KNIGHT NUI

Let’s just get one thing straight: I’m not a big fan of Square Enix, nor am I much of an RPG fan. I can safely say that I’d much sooner trap my bits in the door than sit through a game where you tediously watch your character’s numbers grow slowly larger. I’ve never finished any version of Final Fantasy to date (despite starting out with the best intentions each time), nor have I been majorly interested in any other franchises in Square Enix’s portfolio. It would seem that games about moody teenagers with explosion-in-a-crayon-factory clothing and hair aren’t my bag. Therefore, I’m sure that you’re now asking the questions: ‘Why did you buy The World Ends With You’ and ‘Why on earth are you taking the time to write about it?’ I will nail two birds with one stone by giving this response: I bought it on a whim and I’ve had a rocky ride with this game, but I’ve come out the other side loving it to pieces.

The World Ends With you was a game that made it to the shelves with barely any attention from me. After all, it was a brand new IP from a developer I’d always acknowledged, but barely cared about. But I discovered (perhaps unsurprisingly) that it had garnered cult appeal even before its release, from a forum that I visit daily and whose user’s collective opinions I have grown to trust. You can always tell when a new game is going to be a fan-favourite by the vibe that it creates on the forum. The World Ends With You had indeed gathered a minor legion of enthusiastic followers in the months up to its release and I became more aware of its potential, not from reading the press releases or scanning the screenshots, but by noting and absorbing the enthusiastic murmurings of fellow forum-goers. Upon its release, reviews were almost unanimous in their praise for this strange sounding role-playing game and my forum-based associates dived into the title eagerly before me.

Usually, a game enjoys a brief spell in the limelight before it fades into people’s distant memories; The World Ends With You was much different: It had some kind of staying power. Two months after the game hit the shelves, many had already completed it, yet the talk still kept coming and the topic remained firmly atop the Nintendo DS forum. It was at this point that my intrigue got the better of me: I hit the shops and picked up a copy of my own. As expected, I had to hunt around all over the place to find the damned thing. It’s not a kitten raising title for little girls, nor is it a senility-busting game for ‘hip’ grannies. Therefore, it has little place on the shelves of a game store in today’s climate. *Sigh*

After successfully purchasing a copy, I sceptically proceeded to play. My first thoughts were that of confusion: How on earth are you supposed to control two aspects of combat spanning two separate screens in one go? I might be a four-eyes, but not literally, I thought to myself. Eventually, after much perseverance, I found a method that worked for me, which was to stick to controlling the main protagonist, Neku, on the bottom screen, while stealing lightning fast glances towards the top screen to aid his partner. It was after this boundary had been crossed that I discovered the game’s hidden hook: the real-time battle system. This aspect contrasts hugely with any of the old-school Final Fantasy games, where you could sit forever and ponder your next attack or evasive manoeuvre. Combat in The World Ends With You is all done on the fly: lightning fast enemies require lightning fast thought to overcome. Taking your eyes off the screen is suicide, as is standing perfectly still or putting the game down to go and make a coffee (one sugar please).

The story tensely pushes you through a harrowing race to retain your rights to existence in Shibuya’s underground. Neku wakes up on Shibuya’s Scramble Crossing in broad daylight with a mysterious pin badge clutched in his hand and no memory of how he got there. After confusedly strolling towards Shibuya’s statue of Hachiko, he unwittingly becomes the target of a young girl who grabs his hand as they are ambushed by sinister creatures that appear to ‘steal’ people from right before his eyes. The plot encompasses Neku’s emotional distance from society and the mystery surrounding his own death, Shiki’s suppressed jealousy and hate for herself, Beat and Rhyme’s tight bond, Joshua’s mysterious relationship with Mr Hanekoma and Kariya and Uzuki’s life amongst the ranks of the Reapers. I can’t vouch for storylines used in other Square Enix games, but this one really reached out to me. It’s a dark and isolating tale, but this only helped to foster the feeling of co-operation that was so required to survive, yet, this need was constantly being pushed aside by the misunderstood Neku. Every moment that you are following the story, you feel as though the end may just be round the corner and it always feels down to you to fight for Neku’s right to exist.

After the honeymoon period ended with this game, I settled into the grind after a full week’s worth of uninterrupted play. Shiki’s story was suspended, Joshua’s was seemingly ended and it was now Beat’s chance to appeal to my better nature. Beat failed.

