The developers definitely tried to recapture the spirit of the original by tying story progression to character growth and gameplay.
But those returning from any version of the first game will be better situated to understand the actions and motivations for some of the late-game turns of event. The story and world as a whole are far easier to parse than last time with exposition doesn’t overload players with too much at once. Eventually, characters and story elements from the first title, as well as The World Ends with You: Final Remix’s A New Day scenario, leak into the plot. And that is true…for about half the narrative. When I interviewed the leads behind NEO: The World Ends with You several weeks ago, they told me the game is named the way it is because it’s a new story that doesn’t rely on knowledge of the events and characters of the first game. Fall somewhere between first and last place, and they’re doomed to play the game for another week. Win, and they can leave the game for good.
This version of the Reapers’ Game uses teams rather than pairs, and you’re no longer playing against the game itself but rather the other teams who are all vying for the top of the scoreboard at the end of the week. This is the first of many changes from the DS original. The duo is quickly joined by Minamimoto, who returns from the first title, and Nagi, a newcomer who’s obsessed with the mobile game Elegant Strategy, or “EleStra”. Protagonists Rindo and Fret are pulled into a game of life and after-death and are basically left to fend for themselves against the Noise with little instruction from the Reapers in charge. The opening moments paint a familiar scene of Reapers’ Pins and anarchy on the streets of Shibuya. It’s about understanding the true potential of yourself and your friends and why it is we form attachments to the people and places around us. NEO: The World Ends with You (PC, PS4, Switch )īeating NEO: The World Ends with You is about more than just winning the Reapers’ Game. But that approachability comes at the cost of the original’s singularity. The end result is a game that is far more approachable in every facet than its predecessor. Rather than creating a distinct console experience, which you really can’t do with a multi-platform title, it settles for a more homogenized one. NEO: The World Ends with You doesn’t really set out to improve on what’s come before it, though I imagine many will say it is better than the first game by virtue of how straightforward the controls are this time around. To create a sequel that’s able to match or better this predecessor would almost be a fool’s errand. It was complicated, yes, but in that complication existed ludonarrative consistency with a perfect marriage of story arc, gameplay, and system capabilities. The game brought together Japanese culture, street art, and dual-screen technology in a truly profound way. How do you follow up a game like The World Ends with You? It seems like a Herculean task given everything it accomplished.