Neo: The World Ends with You review — vibrant, joyful and imperfect
Our Verdict
Neo: The World Ends with Y'all is filled to the brim with style and charm, but really playing the game can get tedious sometimes.
For
- Killer soundtrack
- Killer art way
- Killer characters, dialogue and vibe
Confronting
- Chaotic, disruptive combat
- Small, limited world to explore
- Non every bit inventive equally the first game
Tom'south Guide Verdict
Neo: The World Ends with You is filled to the brim with way and amuse, merely actually playing the game can become slow sometimes.
Pros
- +
Killer soundtrack
- +
Killer art fashion
- +
Killer characters, dialogue and vibe
Cons
- -
Chaotic, confusing combat
- -
Pocket-sized, express world to explore
- -
Not as inventive as the first game
Neo: The Earth Ends with Yous is a sequel that recreates everything that worked near the showtime game — every bit well equally a lot of what didn't work. The result is a vibrant, joyful, and imperfect game that positively drips with fashion. When Neo: The World Ends with You is firing on all cylinders, you'll feel right at home on the stylish streets of Shibuya, fighting for your life in the intriguing Reaper Games and absolutely dying (heh) to observe out what happens next.
On the other hand, Neo doesn't achieve its full potential, due to a confusing combat system and a general sense that your job, as a player, is simply to shuffle an interesting cast of characters a few metropolis blocks at a time, then sit through a bunch of cutscenes. When the original The World Ends with You lot debuted on the Nintendo DS in 2008, the pocket-size setting and imprecise combat may take been side effects of a handheld platform with limited power. Those limitations shouldn't really be in a modern console game.
- Play the best PS4 games
- Also try the all-time Nintendo Switch games
- Plus: Neo: The Globe Ends with Y'all — what to know before yous play
Even so, fans of the original TWEWY should find exactly what they're looking for hither. If you desire to explore a colorful subsection of Tokyo, listen to a killer hip-hop/J-pop soundtrack and laugh out loud equally some truly preposterous characters commutation witty banter, at that place's a lot to like in Neo: TWEWY. Otherwise, you might be amend off with a more traditional JRPG — or at least by starting with the first game. This Neo: The World Ends with You review volition explicate why.
Neo: The Earth Ends with You review: Specs
Platforms: PS4 (reviewed), Switch, PC (release appointment TBA)
Price: $60
Release Date: July 27, 2021
Genre: RPG
Neo: The World Ends with Y'all review: Gameplay
In Neo: The World Ends with Y'all, you lot take control of Rindo Kanade: a teen from Tokyo who gets drawn into the deadly Reaper Games. Rindo and his friend Tosai "Fret" Furesawa notice that they've died under mysterious circumstances. The only way to come dorsum to life is by competing against other players, completing bizarre missions in the Reaper Games. These have place entirely in the existent-globe Tokyo fashion commune of Shibuya.
Perceptive players may remember that this is precisely the same setup as the original TWEWY, salvage for a different protagonist. Still, it was a good premise back in 2008, and it's a good setup now. Gameplay has three major components: exploring the streets of Shibuya, upgrading your characters' stats and abilities and doing battle against the animalistic Noise that inhabit the Reaper Games.
For the most role, you can walk around Shibuya at leisure, stopping to swallow and shop. Y'all'll also read people's minds — sometimes but to hear their colorful asides, and sometimes because they hold clues for completing your missions. After a while, you'll realize that while Shibuya is a colorful and varied neighborhood, it's non actually that large, making you revisit the same quondam areas once more and once again, with artificial gates between them. This might work if there were a ton of things to exercise on each screen, but it's normally just shops, and plenty of Noise to fight.
You lot can increase your HP by gaining experience in combat, and increase your stats past stuffing yourself at Shibuya's diverse restaurants. The majority of your graphic symbol-building comes in the forms of Pins, still. Defeating the Noise and completing quests grants you Pins, each of which lets you lot employ a certain attack. Characters in Neo: TWEWY don't take intrinsic attacks or special abilities. Everything they exercise is dictated by which Pivot they take equipped.
For instance: one Pin may allow you lot to pummel an enemy by tapping a face button every bit chop-chop every bit you can. Some other one may unleash a Current of air-elemental attack, which increases in authority the longer you lot hold down a shoulder button. Each Pin gains experience, and takes just a few battles to primary. Many Pins can also "evolve" into new forms once you max them out. As such, you lot'll swap pins oftentimes and have to learn how to apply a wide variety of them before the end of the game.
The freeform and creative Pin system was one of the best parts of the original TWEWY, and that'south notwithstanding the case here. The combat, even so, is a bit more uneven.
