I've never played a game so unwilling to capitalize on its strengths. The World Ends with You's battle mechanics are genius in numerous ways: the gesture system being fully customizable so that players aren't ever stuck with a hand movement they find uncomfortable, the emphasis on strategic multitasking giving the dual screens a purpose, the delicate balance between maximizing your partner's damage and filling the fusion meter. My favorite part is the light puck- passing it between the top and bottom screens just in time for a strong attack is reminiscent of setting up an alley-oop or volleyball spike. It doesn't completely encapsulate a necessary trust in another person, but it comes about as close as possible for a system in which you're in full control of two distinct entities. Creating a set of mechanics this deep on a platform as unconventional as the DS is no easy feat, but TWEWY is all for embracing unconventionality. It starts at the top: while RPGs typically trip over themselves in trying to usher the player towards as many interesting locations as possible, Neku & co. remain in the same area code for the duration. As a result, conventionally static shopkeepers act accordingly, refusing to tell you what specific items do unless you've spent enough money for them to recognize your face. Normal overworld music would feel out of place, so instead Shibuya's background noise is lyrical and persists through loading zones. The most impressive part of this mindset is the game's complete reversal of random battles. The player is responsible not only for initiating encounters, but for setting both the enemy's and their own level. The end result is probably the most effective self-serving difficulty system I've ever come across. Daring yourself to fight a long chain of noise with barely any health just for the constant stream of bling you'll receive at the end never loses its appeal. Grinding is fun!
But the review doesn't end with that. Trying to recall why it feels like each of the twenty-one days takes so long despite not much actually happening in them is more difficult than you'd might expect. It's not because there's a lot of mandatory battles, which should be the case given how steep the learning curve is, but instead we're treated to hours and hours of melodramatic anime-isms, dialogue that tells and doesn't show. And yet the plot is completely lacking on multiple fronts, most notably its failure to characterize The Game in any meaningful capacity. The audience is never shown the players' desperate scramble to coordinate plans in the first few days or their upheaval in relations once they realize it's actually a competition. In fact, we're only ever introduced to two players beyond the main cast, and the pressure of the ticking daily time bombs never truly makes itself known in either the dialogue or the gameplay. How anyone can take the story seriously after Shiki reveals how she died is beyond me. I'm not a fool, I expect pants-on-head stupid plot twists from these types of games, but I draw the line when it drags great gameplay to a screeching halt. Although it seems small, the biggest sin the game commits in this department is in the choices the player is presented from the game over screen. Instead of being allowed to reorganize your pins and precisely adjust your difficulty level, you're only given options to retry on easy mode or reload a save. Since the player has to save manually, this works as a deterrent against changing up your strategy and doing anything else besides giving up and getting an essentially automatic win after your first few tries. It's this guidance away from a fulfilling experience and towards a smooth one that rubs me the wrong way. If I had to guess, I'd say that most players don't end up more than ankle-deep in the combat's learning curve. I went out of my way to fight as many types of noise that I could and still didn't feel like I made it far past the tip of the iceberg. Maybe when the burnout from reading through all the game's text boxes lifts I'll play through the bonus content and my opinion will change, but for now, I can't see TWEWY as anything other than a great game trapped in a terrible Game.
But the review doesn't end with that. Trying to recall why it feels like each of the twenty-one days takes so long despite not much actually happening in them is more difficult than you'd might expect. It's not because there's a lot of mandatory battles, which should be the case given how steep the learning curve is, but instead we're treated to hours and hours of melodramatic anime-isms, dialogue that tells and doesn't show. And yet the plot is completely lacking on multiple fronts, most notably its failure to characterize The Game in any meaningful capacity. The audience is never shown the players' desperate scramble to coordinate plans in the first few days or their upheaval in relations once they realize it's actually a competition. In fact, we're only ever introduced to two players beyond the main cast, and the pressure of the ticking daily time bombs never truly makes itself known in either the dialogue or the gameplay. How anyone can take the story seriously after Shiki reveals how she died is beyond me. I'm not a fool, I expect pants-on-head stupid plot twists from these types of games, but I draw the line when it drags great gameplay to a screeching halt. Although it seems small, the biggest sin the game commits in this department is in the choices the player is presented from the game over screen. Instead of being allowed to reorganize your pins and precisely adjust your difficulty level, you're only given options to retry on easy mode or reload a save. Since the player has to save manually, this works as a deterrent against changing up your strategy and doing anything else besides giving up and getting an essentially automatic win after your first few tries. It's this guidance away from a fulfilling experience and towards a smooth one that rubs me the wrong way. If I had to guess, I'd say that most players don't end up more than ankle-deep in the combat's learning curve. I went out of my way to fight as many types of noise that I could and still didn't feel like I made it far past the tip of the iceberg. Maybe when the burnout from reading through all the game's text boxes lifts I'll play through the bonus content and my opinion will change, but for now, I can't see TWEWY as anything other than a great game trapped in a terrible Game.