Description

The World Ends with You is an action role-playing game originally developed for the Nintendo DS in 2007 by Square Enix and Jupiter. It received generally positive reviews, and has a small cult following. Later on, a mobile port was developed in 2012. More recently, a Switch port has been announced to be released later this year.

You play as Neku, an introverted kid who has recently died and is forced into a game where he needs to accomplish missions in order to gain a second chance at life. You run around Shibuya, Tokyo achieving these objectives, and while doing that you learn more about life and other people along the way, eventually learning to interact with others and appreciate them.

It really drew me in for many reasons. The story, setting, and aesthetics immersed me in the game, and made me want to continue playing until the end. The world was interesting and always had something worth exploring. It was fun to experiment and try out new things, and test the limits of what I was capable of doing.

Gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MacsjwKETLE

Lens of Elemental Tetrad

Aesthetics

The game is done in a very stylistic, cartoonish way. It was made for the DS, which does not have good resolution, so it suits the technology pretty well. Set in Shibuya, Tokyo, the game draws heavily from the fashion of young teens. As such, it feels very unique, as it has an interesting fusion of hip hop, pop, punk, gothic lolita, and anything else which teenagers like. There is even a giant graffiti wall in the game, which has important significance to the main character.

Mechanics

The game has the player running around a fictional Shibuya completing tasks. Many of the tasks are simple such as travelling to a certain location or fighting a certain monster. Fighting is also interesting. Firstly, monsters generally do not engage the player in combat. Usually, it is the player who needs to choose to fight, and then they will enter the fighting part of the game. Secondly, the fighting is done on 2 separate screens, where the player has to control 2 separate characters. Thirdly, the player fights in a variety of ways. Slashing, dragging, poking the screen, blowing into the microphone; depending on the attacks equipped, any action could be an attack.

Story

The game puts the player in control of Neku, a player in the game conducted by the Reapers. Neku has recently died, and this is a chance for those people to gain a second chance at life. Players will have to complete tasks given to them, and will need to survive for seven days to win. However, the monsters which the reapers send to attack are special, and exist in 2 different planes at the same time. As such, Neku needs to team up with another person, which is hard for him as he is an introvert and does not like to interact with others. Throughout the game, the player learns more about this world and how things work here, while Neku learns to trust in other people and accept them for who they are.

Technology

The game makes great use of its technology. Being on the Nintendo DS, there are a variety of gimmicks which were available to it. The game makes you fight simultaneous battles, making use of the dual screen nature of the console. In addition, no feature of the DS was left unused: The touch screen, microphone, wi-fi, and even things like sleep mode were used to provide different experiences to the player.

Tying it Together

Neku is forced to learn about others and how they work and gradually accept them into his life. Similarly, we as the player learn more about this world and learn more about how the game works. The technology is introduced bit by bit, and the attacks gradually expand their variety in how to use. We also get thrown in this world and it’s varied and interesting art style, which is created from a clash between many different existing styles. In the end, it gives an experience of learning about others and appreciating them, even though they are different from us.

Lens of Curiosity

The game is set in Shibuya, but it doesn’t allow you to access most of the places. Slowly, the game expands, and you can visit more and more locations which may be familiar to you if you have been there in real life. Even if you haven’t, it is still interesting to see where can I go next. Other than that, there are a huge amount of attack powers in the game, but you can only use 6 at a time. The game encourages you to try out all of them and find some which suit you the best. In addition, using the attack powers will upgrade them, and sometimes they may even evolve into new powers! This is in addition to the game slowly unlocking new equipment with a variety of effects, and new game mechanics to alter the game.

Lens of Freedom

The game gives you an objective to complete, but other than that you are free to explore the area. To make it less daunting, the game starts out with a very limited area where the player can move around in. This slowly expands as the player completes more and more objectives and progresses throughout the game. Even not counting story progression, the player is free to play the game how they want. Free to choose their attack powers, and free to choose their difficulty, and free to choose how many or little fights they want to engage in. The game gives you the space you need to enjoy the game in the way you want to.

Lens of Challenge

The game allows the player to set the challenge at the level they are comfortable with. Firstly, there are difficulty options (easy, medium, hard, extreme). Secondly, the game allows you to fight multiple enemies in a row (normally you automatically heal after each battle, but with this you can forgo that). Thirdly, you can set your player’s level, which determines how much health you start the battle with. In addition to this, you can change your equipment easily and change your attack powers. All of this allows immense variety to the kind of difficulty you can set, so you can play the game however you want.