I’ve said it before, and I will say it again (likely many, many more times), the Nintendo DS was a haven and a gold mine for weird, experimental, and straight up bizarre games. And The World Ends with You was absolutely no exception. Sadly, for most bizarre, experimental games, their lives began and ended with the Nintendo DS (or, if they were lucky, the Nintendo 3DS). Few have been lucky enough to get a chance at a second life with a much wider audience. But that is exactly what The World Ends with You: Final Remix (TWEWYFR) is, a second chance for a wonderfully bizarre game, on a platform with a much larger audience.
Unfortunately for TWEWYFR, Moving a game from the equally unique system of the Nintendo DS, to something very much not a dual screen system, comes with a set of challenges not easily overcome. In short, TWEWYFR falls short of the original game’s vision and playability. In this analysis, however, I am less interested in comparing the two nearly identical games, than I am with analyzing TWEWYFR as its own game. There will be comparisons, but I’m more interested in discussing the game as it is, not as it was.
So, let’s get to it.
In TWEWYFR, you play as Neku Sakuraba, an orange haired, bizarrely dressed, gangly teenager, that seems to always wear a pair of overly large headphones. In short, a character typical of Tetsuya Nomura’s (of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts fame) art style.
Neku is a tragically pathetic, stereotypical, moody, broody, angst-y teen. He hates people, he hates the noise they make, he doesn’t give a lick for their mundane little lives. He’s convinced that the world is better off without them in it, the only person the world needs is himself. Yup, he’s a charmer.
Naturally, Neku’s views on life get rocked pretty suddenly when he finds himself waking up in the middle of a busy street intersection in Shibuya, Japan (where the entirety of the game takes place). He also finds that he’s lost his memory, remembering only his name. The odd occurrences don’t stop there, though, as no one around him can see or hear him. What’s more, he can hear their thoughts. Unable to grasp anything of what happened to him, or how he got to where he is, Neku recieves a bizarre message on his phone, mere moments before being attacked by bizarre animal-like monsters. And here is where the “game” actually begins…
TWEWYFR is beyond categorizing as just an action RPG, as it is so very, very different from any game that has come before. And the game recognizes this, as it holds your hand tightly in the tutorial sections of the game. When enteirng combat for the first time, you are not even allowed to actually fight. First, the game insists on teaching you how to move. Yes, it’s really that slow paced at first.
In a combat scene, you appear in a square like area, just slightly larger than the screen itself, allowing for moving left, right, up and down, but never too far in any one direction. Along with Neku, monsters (known as Noise) will also be present on the scene. They will move and attack in real-time (no turn based combat here), so being able to maneuver around the playing field is important, especially if you want to be able to avoid enemy attacks, and land hits of your own. So, why do we need an entire tutorial just for movement? Because in TWEWYFR, there are (almost) NO button inputs…
Because this is the Switch, there are, of course, two ways to play the game: docked to the TV or handheld. If you’re playing docked, then you use the right joycon as a virtual pointer, using the A button for all actions (think light-gun style controllers). If you play handheld, then all controls are relegated to the touch screen. Having played this game both ways, I can thoroughly say that playing handheld is the better option as the joycon (while no Wiimote…) is still just not accurate enough for this kind of experience. Although, it is not an any more comfortable experience, as holding the switch with one hand is bulky and uncomfortable. The DS it is not. That said, the touch controls are not up to snuff, themselves, but more on that later.
So, back to movement. There is no control stick in TWEWYFR (the game says you can use a control stick, but that is a filthy, filthy LIE), so to move Neku around the battlefield (or around in the over world of the game, i.e. Shibuya) you must press the stylus/pointer/your finger/whatever on Neku himself, and drag him to where you want to move. The speed of your dragging changes whether Neku simply runs or performs a dodge dash movement. This rare worked how I wanted it to, simply due to the motion/touch controls not being precise enough.
Of course, simply moving around is not enough to beat these killer frog monsters, but there’s nothing else Neku can do at the moment, because the game hasn’t taught you how to fight yet, so instead, the game teaches you how to escape the fight, by pausing and selecting the “gotta bounce” option.
As Neku runs, he sees more monsters, attacking other people. Before he knows what’s happening, a strange girl appears, begging Neku to “make a pact” with him, not understanding anything, he agrees. Upon making said pact, the girl, Shiki, gives Neku a pin, explaining that he can use it to fight back against the monsters.
It doesn’t really make a ton of sense, but pins are the “weapons” of TWEWYFR. Activating them causes an attack to be performed. These attacks come in all sorts of variations, and the pins (and their activation) are just as varied. For example, the very first pin you receive creates fire if you “scratch” an empty area (see: rub a spot on the touchscreen where there are no enemies or player characters). Other pins might have you tapping an enemy, or swiping an empty spce, or swiping a certain direction, or pressing and holding, or drawing a circle, or whatever. you get the idea. Lots and lots of touch control (if you’re playing handheld) type of gestures.
