The World Ends With You is one of the biggest success stories from a handheld that has had many such stories to tell. It was a Square Enix-published RPG, developed by Jupiter (the makers of the Kingdom Hearts franchise), and it launched in North America in April 2008. It was praised by critics, earning positive reviews across the industry. And it sold well at release, though not record-setting numbers by any stretch.
It was what happened after that launch that really mattered, though. TWEWY began to build momentum. Those who bought it and played it loved it, and they told their friends. Then their friends tried it, loved it too, and they told more friends. The game's reputation grew, and grew some more, and the game achieved that rare and intangible accomplishment – cult classic status.
We realize, though, that not everyone is part of this in-crowd. That TWEWY's slow, under-the-radar growth to achieving its dedicated audience still may never have caught your attention. That you find yourself asking, "Just what is the big deal with The World Ends With You" after all? Well, we're here to help. Here's a refresher on what the game is, what makes it so great, and why we desperately need that recently rumored sequel.
The World of The World Ends With You
Square Enix was one of the most prolific third-party publishers for Nintendo's DS, bringing more than 30 different games to the handheld in North America over the course of the system's life cycle. By and large, though, those games were all sequels, ports or spin-offs of pre-existing brands – Final Fantasies and Dragon Quests and even a couple of Manas. So The World Ends With You stood out immediately thanks simply to the fact that it was a new IP. Made by the Kingdom Hearts people, sure, but not a spin-off of that series – TWEWY had its own new world.
That world, though, is one that our hero Neku Sakuraba has no interest in. As TWEWY opens we meet this young, anti-social kid, strolling through Tokyo's crowded Shibuya district and getting so fed up with all the people and noise and commotion around him that he screams for everyone to just "Shut up!"
And then they do. Everyone goes quiet. Everyone begins to totally ignore Neku, and extremely so – it's like they can't hear him or see him or sense him at all. Neku has unexpectedly gotten his wish, as he's flung into an alternate version of Shibuya where he's little more than a ghost.
Then a countdown appears on his hand, and a swarm of frogs assaults him.
Things get strange pretty quickly in The World Ends With You, and it should come as no surprise that another game from the Kingdom Hearts team would feature an odd, otherworldly and altogether hard-to-follow storyline. But to try to sum it up succinctly, Neku has been drawn unwillingly into the "Reaper's Game," a deadly week-long series of missions to fight against physical manifestations of the world's social distortions. That anti-social attitude he had in the game's opening moments? That was part of the problem, and now he's being forced to deal with the damage his negativity has done to the world around him. (Which, again, somehow translates to attacking amphibians.)
Neku isn't alone in this Reaper's Game, though, as there are other players that have been drawn in as well – each with their own reason for being there in the shadowy, alternate Shibuya and each with their own prize if they're somehow able to survive long enough to "win" the game. Neku, at first, is simply fighting for understanding – to figure out how he ended up in this place, and figure out the rules of this crazy game he's been thrown into. He ends up partnering with another player almost immediately just to help him get a sense of what's going on.
And that's when things really start getting weird.
The Gameplay of The World Ends With You
The gameplay design of The World Ends With You is focused on a two-character, double-screen simultaneous combat system. While Neku appears on the touch screen and you guide his movements and attacks with the stylus, his partners show up on the upper screen - fighting the same enemies, just not exactly with Neku. The two characters are somehow split into two overlapping, concurrent realities and foes have to be killed in both places for them to truly be defeated.
The DS system's upper screen, though, is not a touch screen – so the partner character who appears there has his or her actions directed by an entirely different method of input. You tap the D-Pad and face buttons to input commands for them in a new riff on the card-battling system first seen in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. And remember, at the same time, you're still also directing Neku with the stylus down below.
The two-screens-at-once battle system is wild, imaginative, complicated and even more difficult to master than it is to explain. But it proves to be incredibly compelling for those who learn its rhythms, and it remains the cornerstone of TWEWY's appeal – especially since now, years later, no other games have come along to mimic its method of madness.