Putting it down to hectic days at work and little time at home, my attention was shifted to the next big thing hitting the shelves, namely Super Smash Brothers: Brawl. After Beat’s segment of the story failed to maintain my interest, my attention was harried towards my Wii and my brand new copy of Super Smash Brothers: Brawl. The interest in my new game was short lived and upon my return to The World Ends with You, my grip on the story had weakened and my enthusiasm was lower than ever. The game was subsequently traded in and forgotten about.

Or was it?

Six months had passed after my fellow forum members had met my (then justified) decision to sell the game with much consternation. Yet still other user’s interests were maintained and I began to notice that it’s dedicated topic, originally created in April 2008, was still going strong in December of the same year. I became intrigued as to what was keeping them going all this time, so I dutifully sat down and read the many comments left by the now hardened fans of the game. People weren’t just discussing their memories of the game and its characters, they were still playing it.

It’s been a very dry year for substantial videogames on Nintendo formats, and my DS had gone largely unplayed ever since I parted with The World Ends With You back in July (can you advertise things in brackets? Oh well, here I go anyway: Buy Phoenix Wright!). With the quiet spell in full swing, I noticed that I had become intrigued by The World Ends With You once again. I slowly regretted selling it and eventually I came to realize just how much I’d enjoyed my time with it, so I decided to give it another shot. I could’ve picked up a copy of ‘Let’s Have Fun With Knitting’ or one of the thousand other casual games on the shelf, but I decided that it’d probably be best to stick with The World Ends With You. I can’t recall ever repurchasing a game that I’ve grown tired of, so this must stand as testament to either the dry spell this year, or the subtle qualities of this particular game.

I announced to my associates that I’d picked the game up once again and I feebly promised that I would sit it right through to the end this time, despite being very doubtful knowing my track record these days. I sat down with the game one Saturday afternoon and, between necessary trips out of the house and all my regular activities, my enthusiasm and dedication to the story and the game’s nuances shone through brighter than ever. I played it for a solid week and even dragged it on for as long as I could by strengthening my character to ridiculous levels (considering that it was my first run-through). I have to admit to finding certain story aspects from the last chapter to be a tad repetitive and a tiny bit of a slog in places, but the main (and surprisingly large list of) mysteries kept my attention right to the very end: Who killed Neku? What really happened to Rhyme? Who was the Composer? What was Mr Hanekoma’s agenda? Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Revealing any conclusions would be unfair to any reader who hasn’t played this game through, but the fact that I was compelled to play it to the very end should say it all. Had I not persevered in the first place and overcome my niggling doubts and momentary lapses of enthusiasm, I would’ve missed out on one of the finest experiences to grace the Nintendo DS. So, what do I really like about this game and why would I recommend it to anyone who takes their DS seriously?

Well, first of all, I feel that the game’s setting is one of its biggest assets: The World Ends With You is set in the real life Japanese city of Shibuya. This simple detail gives the game both substance and creative license. Unlike locations imagined in Final Fantasy, Shibuya is a real city that is located many miles away from most people, but the fact remains that it exists. This allows the player to let their mind drift away to a faraway place as it does with many stories, but it is also arms the player with the familiarity and associations awarded by the real-world setting. The game’s story may be a fantasy, but it is told in a way that forces you to suspend your belief and accept that an underground version of Shibuya exists alongside the ‘real’ Shibuya. The characters all descend in death from the Shibuya we know, into a realm that exists in a kind of seven day purgatory.

Other details that compliment the real life locations are the monsters encountered in the Shibuya underground. The designers cleverly based most of their enemy characters on real life animals; from bats, porcupines and frogs, to wolves, rhinos and more. These enemy species are all instantly recognizable and all their natural attributes made it into their move-sets: Frogs hop up and attack the player, porcupines fire needles and rhinos charge. This simple association with real life creatures helps strengthen the illusion that the game casts and pulls the player deeper into its world, where other games would throw imaginary creatures into the mix. The use of fictitious creatures, in turn, doesn’t give the player the benefit of their real-world familiarity or the credibility of believable creatures. This leeching of real life source material doesn’t mean to say that there is no innovation, on the contrary: Every creature is designed around the theme of tribal art and each monster clearly displays some form of this style on its body, be it a head, arm or tuft of hair. The pin badges that are the source of Neku’s Psych powers are also cleverly lifted from real life, adding fantasy aspects to another piece of the world that you see in day to day life.

The fashion aspect probably isn’t used to its full potential, but it’s a nice addition nonetheless. Fashion trends greatly affect many people in real life and it’s great to see this portrayed so prominently in the game’s story of commercialism and acceptance. Want to make a statement? Dress differently. Want to fit in with the rest of the crowd? Follow the trends. It seldom affects the gameplay in any significant way, but it’s a nice inclusion which makes a commentary on today’s consumer driven society.

