the first twewy was a fruit of its age: a game about people trying to connect with each other, understating how bounds are importants and learning to accept themselves. settled in shibuya, the epicenter of japanese youth of it’s époque and pretty much adopting all of its aesthetics too: it’s emo, it’s stylish, it sounds like japanese pop, rap, it has scratches, it isn’t “clean”, it’s urban. even in a nintendo ds game, is a city that felt alive, not only for the care they had with the aesthetics but also because you could scan people’s minds and see their feelings, worries and experiences while living in such a city that shibuya was. it was also a game that could only exist on the nintendo ds: a game about utilizing the ds’ two screens to sustain its message. you played, in combat, controlling both neku and his partner of the week, utilizing your stylus and your d-pad to fight enemies on both “sides” at the same time -- basically you had to take care not only of yourself, but also of your partner, too, and when you were in sync, you could unleash an special power. it was weird, for sure, but it worked well enough to what the game was trying to say. yeah, there’s a mobile and a switch version today -- the last one being, basically, the canon one that leads to this game story -- but the original intent still is the ds one.

now, 14 years later, the context is different: people still have the same problems, but the gravity of this is changed by the internet. your presence online is more valuable than yours offline: is easier to form bounds, since you can find your own niche just searching for some keyword on twitter. is not that people are not afraid of being themselves, is more that they can be anyone today at a level that it’s true identity is messier than their own closets. today, the people you scan don’t care anymore about which CD he should buy at tower records or which clothes she should wear on a date. today they care about which CD is worth enough to be physically buyed and which boy is prettier enough on instagram to be worth a date. neo: the world ends with you is still a game about the importance of connections. not exactly about a protagonist that does not have any, but about a protagonist that must know how important they are. you now play with a whole team instead of a partner and each button of your controller represents both a pin and a player. while it seems strange, it’s actually a show of geniality: it gives the same feeling that you should adjust itself with the most comfortable and ergonomic pins, just like the DS gave, but now in a dualshock 4. you have plenty of options to customize your gameplay and it’s basically “what if control scheme was not a quality of life but instead a central game mechanic”. it is addicting too, you know? testing new pins, seeing they evolve, comparing their animation speed and which one has less friction. it feels really great, principally because you soon unlock a mechanic known as “drop the beat”, where you gain a percentage in order to do a special move. there’s a lot going on in this game’s combat and while some enemies are not That Fun, there are some great bosses at kingdom hearts 2 level of flashy-lasers-gimmicky-thing and overall quality and necessity of mastery of it’s system.

thematically, as i said, is still about the importance of connections, but more about understanding that your friends really does matter for you. instead of the fear of knowing new people, the fear now is of missing those people -- what if your best friend just gets erased? the question about accepting your true identity is still here, too. characters wearing masks to distant themselves from who they really are -- they are in fear of being genuine. what if no one likes it? sending a sticker saying “i love you” on telegram is easier than, actually, saying “i love you” in flesh and blood. you can see how those teenagers are influenced by how the internet treats relationships, in both bad and good ways, and also how the overall communication and relation-between-people have changed since the first the world ends with you released. it also talks about The System and how shit it is, where Higher Classes has shit privileges and can do whatever the shit they want to -- they are on the top, after all. having many teams fighting each other, directly and indirectly, trying to survive a game where it seems impossible to win, is pretty much how capitalism works: sometimes you just have to take care of your own group rather than help everyone in order to survive -- and this sucks. “systematic world, killing me” etc. this system, formed by old rules that doesn’t matter for the ones on top, is also what kills the chance of the youth to express themselves better and be able to have healthier relationships. you can’t just go and blame the one on top, so you just keep quiet. you can’t just go and tell how bad you feel, so you just keep quiet. you can’t just go and tell how much something matters to you, its cringe, so you just keep quiet. in the end, either die quietly or try to change things: if you could turn back time, would you do it right? and even if you don’t, would you mind doing it right, now? going against the system? trying to be yourself a little more? trying to understand others a little more? trying to show love a little more? the world ends with you, so you better change your fate.