Neo: The World Ends with Yous: Gainsay
Whenever you're not watching cutscenes, talking with non-thespian characters or purchasing new gear, y'all'll probably exist in gainsay. Neo: TWEWY has a fundamentally skilful battle arrangement, marred by some frustrating ideas that drag the feel downwardly on a regular basis. (Perceptive players may call back that this, too, was precisely the same criticism of the original TWEWY.)
If you tackle one Noise confrontation at a time, you'll find them pretty short and simple, albeit also fairly cluttered. Rindo tin can recruit up to iii allies to aid him in battle, and each 1 of them uses a different set on, depending on which offensive Pins they accept equipped. You command each grapheme with a different button, meaning that when battle is in full swing, you'll have to agree, or tap, or mash the shoulder and confront buttons simultaneously. For context, the PS4 version of the game requires you to hit the L1, foursquare, triangle and R1 buttons at the same fourth dimension, holding some and tapping others. All the while, y'all'll also need to worry virtually dodging enemy attacks and activating special abilities.
If that all sounds very confusing, well, information technology is. Battles often evolve into large push-mashing-fests, where your best bet of defeating enemies is simply past having more HP and improve stats than they do. Bosses can be especially tough, every bit each of their attacks take off huge chunks of your HP, and healing Pins are hard to come up by. At the same fourth dimension, most random battles are trivial — unless you up the difficulty.
This is where one of Neo: TWEWY'due south all-time ideas comes into play. You can change difficulty at-volition, as well as "chain" battles together and lower your HP level. Doing so ensures that you get ameliorate Pins after each battle, and that you lot'll have to manage your HP and special attacks more efficiently than usual. Even so, the "concatenation" mechanic itself is a real pain, since information technology requires you to run quickly — but not too quickly! — from Noise to Noise, hoping that y'all can attract them to you without a battle motorcar-starting in the meantime. You'll oft find yourself stuck behind an obstacle and starting a useless one-off battle, wondering whether all this combat is even worthwhile.
Neo: The World Ends with You review: Story
Rindo and Fret are two Tokyo teenagers who enjoy hanging out in the trendy style commune of Shibuya. They may be stuck in that location a lot longer than they intended, however, equally they discover they've died under mysterious circumstances, and are at present bound to the area. To reclaim their lives, they must participate in the otherworldly Reaper Games, competing against other unfortunate souls, supervised by a bunch of antisocial psychopaths.
If yous've played the original The World Ends with You, yous'll find that the setup is almost the same as earlier. Rindo is a friendlier and more outgoing protagonist than Neku Sakuraba, but the setup is the aforementioned, as is the process of gradually sussing out ally from enemy, and the dawning realization that there'due south more than going on backside the scenes than a unproblematic "earn the about points to come back to life" game.
Notwithstanding, on its own merit, the story is enjoyable, specially the unhinged characters and the precipitous script. Equally Rindo's quest progresses, he encounters personalities like Nagi Usui, who'southward obsessed with a cheesy online game, as much in death every bit in life, and Shoka Sakurane, a low-level Reaper who tin't resist playing cat-and-mouse with Rindo and Fret. You lot'll fifty-fifty meet a few recurring characters, similar the Reaper-turned-player Sho Minamimoto, whose endless supply of math puns seems like it would become quondam, but never really does.
Neo: The Globe Ends with You review: Visuals and sound
Neo: The World Ends with You positively shines in the way it looks and sounds. Shibuya feels live, full of teeming crowds, bigger-than-life stores and real-world landmarks that requite the neighborhood its distinctive flavor. The game's neon-and-pastel palette and anime fine art style brand the game endlessly endearing to look at, even when you've seen the same areas and enemies dozens of times before.
The soundtrack, too, is simply on a different level than what nigh games offer. You'll hear a variety of upbeat hip-hop, J-pop and rock, and the tracks vary considerably depending on whether yous're walking around the neighborhood, doing battle with the Racket or advancing the story through one of many, many cutscenes.
Taken together, the visuals and audio, forth with the story and dialogue, give Neo: The World Ends with You a sense of thematic cohesion that most games simply don't achieve.
Neo: The World Ends with You review: Verdict
Neo: The World Ends with You lot has nigh the same strengths and weaknesses every bit its predecessor — which is odd, considering that it probably didn't have to. Information technology'due south no longer every bit innovative as it was the get-go time around, since yous've now (probably) played something very similar before.
And nevertheless, it's hard non to be charmed by Neo: TWEWY's characters, soundtrack and overall vibe. In a sea of games that pretend to be cool, Neo: TWEWY actually achieves information technology. Choice it up if you've dreamed about a sequel ever since finishing the offset game — or concur off, if y'all need some time to play through the original first.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/neo-the-world-ends-with-you
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