After years of waiting, NEO: The World Ends With You is finally continuing the TWEWY franchise. Even though the original game was a self-contained package, fans were worried that a sequel would never come. The original game had a very bizarre control scheme on the Nintendo DS, and deliberately went for an extremely strong visual and musical style. Players who really fell in love with it wanted to see more things like it, since games with a “graffiti” aesthetic and relevant themes were few and far between. Now, it’s finally happened, and the story of the Shibuya Reaper’s Game is picking up three years after the first game like no gap ever existed.
However, that gap wasn’t devoid of The World Ends With You content. In between the first and second main games, the first title got remakes for mobile devices and eventually the Nintendo Switch, as well as an anime recapping its events. The mobile version seemingly teased a new TWEWY game, but years later, the Final Remix Switch remake added a whole new scenario to its post-game. This new unlockable content, called “A New Day,” heavily foreshadows events and characters that will be relevant in NEO: TWEWY. Knowing what those things are may prove important to players, so they’d best familiarize themselves with what, exactly, A New Day entails.
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Entering "A New Day" is a fairly simple affair for Final Remix owners. First, players will need to beat the base game, unlocking Chapter Select in the process. After that, the player needs to go to the seventh day of each week and set the difficulty to Expert Mode. A purple-clad Reaper can be found in specific locations each week, and offer a combat challenge that forces Neku and his Partner to fight a boss Noise while affected by one or more Curses. After overcoming these trials, players can select A New Day from the Chapter Select menu. They should prepare themselves first, though the new content should only take a couple hours to get through.
The plot is the main focus of A New Day. Shortly after the ending of The World Ends With You proper, Neku and Beat awaken in the Scramble Crossing and are informed that they are in the Reaper's Game: Expert Mode. They are given the goal of escaping from Shibuya within 24 hours, and form a new Pact to win this iteration of the Game. The duo also meet the Reaper Coco Atarashi, who they allow to accompany them in their escape. They quickly realize that this version of Shibuya is distorted, and familiar places and people aren’t the same as they normally are. Neku also experiences several visions involving a strange girl that he remarks seem familiar.
Neku continues to have visions about the mysterious girl, as well as the neighboring district of Shinjuku being erased. The mysteries continue until Neku and Beat track down Mr. Hanekoma at the WildKat Cafe. He reveals that Neku and Beat are trapped inside a powerful Noise taking the form of TWEWY's setting Shibuya, and that Coco is behind it all. Defeating the Dissonance Tapir frees everyone from the fake Shibuya. Reappearing in front of the CAT mural, Coco fatally shoots Neku despite Joshua and Beat’s efforts. Shinjuku is erased concurrently with this due to a phenomenon called an Inversion, and Joshua and Hanekoma deduce that Neku's visions were of the future. Coco, having escaped to the Shibuya River, resurrects Sho Minamimoto from a Taboo Noise Sigil, declaring that Neku will need a Partner for his next Game.
Much of this ties in to the post-time skip world of NEO: The World Ends With You. Coco and Minamimoto have been advertised as returning in NEO, with Minamimoto even joining the protagonists’ team in the latest Reaper Game. Coco’s role is uncertain, but the unlockable Secret Addendums speculate that she got her phenomenal powers from an unknown party.
How Neku, Beat, Joshua, and Hanekoma factor into all of this is unknown, but the mystery behind Shinjuku’s erasure and the possibility of the same happening to Shibuya appear to be major plot points in the sequel. The mysterious girl has also been revealed to be Tsugumi Matsunae, a member of the rival Ruinbringers team and another important character. Excited fans will need to consult NEO: The World Ends With You to see how all of these story threads are tied up.
NEO: The World Ends With You is available now for PS4 and Switch. A PC version is currently in development.
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