The World Ends With You - Review

The World Ends With You, released by Square Enix and Jupiter, is one of THE BEST DS games I have ever played. It’s an action RPG set in modern Shibuya for teens, where the hottest trends will help you be the best.

You play as Neku Sakuraba an introvert to the extreme. You wake up one day not knowing anything but your name. You soon are attacked by monsters called “noise” and are forced to make a “pact” with a girl you don’t know.

You later learn that you have been forced to play in The Reapers’ Game, where you are assigned a mission every day for seven days. And if one of the teams doesn’t pass then you will be “erased” from existence, if the noise hadn’t already erased you.

You battle the noise using “psych pins”, there are over 300 battle pins that can be used, each with their own ability and usage.

The World Ends With You is mainly a single player game, but there also is a multiplayer minigame. This game is really only for the more hardcore gamer's, but the difficulty can be tweaked in multiple ways. Choosing easy or normal mode, controlling Neku only, or choosing to fight at the highest or lowest character level.

You fight noise in dual screen double battles, where you control two players simultaneously, Neku with the stylus on the lower screen and his partner with the D Pad on the upper screen. You keep track of green puck to boost attacks and create combos. You can chain battle to gain higher value and multiple items.

If you choose to fight at a high character level, the “drop rate” of a noise is lower than that of a lower level. Trends also are a big factor in battles, if your pin is of the hottest brand the attack doubles if it is not hot its attack is halved.

You have to pay attention to the smallest of things to succeed. This game is all about taking risks for higher payouts. The game is also accompanied by an amazing and diverse soundtrack, which not many DS games can boast.

Jupiter has strayed from Kingdom Hearts in favor of trying something completely different and innovative only for the DS. They have succeeded in making one of the best DS games.