As I mentioned earlier, this is a nightmare to accomplish with the motion control style using a joycon controller. But it’s no picnic in handheld either, as I often found the game wasn’t registering the correct inputs, and it only got worse when the battlefield was swamped in chaos with enemies and effects, while I had multiple pins equipped, all with different yet similar input commands (tap an enemy vs tap an empty space for example). It also doesn’t help that your equipped pins show up at the top of the screen, taking up valuable real estate space.
Aside from occasionally poor control, the pins have some other irritating issues. For one, most pins require a “boot period” before they can be used. In other words, you need to wait for them to charge up before you can attack with them. And nearly all have limitations on how much you can use them, before needing to be recharged. Others still had set uses, and once you used them up, you could not use them again for the duration of the fight.
This all, clearly, can be very confusing to follow and grasp, which is why the game teaches you all of this very slowly. You start with only two pin slots at first, and your selection of pins is pretty dang small at start as well (naturally the pin slots and pins available increase as the game progresses). The game isn’t trying to overwhelm you. It knows it’s weird and different, and it tries its best to teach you how to play at a careful rate. Granted, the learning curve may be daunting at first, but once you get over the initial hump, I, at least, found myself getting into the groove fairly easily. The only thing I really struggled with was just the terrible input issues… but that’s a separate issue from gameplay. Technically…
But wait, there’s more! Remember Shiki? She also plays a part in combat as your “partner.” Shiki will fight alongside Neku, but you need to control her. Shiki, and other partners, all have their own input commands to get them to attack. In Shiki’s case, you must tap the noise, multiple times, to build up her combo attacks. Like other attacks, your partner also has an energy gauge. And must go through a reboot period before they can be used again.
This was handled differently in the original DS, thanks to the dual screens. In the original game, your partner was up top, and you controlled their attacks via the d-pad, while controlling Neku with the touchscreen. It was, admittedly, confusing, but at least back then, you had the option of letting your partner be AI controlled. I feel like it was also more fun this way, and made the touch screen area less crowded, with less potential for input screw ups… but that was then and this is now, and this is how it is, for better or worse.
There is a benefit to partner attacks, though. If you alternate attacks between Neku’s attacks and his partner’s, then you will get a combo bonus. This raises the “sync” between you and your partner. Once a sync reaches 100% (or 200%, or 300% later in game), you can unleash a very powerful, screen covering “fusion attack.” Upon activating a fusion attack, you’re given a very brief window to play a very fast paced minigame, to boost the power of the attack. Naturally, these attacks were very useful, and had to be used methodically, as it takes time to rebuild the sync meter, once depleted.
Of course, this being an RPG, after you’re finished with a fight, you get experience points (XP) and items as rewards. In this case though, you also get “pin points” or, PP.
XP is fairly self explanatory, it contributes to your leveling up. Higher levels mean better stats on attack, defense, health, and what not. PP, however, levels up your pins. When a pin levels up, its stats improve in certain ways. It might deal more damage, it may have a shorter boot period, it may have more stamina, it all just depends on the pin. Leveling up certain pins can also make them “evolve” into different, more powerful pins, too. So it’s something to always keep an eye on.
Incidentally, if you go a day or more without playing, the game will keep track of that, netting you bonus “rest” PP simply for NOT playing the game. Of course, there is a limit to how much you can earn this way, and I’m fairly certain it keeps track via real time, not the system clock. So, don’t think you can fool the game into giving you infinite PP via clock manipulation.
Another note about battle rewards: each fight is ranked based on your performance. Raking up combos, taking no damage, using pins effectively, the speed of finishing the fight, all of it is considered in your overall rank. And the higher the rank, the better the potential rewards.
Spekaing of XP and levels, and whatnot, you can adjust your level and the difficulty of the game, at will. Lowering the difficulty makes the game easier, obviously, but rewards less xp, and vice versa. Meanwhile, lowering your level will make the game more difficult, obviously, as you will deal less damage and have less health, but chances of rare pin rewards will increase exponentially.
With combat finally fully explained, and the player having somewhat of a grasp on what the game is, the game let’s the player actually play (but sill introduces new concepts and new, smaller mechanics throughout the first “week” or so of playing [more on that in a bit]).
From here, Neku goes on a strange journey, realizing that he, Shiki, and others are actually dead. And they must rely on one another in order to play the “Reapers’ Game” in order for a chance to return to the land of the living. The Reapers’ Game involves accomplishing set tasks (one task per day) within set time limits (time is not actually a game mechanic, thankfully, simply a thematic element, which appears on his palm, a constant reminder). All within the space of one week. Failure of any task results in “erasure” (see: permanent death).
The Reapers’ Game takes place in Shibuya, but because Neku et al. are dead, where they can go in the city is limited by the whims of the reapers. You’re playing THEIR game, after all. And in order to go from one section of the city to another, usually requires you to unlock paths via completing smaller tasks, to reach the main goal of the day.
