The World Ends With You (TWEWY) has a special meaning in my life. A couple of years ago, when assigned to revive a dying team, I used the game title as a motto to boost up the team’s spirit. Though the way I interpreted its meaning was not directly associated with the game’s concept, it is suitable for the team’s situation. We did a great job back then and successfully achieved dream goals as assigned. That is why when Neo: The World Ends With You (Neo) released its demo play, I did not wait for a second to try it.
Players do not need any prior knowledge to dive into the game because Neo is not a sequel to the previous game. The story seems to be similar to Alice in Borderland. We will follow two main characters—Rindo and Fret’s adventure in a paralleled dimension where they are forced to play a game called Reapers’ Game. Both stories started at Shibuya; friends are hanging out, then mysteriously ported to a different dimension. In this strange and dangerous dimension, they must win the game to earn the “safe escape”. However, if Alice is more about the brain, Neo is more about the brawl.
The game graphic keeps the same style as its predecessor. Tetsuya Nomura is the character designer. I always appreciate his sense of fashion in every character he has worked with, especially this series—very “Japanese” in a positive way. Since the game platform is Nintendo Switch, Neo is developed in full-3D compared to its predecessor’s 2D design.
The game battle system is pretty much similar to the previous TWEWY. Players have to collect pins to fight back monsters called “Noise”. Each pin will possess a unique fighting style and element. The better pins’ combination, the higher chance to “Drop The Beat” and maximize “The Groove” high. In my opinion, the battles are still very entertained and not challenging in Normal mode. Though all of the terms were reserved, the story and characters seem to not be related to music. In the previous TWEWY, the main character’s world was involved deeply with music, which made music terms made a lot more sense in use.
The demo version ends after the first boss with a maximum pin number is 15. Players can choose Japanese or English dub on the title screen. The English dub is not bad; however, I prefer the Japanese. I feel like the voice actors captured the characters better than the English dub.
Will I buy the game when it is released? ABSOLUTELY!
Lucid Realms 