The World Ends With You

The World Ends With You, developed by Square and Jupiter in 2007 is a unique action-RPG that blends a new type of battle system and an excellent excelent, in-depth storyline.

 

In The World Ends With You (TWEWY), the main character, Neku Sakuraba, is a teenage boy who doesn't understand people, and thus is anti-social.  

 

TWEWY begins with Neku being thrust into the middle of the "Reaper's Game", a game that provides a second chance at life.  Confused and slightly scared, Neku is attacked by noise, the main enemies in the game. While trying to escape form the noise, he finds another player in the game, Shiki Misaki, who forms a pact with Neku, in order to fight off the noise. Shiki introduces you to the greatest part of TWEWY: the unique battle system.

 

The Stride Cross Battle System is the games crowning achievement.  Battle takes place on both screens of the DS simultaneously.  Neku is on the bottom screen, while his partner is on the top screen.  

 

 

You control Neku with various stylus movements, while you (or the computer, if you so choose) controls the top-screen character with the d-pad, or if you're a lefty, the a,y,b,x buttons.  What's interesting though, is that while the top and bottom screens are different, they usually have the same enemies on them.  The corresponding enemies on both the top screen and the bottom screen share a health bar, making battles have a level of strategy.  Should Shiki attack the left enemies while Neku focuses on the right?  Or should they gang up on an enemy, and take them out one at a time?  

 

The game's main weapons are called psych pins, or pins for short.  Most are activated with various stlus movements, while others are passive,and help power up other pins Neku has equipped.  There are over 300 different pins in TWEWY, so collecting all of them can be a challenge, expesially since some of these pins can only be obtained through evolution of other poins, or beating certain bosses on high difficult levels.

 

The storyline is also a major part of TWEWY (the game is develpoed by Square). The story revolves around the "Reaper's Game", as mentioned before. The game is a form of amusement for higher up beings, called Reapers, and as a tool to measure a human's worth to the world. After dying in the Real Ground, the dimension where people live, people are taken to the Underground, a higher dimension where the Game takes place.  To enter the game, players must give up their most prized possesion, as an entry fee, which is then returned to them upon their winning of the game.  If they lose the game, they are erased, and cease to exist. In order to win the Game, players have to complete one mission a day, assigned by the Game Master, for a week. On the seventh day, they must also defeat the GM in battle, in order to win the game, and be revived in the RG.

 

As stated earlier, the story starts with Neku thrust into the Reaper's Game, and joins forces with Shiki, in order to defeat the noise, and progress through the Game. Shiki is a very outgoing girl, who, as the week progresses, Neku begins to become friends with, despite his aversion of friendship and people in general. At the end of the week, Shiki is chosen to be revived because she was the best player in the game. But, as Neku's original entry fee, his memory, is returned, his entry fee for the second week is taken: Shiki. So, now Neku must play for himself and his only friend.

 

The game continues in this fashion for a total of three weeks, with Neku's partners changing each week (Shiki, Joshua, and Beat), until the third week when Neku must confront the Composer, or creater of the game, and stop him from destroying Sibuya, the city where the game takes place.

 

The game is moderately long, but with all the extras in it, it can take upwards of 75 hours to complete.  For example, there are item, pin mastery, and enemy completion percentages shown on the save screen.  And, once the game has been completed, players may return to any previos day (level), and complete missions in order to reveal a Secret Report, which fills in some of the back story of TWEWY.

 

All in all, The World Ends With You is an excellent game with a unique combat system, and an intriging, in-depth storyline.  You should definately check it out!