Often, the tasks do involve combat. “Defeat X number of X type of noise,” for example. To find noise to fight, you need to tap the player pin (a black pin with a white sytlized skull, omnipresent on the bottom right of the screen) to scan. When you scan, you can read the thoughts of the living, but you can also see the noise present in the current area. Noise are represented by graffiti-like symbols floating all over. Tapping a graffiti symbol will draw in the noise to set up a fight round. If you quickly tap multiple symbols, you can stack up a series of fight rounds (no more than four), chained together. This is more difficult, but offers better xp/pp and rewards.
The game isn’t just combat, of course. The narrative structure of the game is displayed via a visual novel of sorts. And other tasks might involve getting involved in the lives of the living, affecting them in unseen ways, making use of your mind reading powers and other very mediocre “powers of the dead.” Such as imprinting certain words into their minds, or playing “Reaper Creeper,” Shibuya’s form of the Ouija board. These tasks are obviously less exciting than fight based tasks, but they serve an important purpose in breaking up the game’s combat, giving the game good pacing.
The Reapers’ Game takes priority, of course. But as mentioned earlier, there is no real timer or time limit, and this being an RPG, the game gives you plenty of time to customize your character through that age old RPG tradition: shopping. For a very weird reason, when Neku and his partner enter stores, they become visible to the world of the living, and can interact with the people within, and, naturally, shop.
Shopping in Shibuya is a HUGE deal… the people of Shibuya are obsessed with trends. And everything in the game, be it your pins or the clothing you wear (which is like your “armor”) have brand names attached to them. Brands are important, as each section of Shibuya has its own trends. So, if you follow the trends, if you use pins and wear clothes of “hot” brands, you’ll get attack boosts in fights. Alternatively, if you wear and use a brand that is low on the trend chart, you’ll be punished, dealing 50% less damage.
Keep in mind, though, trends are fickle, and are always changing. If there’s a particular brand you prefer, you can keep wearing it, and keep battling in that brand, and eventually you may change the trends in your favor.
A side note about clothing: characters can only equip clothing based on their “bravery” stat (one of those bizarre Square Enix stats that really doesn’t make sense…). If your bravery isn’t high enough, you can’t wear certain clothes. This was always very irritating to me… and it’s no less irritating in this remake.
Back to shopping. It’s more than just menus, of course, because this game is a million layers of weird… When browsing a shop’s wares, the shopkeeper will occasionally notice your “interest” and reveal certain items’ special hidden abilities. And the more you shop at a store, the friendlier the shopkeeper will become and the more hidden abilities they will reveal to you.
In addition to all this, you can also shop for food. Food raises your base stats (such as bravery), but unlike most games, it’s not such a simple matter of clicking the food and eating it. Food must be digested, which can only happen by battling.
You also need “space” to eat. If you’re too full, you can’t eat more food, until the food you’ve already eaten has been fully digested. You also need to wait. In real time… space taken up by previously digested food will not become available again until literally the next day you play. Limitations like this go beyond weird and stray into the irritating quality…
Finally, there are other items called “stickers.” Stickers can be earned via leveling up, by being purchased, or simply by playing through the game. And unlike all other items, they are permanent, passive upgrades to your characters.
Okay, I think that’s enough explanations. Although I could probably go on and on about the various nuances in the gameplay, the different types of noise, the bizarre story, the intriguing and wonderful cast of characters, the occasionally infuriating controls, and so on… There is just one thing that I feel I need to address, and that is what was added exclusively to this “remake.”
TWEWYFR added in a new section to the game, while I’m sure the devs expected fans to jump for joy at this news, I was extremely put off by it. The narrative of the original game was perfect as it was, and it needed no extra embellishments. It ended on a good note. The conclusion was sound. And this tacked on extra chapter felt forced. What’s more, it was considerably shorter than the previous chapters, feeling not only forced, but also rushed and not very well thought out. All for the sake of a potential tease of a sequel featuring a new character. Some bland, nameless, catholic school girl-esque character only shown in brief “visions,” to potentially take place of the much more interesting, and already beloved, Neku (Neku appears to die, for good, at the end of this poorly executed addition, but guess we’ll see, if a sequel ever does come to fruition).
In summary, it was poorly executed, short, and not exactly welcome, as the game had already pushed the limits of my patience just to finish. Again, not because it was a bad game (because TWEWY still holds a special place in my heart, and always will), but because it controls so very poorly, and it can cause actual physical discomfort playing for long stretches, due to the odd control schemes.
I find it difficult to recommend this game. I’ve loved it for years, yet even its original DS version is not without its problems. If you’re feeling adventurous, though, and you can find some comfortable way to handle its bizarre controls, then you’ll be rewarded with a gaming experience quite unlike any other. And ultimately, I think that’s worth putting up with all the things I’ve griped about in this analysis. Think of it as a chance to broaden your gaming horizons.