A big theme in this game is the prominence of the handicaps of negative thinking, even bordering on the grounds of depression in some cases. The game’s enemy characters (based on real animals, as previously mentioned), referred to as ‘Noise’ are subconsciously summoned, unseen, by the residents of regular Shibuya, as well as being unleashed by the Reapers. Only the members of the Shibuya Underground are aware of this and they are able to identify that the Noise are attracted to negative thoughts, pulling their new occupant down into a mire of woe. This allowed our protagonist, Neku, to see his previous life from a different perspective and reflect on his moody temperament accordingly.

The visuals themselves are a joy to behold. Cinematic sequences in the game are few and far between, but when you do stumble across one, they are always beautifully crafted, using cleverly layered animation and rotation effects to bring what are essentially static pictures to life. Their sparing use helps to give them more impact when they do eventually appear. Bold, bright colours, black and white, graffiti, comic-strip panels and speech bubbles all combine to give Shibuya a very abstract, urban feel. Every character and bystander is designed with utmost attention to detail, making the results striking and individual. These visual decisions are raised and justified in the dialogue by way of each character’s distinct personality, especially in the developing story of Shiki’s dislike of her own appearance in life.

An important aspect that can sometimes cripple or make a game is its soundtrack. Fortunately, The World Ends With You has music that complements both the hip and trendy visuals and characters and the modern day setting itself. Most tunes are catchy enough to remain in the mind without being annoying, while a few only serve to fill in the briefly accessed menu screens, which tend to loop fairly quickly. Each character is also voiced accordingly and amazingly, the sparse selections of soundbytes endear, rather than irritate.

Many RPG’s pride themselves on being ridiculous grinding experiences that only hardcore player could possibly entertain. The World Ends With You succeeds in catering for both the hardcore player and those that simply wish to be carried along by the story. How do they achieve this? By way of the cleverly implemented difficulty system, of course. Experienced players with lots of patience can eventually choose to step the difficulty up as high as they wish, making battles tougher and harder to earn the elusive star ranks (awarded for accomplished and speedy combat). They can also knock their hit-points down to increase their chances of collecting more or rarer pins at the end of each battle. This risk/ reward system is great for those who wish to challenge themselves, but it’s also great that you can reduce or increase the difficulty at any time you wish. Stuck on a particular boss character? Set the game to easy. Tired of spending ages leveling your character up? Increase the difficulty and earn more experience points. Everyone’s happy.

I’ve discussed many of the game’s positive aspects, but this wouldn’t be a constructive piece of writing if I neglected to mention a few of the more irritating niggles. One of the most annoying problems that occurs is when you create a deck of pins that have similar touch-screen inputs. The game sometimes misinterprets your intentions and fails to initiate the correct action. I could rant on all day about the number of times I’ve died at the hand of a health restoring pin that failed to active, despite me jabbing at the screen for five seconds like an angry baboon. I could also complain that I sometimes feel that the game is expecting too much of me by way of input on the top screen. Solve a simple maths equation on the top screen while repelling an enraged rhino and a snarling wolf on the bottom? No thanks, I’ll stick to mashing buttons on the top screen whilst ensuring that the monsters down below don’t tear me a new A.

I could complain about the fact that dialogue sections involve nothing more than two or three still images of each character sliding about and occasionally making noises, coupled with speech bubbles that can contain as many words each as one frame of a Garfield comic-strip panel. The map screen is almost as much use an exploding suppository. What good is a map that doesn’t even include any freakin’ street names? Lastly, I could criticize the game for perhaps being a bit too linear or straightforward in places, due to the fact that you are generally being shepherded from one segment of the town to another with crystal clear instructions. Leveling up your character takes a surprisingly brief amount of time once you get into the swing of things, too.

Despite these minor niggles, I admire Square Enix and Jupiter for the brave new direction that they have taken this original concept in. It’s very down to earth and human, despite being pure fantasy in many places. The story gets its point across without being too preachy (mostly) and it has a wealth of extras to discover once the main quest is finished, something that is practically unheard of in the world of the RPG. I would highly recommend that anyone who has a DS at least gives this game a shot but most importantly, gives it a chance to prove itself. I nearly made the mistake of abandoning it for good and had I done so, I wouldn’t have come out the other side having had an absolute blast in the process. In the words of a former skeptic: give the thing a chance; you may wind up enjoying it just as much as I did.