In 2007, Square Enix and Jupiter teamed up to release The World Ends With You on the Nintendo DS. The action-RPG was built to take full advantage of the Nintendo DS' unique features, with an innovative combat system that required players to pay attention to both the top and bottom screens at the same time. Its intense combat combined with an engrossing story and a banger soundtrack helped make The World End With You one of the Nintendo DS system's most critically-acclaimed games. And now, 14 years to the day of TWEWY's Japanese launch, Square Enix has finally released a sequel in the form of NEO: The World Ends With You.
NEO: The World Ends With You may have released 14 years after the original game, but the story takes place a mere three years later. Or more accurately, three years after the events in "A New Day," which was extra story content added in The World Ends With You: Final Remix on the Nintendo Switch. It's safe to say that there are those who played the original but may not have picked up the re-releases, so they may be a little lost on some of the plot points in the later hours.
NEO focuses on new characters at first, so even those who never played the original DS game will be able to follow the plot without too much trouble. The main character is Rindo Kanade, who finds himself in a Reapers' Game with his friend Fret and various other individuals living in Tokyo's Shibuya district. The Reapers' Game is a bit different this time around, as instead of two-person squads, players are able to form larger teams and work together. Going into too much detail about what exactly the Reapers' Game is would be to venture into spoiler territory, especially for those who didn't play the first TWEWY, but anyone confused will get their answers in the game itself.
While The World Ends With You had a fairly engrossing plot that was fantastical but still easy to follow, NEO: The World Ends With You has some serious narrative issues. At first, the problem is that the story is boring, told mainly through comic book-like panels that may have worked on the Nintendo DS but feel cheap when playing a game on a home console like the PlayStation 4. There are some impressively animated, almost Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse-style cut-scenes that look great, but they are few and far between. Meanwhile, those who are well-versed in the plot of the original TWEWY may find it especially difficult to push through the game's opening chapters, as it takes forever for NEO to introduce basic concepts that returning players will already be familiar with.
It takes at least 10 hours of playing NEO: The World Ends With You before the story gets good. After that point, there's plenty of surprising twists and turns to keep players on their toes, and it manages to capture what made the original so special. The first 10 hours simply lack the emotional stakes and sense of urgency that were present in the original game, but the sequel does eventually get there – it just takes a long time to do so.
The 10-hour mark is also when NEO: The World Ends With You gets good from a gameplay standpoint. Since a dual-screen combat system wouldn't really be possible on a TV, NEO: The World Ends With You changes things up by having larger parties of characters, each with their own "pin," which essentially translates to an attack or magical power. The pins all have their own specific input and are governed by cooldown timers. So one pin may be assigned to Fret and it's activated with the Triangle button, whereas Rindo could have a pin that's activated with R2. Pins can also be activated simultaneously, which adds another layer of strategy to the combat.
Players can get through a lot of the game by button mashing if they want, but they'll find the combat infinitely more satisfying if they approach things more strategically. Players are occasionally given the chance to hit enemies with follow-up attacks to build their own special attack meter, but if they've been button mashing, they may find themselves without an available pin to use. Figuring out which pins work well together and how attacks should be timed will ensure players are far more successful while fighting the game's "Noise" enemies.
"Noise" are the primary enemies in NEO: The World Ends With You, often taking the shape of animal-like monsters. There are some Noise that players are forced to fight, but the vast majority of battles can be ignored entirely. NEO: The World Ends With You doesn't use a random encounter system for its battles, but instead lets players pick and choose when they want to fight random Noise in the field. It's definitely worth it to get new pins and level up, but those who want to focus on getting through the story can do that instead.
The problem with NEO: The World Ends With You's combat in the first 10 hours is that players have a limited party size. For most of the chapters in this initial stretch of the game, players are stuck with two to three playable characters. This severely limits NEO: The World Ends With You's pin system and makes combat dull; players will often find themselves doing nothing but running around waiting for their pins to recharge. More people join the party as the game goes on and each new party member means another pin to use in fights, making everything much more exciting.
