The World Ends With You

On Nintendo DS
Anime innovation
With a name like that, the DS’ latest quirk-fest certainly grabs your attention, and if it doesn’t then the gameplay and presentation will certainly do it.
Set in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, The World Ends With You is aimed at a particular type of Japanese kid (as it essentially stars them) but thankfully the action translates well enough despite what age or nationality you may be.
The premise is fairly simple – Neku (moody, spikey haired brat) has found himself trapped in a game hosted by the malevolent Reapers. The game is populated by complex rules and tasks, puzzles and combat in which he must complete before the timer burnt into his hand runs out. If he fails he faces erasure.
Thankfully he’s not the only reluctant player – there are plenty more kids fighting for survival, many of which can be teamed up with for dual screen combat. With Neku controlled by the stylus on the bottom screen (where you touch, he moves), your partner is controlled with the d-pad on the top screen (rhythm action style). Initially this is a difficult concept to grasp – controlling two characters at once on different screens with different controls is no typical feat but it soon clicks into place after a short struggle against the difficulty curve.
The emphasis is mainly on Neku though and using a selection of psychically powered pins, Neku can eradicate the enemies known as Noise with differing uses of stylus strokes commanding the psychic attacks. With 300 upgradable pins to collect, the game’s considerable depth should be quite apparent, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The game is rammed with tiny innovations such as using the DS’ internal clock to rack up experience points when the game is off or detecting other DS WiFi signals in your area to gain benefits. It’s things like these that make titles stand out and this one has them in spades.
Melding many disparate parts of traditional RPGs together, The World Ends With You singularly refreshes the genre, blowing away the cobwebs of the past with many innovations, all the while looking and sounding like a quality anime, albeit one that requires some patience to fully reap rewards.
8/10