When the original Nintendo DS was at the height of its popularity, some of its most interesting games were, well, incredibly strange. There was a musical toy that turned jellyfish into touchscreen pianos ( Electroplankton), a story about a secret government agency that solved problems by singing ( Elite Beat Agents), and an epic battle where giant tanks were piloted by cute blue blobs ( Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime). One of the best examples of this exciting period of games is The World Ends with You.First released on the DS in 2008, the Japanese role-playing game comes from Square Enix, the company behind the genre’s biggest names, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. But The World Ends with You is a completely unique, energetic experience that blends together the stylish youth culture of Tokyo’s Shibuya district with a dark, foreboding story about death and friendship. Ten years later, there’s still nothing quite like it.But if you missed out on TWEWY the first time around, you’re in luck: an enhanced version is out today on the Nintendo Switch, and it’s just as good as it was when it debuted. The game puts you in the role of Neku, an amnesiac loner who finds himself in a strange, alternate reality version of Shibuya where supernatural beings called reapers task humans with completing various missions.
- The World Ends With You Switch Eur
- The World Ends With You Switch Review
- The World Ends With You Final Remix
The World Ends with You is one of my favorite Japanese role-playing games. It was released for the Nintendo DS in 2007, when I was a moody teenager trying to make it through college. This definitive version of Square Enix's RPG classic brings the dark story to life on the Nintendo Switch system along with a new scenario and some killer, new.
The World Ends With You Switch Eur
If they fail, they’re erased from existence forever. Despite seeming to hate everyone, Neku is forced to partner with another player, a young girl named Shiki. The two work together to solve missions, fight off enemies called noise, and figure out exactly what’s going on in this strange world.The story can be very confusing at times — the reapers’ game is full of all kinds of complex and arbitrary rules — but it also becomes fascinating and surprisingly emotional the more you dig into it.
Neku may be a cliche, surly JRPG protagonist at the outset, but as he’s forced to literally fight for his life, he changes and grows in a way that feels natural as he starts to realize that you need help from others to succeed. You can’t talk about ‘ The World Ends With You’ without talking about how it looksYou also can’t talk about The World Ends with You without talking about how it looks. It’s not just a game set in Shibuya; it’s a game where the district’s fashion is a focal point of the experience. The game was helmed by Tetsuya Nomura who is best-known for his outlandish character designs for Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy. The manga-inspired visuals can still be over the top at times — at one point Neku wishes that he had more zippers, a Nomura staple — but they’re also grounded in reality, and there’s a real sense of life and movement to the world and characters.
Iconic Tokyo buildings twist and stretch as you run through crowded streets.As in most RPGs, you equip new gear to enhance your abilities, but there’s a stylish twist; each area has its own trends, and you get bonuses by wearing the right brands in the right places. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeThis vibrant world looks gorgeous on the Switch’s screen or on a big TV, but there are some trade-offs in this new version. The Switch version appears to be based on the mobile port of the game that came out back in 2012, which makes sense; the DS featured unique dual-screen combat where you were controlling two different characters on each screen. That’s impossible to replicate on the Switch.
Ports are nothing new for. The console’s first year saw myriad ports arrive in the form of, and more. They all built upon the original vision with improved visuals and content, in many cases justifying the asking price. The World Ends With You: Final Remix is a similar story, yet marks one of the first times we’ve seen a Nintendo DS title receive such a modern treatment.The port arrives with mixed results. The Worlds Ends With You has never looked better, its vibrant, urban aesthetic shining through years of age on a HD display. Sadly, a control scheme designed with a dual-screen setup back in 2007 isn’t a perfect fit for the Switch. It works, but encounters a few frustrations along the way.
Related:The World Ends With You takes place in a fictionalised vision of Tokyo’s Shibuya district, complete with a wealth of shops and locations. Having been there myself, it takes some obvious liberties, but recognisable landmarks littered about the place help Final Remix feel grounded in reality despite its absurd JRPG stylings.It’s beautifully distinct, popping with imaginative designs by none other than industry veteran Tetsuya Nomura, known for his role in the series. The foremost of these characters is Neku Sakuraba, our main protagonist. Having been vanished into an alternate vision of Shibuya known as the Underground, he must participate alongside others in the Reaper’s Game.This twisted idea provides the dead with an opportunity to return to the realm of the living or achieve something greater, a mystery which is explored to great effect as the fun, melancholic narrative moves forward. You’ll eventually bump into Reapers, Composers and more dangerous opponents as you draw closer to the end of Reaper’s Game.
Which, by the way, only lasts a week. However, you’ll see it through multiple times by the time credits roll.Related:Most of your time in The World Ends With You will be spent exploring the streets of Shibuya, ignored by the general population as your ghostly spectre goes about completing quests and fighting Noise, the game’s definition for enemies. You interact with the environment by using Pins. Represented by a button on the touch-screen, pressing this grants you access to the inner thoughts of NPCs.They might be daydreaming about a distant crush or a worry at their workplace, oftentimes providing crucial hints you might require to progress. I found this a fascinatingly humorous way to learn my surroundings, sinking into a world simply oozing with style.
The World Ends With You Switch Review
The World Ends With You Final Remix
The razor-sharp localisation smooths matters along, making sure dramatic moments land with sufficient impact.You’ll also stumble across a variety of puzzles amidst the confines of Shibuya. The most impressive ones have you imprinting Memes into the minds of unsuspecting citizens. And no, these aren’t the things you see all over social media. Instead, you’ll need to plant ideas into a person’s subconscious to, for example, repair a broken friendship or have them remove obstacles in your way. It’s an innovative idea, and forces you to retrace your steps in search of new discoveries.