Once things finally click about a third of the way through the game, NEO: The World Ends With You becomes a ton of fun as players master their favorite pins and destroy one wave of Noise after another. Players can spend time leveling up their overall level as well as each individual pin, which encourages players to experiment with new pins once they've already fully leveled whatever one they'd been using. The combat maintains this high level of quality once it achieves it and while it may not be quite as innovative as the original game's dual-screen gimmick, it's still plenty unique in the action-RPG space. There is a glitch with certain pins where NEO: The World Ends With You characters get stuck in a floating T-pose, but it's easily avoidable, and otherwise the combat is highly polished.
It's a good thing that the bulk of NEO: The World Ends With You revolves around its combat system, as the rest of the gameplay is a mixed bag. The way the game is set up is that it repeatedly funnels players through the same areas in each chapter, in a way that sometimes feels like the developers were trying to artificially lengthen the experience. Some areas are arbitrarily blocked off and force players to go a different route, which makes them walk even longer to get to their next objective.
This problem is exacerbated by NEO: The World Ends With You's time-traveling mechanic. Each character in the game has their own psychic power that can help progress the story. These powers are interesting from a narrative standpoint, but their use in-game is always pre-determined and scripted. Rindo's power lets him travel back in time, which means in those chapters, players are not only going through areas they've already been through, but they're also going through the same areas multiple times in the same chapter. And sometimes even reading the exact same conversations, with only slight variances.
Time traveling in NEO: The World Ends With You is presented as a puzzle, with the tease that players have to figure out how to change the future, but they don't really. All players really have to do is click on each area and tap through the dialogue. So all the time traveling accomplishes is making the game even more repetitive than it was already and forcing players to do even more backtracking.
A quality of life improvement is introduced – again, at about the 10-hour mark – that makes all of the game's backtracking more tolerable, as it allows players to more quickly travel through the city. It's a useful addition since there's not much of note in Shibuya itself for NEO: The World Ends With You players to engage with besides the main story and side quests. The side quests are definitely worth doing as they earn players "Friend Points" that can be spent on the Social Network upgrade tree to get various bonuses.
Players can also earn bonuses by buying food and purchasing new clothes. Buying new clothes is worthwhile for the stat boosts, though it's a bit of a letdown that the characters' appearances don't change based on what clothing items they have equipped. After all, certain areas of Shibuya favor certain clothing brands and there's an entire gameplay mechanic about boosting a brand's reputation, so one would think the brands would be physically represented on the characters.
Some will find it disappointing that the clothing they purchase for NEO: The World Ends With You's characters aren't physically represented on them, but plenty will be satisfied collecting the many clothing items. NEO: The World Ends With You is stuffed with content, with players able to unlock lots of clothes, music tracks, pins, and more. That's on top of a story mode that takes about 25 to 30 hours to complete, numerous side quests, special battles to seek out, and some endgame content. Players can conveniently return to older chapters whenever they want, which makes going for 100% completion a much more appealing prospect.
While NEO: The World Ends With You players are filling out their wardrobe, exploring the streets of Shibuya, and fighting endless streams of Noise, they will be treated to an absolutely fantastic soundtrack. Composer Takeharu Ishimoto, who scored the first TWEWY, has returned for NEO and provides another catchy score full of upbeat electronic music and pop songs. Even the pause menu music is memorable, so it wouldn't be surprising at all to see NEO: The World Ends With You's audio design up for some awards come the end of the year.
NEO: The World Ends With You gives players a tremendous soundtrack and a ton of content, and once the combat clicks, it's a genuinely good time. However, that comes with the caveat that players have to invest roughly 10 hours before the game really starts to be fun, and then they still have to deal with its repetitiveness. So as long as fans can put up with those issues, they will get a lot of game time out of NEO: The World Ends With You.
NEO: The World Ends With You launches July 27 for PS4 and Switch, with a PC version also in development. Game Rant was provided with a PS4 code for this review.
