Square Enix for some strange reason decided to stealth release one of their best games from 2021 onto Steam. This game is NEO: The World Ends with You. A game with so much style and substance to it that it’s highly recommended that you pick it up immediately if you haven’t already done so. If you’re a fan of story-driven JRPG titles that is.
NEO: The World Ends with You is an entirely new game set in The World Ends with You world. You don’t need to have played the original The World Ends with You game on DS back in the day to enjoy this one. Newcomers are therefore quite welcome to dive right into this one to get their JRPG fix. If you do want to play the original The World Ends with You though, Square Enix did port and enhance the title for Android, iOS and Nintendo Switch. Anyway, we’re digressing here so let’s dive right back into NEO: The World Ends with You and what makes it so great.
Reaper’s Game
Players in NEO: The World Ends with You will take on the role of Rindo Kanade, a high school student that gets drawn into the “Reaper’s Game”. Along with your friend Tosai Furesawa, otherwise known as “Fret”, players will have to take part in the Reaper’s Game and battle for their survival against enemy monsters known as “Noise”. While doing this you’ll also uncover more of the mystery behind just what the heck is going on in Shibuya and why people are being drawn into the Reaper’s Game.
The story kicks off with Rindo meeting up with his friend “Fret” in Shibuya. Something happens though and before you know it, you’ll be solving some puzzles and then fighting monsters. At first, you’ll face off against some basic enemies and have to get to grips with the game’s combat system. The story features a lot of voice acted segments which are interspersed between a lot of text-only story segments. Without spoiling too much, NEO: The World Ends with You features a lot of stories and character development. Each and every single character in this game is well-written and players will really enjoy getting to know them and their stories throughout the course of the game.
While it’s not necessary to have played the first The World Ends with You, if you have, you’ll probably love this game even more than newcomers would. Even more so when iconic music tracks from the first game make a reappearance in this title.
Amazing Soundtrack!
Both The World Ends with You games rely a lot on their absolutely fantastic soundtracks to accentuate the gameplay and storytelling. NEO: The World Ends with You’s OST is filled to the brim with so many amazing tracks it’s mind-boggling how great it is and how well they’ve been integrated into the game. The brand-new tracks are extremely catchy and vary a lot in their musical genre with synth, electro, metal, Jpop vocals, Jrock and more featured here. Some older tracks from the original The World Ends with You also make an appearance here but in remixed form and are just as great as ever. Hearing a very specific song from the first game in Neo: The World Ends with You was such an enjoyable throwback and fans of the original game will love this. The soundtrack is honestly one of the best parts of the game and is flat-out amazing.
The gameplay of Neo: The World Ends with You involves combining attacks using your party members to defeat enemies. There’s a lot of button bashing involved but the game introduces enough variation to the mix by having over 300 different “Pins” to equip. Each Pin allows you to perform a specific attack and the combinations of pins that you can employ between your party members mean that there are a lot of strategies that can be implemented in battles. Players cannot simply mash a single button permanently and hope to get away with it either. When attacking an enemy you’ll get the opportunity to drop a “Beat” which simply means that you need to attack with a different character for bonus damage to be applied. If you continuously use one attack, you’ll exhaust the gauge located underneath the assigned pin and suffer from a hefty cooldown.
Battles in Neo: The World Ends with You, therefore, involve strategic use of the right pins, balanced combination attacks and positioning on the now fully 3D battlefield. There’s even an in-game “Social Network” which helps with getting you stat boosts in battles based on your relationship with other characters. The game might get repetitive over time but being a JRPG, this is par for the course and players should be familiar with the level of grind associated with titles in this genre. If you played this game on a Steam Deck, you could alleviate some of the fatigue by playing this title in bite-sized chunks over time. However, since the story and character interactions are so good, the chances of putting this game down once you start are low.
Graphically, NEO: The World Ends with You looks amazing with character designs that are not only eye-catching but have an aesthetic that just looks so iconic. You’ll immediately be able to distinguish this game from others in its genre purely based on its character designs and use of colour. The 3D world also allows more freedom of movement over its predecessor and using your pins to attack enemies results in a lot of visually appealing effects. Enemy designs are also quite varied throughout the game. The environments themselves also look very visually appealing and feature a lot of details despite NPCs being somewhat bland (Though this was most likely done on purpose to highlight important characters).
The voice acting in both Japanese and English is great with the English dub featuring some modernisations to make the game feel fresh and “hip”. This might annoy some gamers though and purists will want to play the game with Japanese voice-acting enabled. It’s a shame that not every single piece of a text conversation in the game is voiced though.
Final Verdict
Overall, NEO: The World Ends with You is an extremely fun, addictive JRPG with a strong focus on story, music and battling. The key to victory is to balance your attacks between party members, get your “Groove” meter up and use “Beats” whenever possible. Solving some of the game’s puzzles involves using your scan ability and getting through the side quests and the main story is incredibly enjoyable. This game definitely needs more recognition and deserves all the praise it gets. If you enjoy JRPGs, you’ll most likely love NEO: The World Ends with You whether you’re a franchise newcomer or a seasoned veteran.
Publisher: Square Enix
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows
Developers: h.a.n.d., Square Enix
Buy your copy here on steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/1647550/NEO_The_World_Ends_with_You/
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