 2008 and is filed under DS Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
