The World Ends With You originally came out in 2007 in Japan on the DS. A year after that it launched in the West. It was one of the system’s best RPGs as seen by critics all across the globe, but it never got a sequel.
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Square Enix ported it to iOS in 2012, followed by an Android port in 2014. These both reviewed well but again nothing happened. It came to consoles once again, via the Switch in 2018, after a decade of being absent. Now, at long last, a true sequel has arrived. Was the wait worth it for Neo: The World Ends With You?
10 Best: That Nomura Drip
Tetsuya Nomura did not direct Neo: The World Ends With You. However, his influence is still all over the place because he was a character designer. The Nomura drip is intensely cool in this game. Say what one will about the excess zippers and belts on some characters in Neo: The World Ends With You and his past work, but this dude knows fashion. Persona 5 Royal was the previous drip god champion with its style, but this might replace it.
9 Worst: Load Times
Something that does not drip about Neo: The World Ends With You are the load times. None of them are intensely long. At most, there might be an eight to ten second delay. The time isn’t that annoying, it’s the frequency. Battles need to load. Some cutscenes need to load. Going from area to area needs to load. It’s not the worst example on the Switch but it definitely could be better.
8 Best: The Pin System
At its core, one could say this is a hack and slash action RPG. It is definitely that but what makes it so unique is its Pin system. Each pin discovered will give players a new ability from shooting bright neon beams to igniting foes.
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There are so many in Neo: The World Ends With You that combat always feels fresh and new. Keeping track of them all can be a hassle though, but that’s a good problem to have.
7 Worst: Lots Of Repeated Monsters And Areas
One of The World Ends With You’s faults is met with this sequel. Monsters and areas are repeated a lot which is to say there is not much variety. Bosses are unique which is a plus on the monster side. The many streets of Shibuya are colorful and well designed but fighting in these areas over and over can be tiring. This is especially true next to more expansive Square Enix RPGs that have dozens of locations.
6 Best: Hip Hop Music
One of the best things about The World Ends With You was the soundtrack. It was impressive that Square Enix could get such good results from the DS’ sound system. It was a great mixture of pop and hip hop. Not only do some tracks return in a remixed form, but there are plenty of new tracks as well. This adds to the aforementioned drip of Neo: The World Ends With You.
5 Worst: Nu Metal
Most of the new tracks are good but Neo: The World Ends With You introduces a new style to the mix: Nu Metal. There are some hip-hop and pop tracks that had a heavier rock tone before which worked well. The pure Nu Metal tracks are very silly though.
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It makes the game feel dated like it was made in the 2000s and mixed together by Fred Durst. Music taste can be very tricky to measure so maybe this new style will gel more with some players than others.
4 Best: Autoplaying Dialogue
Autoplaying through dialogue is becoming more and more prevalent in new games. Not all games do this. For example, Cris Tales is another recent Switch game that used the same text style as Neo: The World Ends With You. However, there was no autoplay feature meaning one had to manually click through dialogue. Doing so is not the worst feeling in the world but it is nice to just sit back and listen to conversations with autoplay. It’s a small plus for Neo: The World Ends With You but still very much appreciated.
3 Worst: Not Everything Is Voiced
The downside to the autoplay feature is that most of Neo: The World Ends With You is not voiced. This means that players have to click through boxes anyway. This is a rough estimate but it seems like only 30% of the game is voiced. That does not seem okay in a 2021 game especially one from a giant company like Square Enix. To bring up Cris Tales again, to its credit, it does voice almost every single character. It is one of the game’s best features which is a huge win over Neo: The World Ends With You.
2 Best: Lots Of Accessibility Options
One of Neo: The World Ends With You’s biggest pluses is that all types can jump into it. That’s because it supports the player’s needs. There are a lot of difficulty options that unlock in the game as one example. Not only that, but death is never the end. If one fails then they can simply try the battle over again. The autosaves are frequent and it supports manual saves anywhere. Neo: The World Ends With You is an accessibility king.
1 Worst: Watermarks
There is one strange feature that fights players on accessibility though. In the 1.0 version of Neo: The World Ends With You players can take screenshots freely on the Switch. However, if players update the game, then the 1.01 version adds watermarks. If a patch can add watermarks then certainly a patch can get rid of them again. Hopefully, Square Enix does this. Using watermarks in games is such a weird thing for companies to do.
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