Those battles end up just being one of TWEWY's crazy game design ideas, and each other element Jupiter tossed into this mix helps further define the game's personality. There are pins to collect. Little buttons, each embued with psychic powers and used to activate Neku's attacks in battle – you equip them and even level them up over time, while the physical actions they demand range from simple taps on the screens to wide slashes across enemy sprites. There are something like 300 different pins and attacks. Neku himself levels up after enough battling too – an RPG staple – but then you have the option of sacrificing Neku's gained levels to increase the probability of more pin drops from fallen foes. Another unprecedented idea.
Then there's the fashion scene. Pins aren't the only thing to wear, as in the clothing-conscious neighborhoods of Shibuya you're actually given further bonuses in battle for equipping your heroes in outfits that match the trending style of each location. And then there's the food – almost every RPG features standard things like HP-recovering potions or meat, but in TWEWY you buy things like hot dogs and essentially equip them into your heroes' stomachs. There, they digest over time and ultimately grant a permanent stat bonus after they've been fully absorbed into the body.
TWEWY even boasted the wireless tagging of "Mingle Mode," which was essentially Jupiter inventing StreetPass years before Nintendo built it into the 3DS.
Wrapping all of these wonderfully ridiculous design elements together is one of the best soundtracks ever crafted in gaming, and a visual style so bold that it's no wonder the game inspired a full manga adaptation shortly after its release in Japan. That release, by the way, was on July 26, 2007 – meaning The World Ends With You just celebrated its fifth anniversary a couple of weeks ago.
The Future of The World Ends With You
That milestone could be seen as significant on its own, but it's made much more interesting by the not-so-coincidental timing of a new Square Enix release in the same week this year. Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance debuted in Europe, Australia and North America in late July, all within a week of that fifth anniversary date. And Kingdom Hearts 3D also happens to host the first reappearance of characters from The World Ends With You we've ever seen.
Half a decade has come and gone with no proper TWEWY sequel, but the makers of Kingdom Hearts continue to make Kingdom Hearts – and in this latest 3DS adventure, the series most well known for its crossovers with Disney films and characters instead sidelines Mickey Mouse and his friends for one chapter to give Neku Sakuraba a second chance to step into the spotlight. Sora teams up with Neku in Kingdom Hearts' recurring village locale, Traverse Town – while Riku, on his own adventure, meets up with Shiki Misaki, who was Neku's first partner character in TWEWY. Other major characters also reappear as Sora and Riku help the gang through a truncated version of TWEWY's plot, as Kingdom Hearts chapters often do with the Disney films they draw on for inspiration.
Neku, Shiki and all the rest appearing in Kingdom Hearts 3D is a paradigm-shifting event for the KH franchise – they've become the first non-Disney, non-Final Fantasy characters to ever cross over into the series. Square Enix has plenty of other properties to draw on. You'd think a Dragon Quest hero would've made the cut by now, or even just the iconic Slime. But no, it's never happened – The World Ends With You is the first to get the honor, and you've got to think that it's all a nod to Square Enix's plans to publish a TWEWY sequel.
And, appropriately enough, a countdown has now appeared that looks like it will announce exactly that.
A new teaser site has just gone live this morning. The site contains nothing more than a countdown and a bit of music playing on a loop, but the countdown of one week, the font of the numbers, the music, the image of the Shibuya silhouette displayed in the background and even the URL itself all point unmistakably to The World Ends With You. If all goes to plan, in less than a week we hope to discover that Square Enix has finally made The World Ends With You 2 official.
So what does that mean, for all of you who still haven't experienced the original? Well, your time to play this incredible game before its series moves on without you is running out. I'll leave you with the advice of one of our IGN readers:
"always wanted to try the world ends with you" - MaverickHall2
"Stop trying and DO IT. Its worth whatever you have to pay to get it." - _AbBaNdOn
Lucas M. Thomas made the mistake of not picking up TWEWY the instant it came out in America back in 2008. Don't repeat his mistake. Play the game now. (And follow Lucas on Twitter.)
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