I've been playing this game for a couple of weeks, which was shortly after I earned the Vivi character in Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy. I'd been trying to unlock Vivi for sometime and after I was able to, I felt like I accomplished something and I played for a bit after that, but I haven't picked the game up since I put The World Ends With You in my DS, which again, was a couple of weeks ago. Now that the background context is out of the way, on with the initial critique.
The World Ends With You is an odd game from Square Enix. I mention Square Enix first off because the first thing I think of when I see those two juggernauts of RPG's next to each other are two things, Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior/Quest. I obviously know there are plenty of other properties associated with that one massive company, but that's what comes to my mind. Oh, and I guess the Kingdom Hearts franchise too, but I've never gotten into those games as the idea of Disney characters in a Final Fantasyesque type story/setting/whatever it is has never appealed to me. Anyway!, Square Enix = Overworld Exploring RPG's. This isn't the case with TWEWY.
Initially, TWEWY feels a lot like an RPG that Atlus would have come up with. From the character designs to the way the game is played, even the music is somewhat reminiscent of the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series. Does this mean that the game doesn't work well, coming from Square Enix? Of course not! Just because a game company puts something out that breaks a mold that works very well for them doesn't mean that the game is going to be horrible. It's a very non-traditional game that works on a lot of levels, even if I know I'm playing part of the game inaccurately.
The battles in the game are what makes this game very different than a standard RPG. The battles are in real time, similar to how the Tales... games are run: wandering around an over world and entering real time battles. The actions in the battles are determined by which "pins" the main character, Neku, has equipped. Different pins do different types of damage and the actions are executed in any number of different ways. From "slashing" an enemy with the stylus, to "tapping" empty space to shoot a projectile towards and enemy, or "scratching" an open area to cause area damage. There are a lot more types of damage and actions as I've made it through, maybe 1/3 of the game and I haven't collected all of the pins yet. And this is only half of the battle system. The other half takes place on the top screen with your partner. That half is controlled with either the control pad or the ABXY buttons (depending if you're right or left handed). For that you're supposed to pick out the "correct" card in the proper order in order to execute a combo. I don't play it that way. For the top person, I just button mash, pressing the control pad in whichever direction my opponent is facing. It's not great, but it's working out somewhat well so far.
Coordination here is the key. Left hand playing top screen with directional pad and right hand using the stylus on the bottom screen. It's like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach. All while being attacked.
As far as the storyline goes, it's a lot deeper and somewhat darker than I had originally anticipated and that's very much welcome. That's all I want to say about the story as to not give it away for anyone (like me) who plays games four years after they've been released. Even the fact that the game takes place in the Shibuya district of Tokyo and that I don't really know anything about that specific culture, I don't feel like I'm missing anything that's important to the game. Sure, I'm sure there are things in the game that I'd be giddy about if I knew about Shibuya culture and the district itself, but it's something that I'm not too worried about.
I think it's safe to say though, that with 15 hours logged in so far, I would easily recommend this game to just about anyone. Pokemon fans? There's collecting. RPG fans? There's leveling of characters and items/weapons. Action fans? Battles in real time. Rhythm Music game fans? There's pretty awesome music. See, a little something for everyone. Except if you're only a fan of FPS', then you probably won't like this game, and you probably wouldn't own a DS anyway.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
More For The Rest Of Us.
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