Review: The World Ends With You (NDS)

Honestly, if you thought the Prince from POP: Warrior Within was emo then you should get a load of this guy. Our main protagonist, the headphone wearing Neku is the biggest emo to ever grace video games. He mopes, he hates everyone and he just wants to be left alone. It made the opening unsettling, as we are meant to connect with the character and not want him to jump head first into a meat grinder. Things soon change as this is one of the finest games to grace the DS.

The game kicks off in Shibuya, Tokyo where Neku awakens only to find himself taking part in some game. The rule is to survive seven days or face being erased from the world. That’s just the basic plot, over the course of the game the story takes plenty of twists and turns, which is what you’d expect from the creators of the Kingdom Hearts series. For each day you get a mission sent to your cell phone, what’s stopping you completing these missions are the Noise and Reapers, the latter of which runs this alternate version of Shibuya, and the former are merely slaves that attack you. It’s strange at first, but by the end the plot comes together fantastically.

What has really got the gaming community interested in The World Ends With You is the unique combat system. Early on in the game you form a pact with another player called Shiki. During combat with the reapers - which can be activated by using your player pin to see the invisible Noise - Shiki will be controlled on the top screen and Neku will be controlled on the bottom screen. You attack with Shiki by using the D-Pad or the four face buttons (if you’re a lefty), as you press one button others will show up. Follow the patterns to perform powerful combos that could possibly activate a special move where Shiki and Neku just unload on their enemies. You achieve more control over your bottom screen character Neku thanks to the stylus and it also introduces the unique combat element of special attack pins.

Circular pins can be found through the main game either by buying them for shops, obtaining them from a certain character or by defeating the Noise. These each come with their own unique way of attacking. There are pins that require you to slash your opponent, others ask you to draw circles or just keep rapidly touching the same spot. Each pin can be levelled up and best of all if you save and turn off your DS, come back later and you’ll find that the game registers how much time you spent away (up to seven days) and levels up your pins for you. We still haven’t even mentioned the items you can buy to increase your characters ability and the way that different brands of clothes give you extra power depending on what part of Shibuya you‘re in. Just like real life you need to follow the current trends to truly fit in. The combat system offers incredible depth that we weren’t really expecting.

When showing the screenshots, the words “looks like Jet Set Radio” are quickly churned out, and it does, though this is obviously no bad thing. It’s an incredibly stylised version of Shibuya with beautiful anime graphics. Although the brunt of the story is played out with 2D cut out characters there are actual anime cut scenes within the game with proper voice acting and they look just lovely. It’s a lengthy adventure too, we beat it at around nine hours, which isn’t as long as a traditional RPG style adventure, but then very few people would want that on a handheld. Once completed there’s even an extra mode where you can replay each section of the game this time aiming to complete a number of objectives in order to unlock a new ending which reveals even more about the brilliant story - and the story really is brilliant. Far more mature than the graphics will have you believe, it has an incredibly deep meaning to it that will resonate and the ending actually brought a tear to our eye. Believe it or not it’s up their with the best stories on any home console.

The World Ends With You is one of the best games of the year without a doubt. A fantastic plot with an amazing cast of character bring this virtual Shibuya to life in a game you’ll definitely want to see through to the end. Gamestyle hopes that a sequel is on its way.

Rating: 9 / 10

Words by Adam Gulliver