The World Ends With You is an outstanding and unique RPG from developers Square Enix and Jupiter.  With full (and fun) use of the DS functionality, this is one game you won't want to put down.

You wake up in the middle of a crowded street in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, Japan.  You have no idea how you came to this street, why you decided to take a nap here, or why no one bothered to wake you up.  Most important, though, you don't remember who you are.  At all.  Other than your name, Neku, you haven't a clue.  The people around you can't hear or see you, but you can hear them, and perhaps better than you'd like.  You find that you can also hear their thoughts as well as their words.  Before you can explore this, though, you are suddenly attacked by vicious frogs that look like living tatoos.  Unable to fight them off, you have to run for your life.

Thus begins the story of The World Ends With You, an action RPG unlike any you've ever played.  Square Enix has been keeping me (an avid RPG fan) very happy these days, what with a remake of Final Fantasy 4 for the DS, two Kingdom Hearts spinoffs (that I will ever get a chance to play, that is), a sequel for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance...and now The World Ends With You.  Aside from a spikey haired, brooding protagonist and the concept of leveling up your characters, this game is one of the most original games I've ever played.  It's definitely a bold move for Square Enix, and it pays off.  First and foremost is the game design.  As an action RPG, think of battles more like Kingdom Hearts' battles rather than Final Fantasy.  The art style is outstanding for the DS.  The visuals and effects impress the eye, and you never get tired of looking at the little things, like buildings, posters, and advertisements on walls.  The story spans over three in-game weeks (an optional 4th if you beat the game), and each week you get a new partner due to circumstances I'm not about to spoil.  The story is top notch.  The folks at Square and Jupiter have outdone themselves.  Each character is a distinct character with his or her own goals, ambitions, beliefs, and moralities.  You really start to feel for Neku and friends as they battle through the dangerous, "Reaper's Game," in a week long fight for survival.  The main protagonists are the Reapers, who are the ones in charge of the aforementioned Reaper's Game.  They send out creatures called Noise (animals that look like living tattoos) to do their dirty work.  Which brings me to Battles.

Battles are amazingly fun.  As mentioned, you have one partner at a time.  Your partner gets sent to the top screen while Neku gets the touch screen.  Controlling Neku involves touch screen controls.  Drag across the screen to make him move and attack.  You're partner is controlled by the D-pad (or face buttons if you're a lefty) and pressing buttons in a rythm game fashion makes your partner attack.  This takes a lot of getting used to, as you will find yourself looking only at one screen at first and forgetting about the other one, but thanks to a good game design you can turn your partner on autopilot if he sits still for too long.  Neku fights using certain pins that grant him random psychic abilities.  These include pyrokinesis, telekinisis, and many others.  They are activated by doing different motions on the touch screen.  If you have the right pins, pressing the touch screen can make a black hole, scratching could cause an earthquake, a quick slash stretches a chain along the battle field that blocks enemies from advancing and does minor damage if they get caught up in it.  One pin even allows you to yell into the microphone, doing damage for as long as it can detect you yelling (or if the pin uses up its move).  Each pin is set to a limited amount of uses, and when used up they refill their uses over time (in a battle).  Pins level up in two ways, after battle you get a certain amount of points that level up your pin (you get a boost for your performance in battle-so long as you do good), and if you leave your DS sit off for a while, the pins get a certain amount of points for however long the DS was turned off for.  Some pins will evolve into a more powerful version, so even if you have one pin leveled up to the max, and you get another one of the same kind, that second one could evolve into a better pin.  The last thing about battles is that you can chain encounters.  Instead of one battle at a time, you can do 4, one after the other.  This is useful in many missions in the game as well as it is leveling up your pins, and it adds a level of drama.  That third battle about wipe you out?  You still have one more, champ, so buck up!

 Probably the most unique aspects of TWEWY is the clothing.  They act as armor would in any other RPG, but with a big twist.  There are many different brands of clothing, and what brand you're wearing makes a big difference in gameplay.  If a certain brand is popular, then you could get an stat boost (Attack, Defense, etc) for wearing that brand.  You need to be brave enough to wear certain articles of clothing, though.  The bravery stat increases as you level up, allowing more design and wardrobe choices.  Pins also have different brands, their affectiveness being based on what's popular or not.  Wearing an unpopular brand will give you a stat decrease.  But the more you battle with a certain brand on in a certain area, the more popular it will become.  Buying different articles of each brand (and different pins of different brands) becomes a mainstay so you can swap articles to get bonuses during battle.  You're characters will also get hungry, and feeding them is another fun aspect.  Give them food they like and they get better health and sync bonuses.  If it isn't their particular bowl of ramen, then you might not get as much.  Food gets digested as you battle, so if you've got a belly full, start looking for Noise and reap your reward.

A few gripes to get through.  And they are very minor.  I noticed that in battle, sometimes a few of my pins interefered with the course of the battle.  Once in a while you may go to dodge an enemy attack, only to find out that you accidentally activated a pin that uses the same motion as moving your character does, causing you to waste that pin's move, as well as get hit by the enemy attack.  There's only a slight difference in these two movements, so this tends to happen mainly during a heavy battle when your actions are a bit more frantic, and you'll probably be cursing while you watch your character get flung around endlessly by crab noise that you failed to avoid.  Another thing is the amount of swearing.  It didn't really bother me (in fact I believe it added to the depth of some characters) but there is a lot of it in this game, and I can see it turning some people off.  If you or your children have virgin ears, beware.

All in all, I haven't seen an RPG from Square this original since Kingdom Hearts.  And just like KH, this is one gamble into the unknown that paid off in spades.  I'm going to go play it some more after finishing up this review.

 Ward's Score

Story-9/10:  There are a few RPG cliches here, like amnesia, but overall this is one of the best stories in video games.

Gameplay-10/10:  Utilizing the DS's controls in full makes for the best action RPG on the system.

Graphics-9.5/10:  Though your characters be sprites, the art designs and cutscenes are top notch.

Sound-9/10:  Some of the songs can get repetitive, but overall the soundtrack sets the mood perfectly and the voice acting is a lot better than most handheld games.

Lifespan-9/10:  This is one of those games you'll be coming back to 10 years from now

OVERALL

93% A

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