The World Ends With You was launched in 2007 on Nintendo DS and quickly won a cult despite this year filled with an apparently infinite offer of classics.Designed by the director of Kingdom Hearts, Tetsuya Nomura, it was a darker variant of the usual RPG formula of Square Enix.Taking a modern framework, a premonitory accent on memetical culture and a satisfactory tactile fight, it remains an unknown classic of the genre.A Final Remix version arrived on Switch in 2018, followed by an anime adaptation last year.

It is therefore a shame that some PlayStation owners are lacking in the context necessary for Neo: The World Ends with you.New characters are at the origin of this episode, but it works as a follow -up and risks alienating newcomers.Another drawback is his arrival at the end of a generation, as if she had two generations.The work of art is magnificent and the creations of Nomura are like a hot cover, but it is by no means a visual showcase.

Aside from these warnings, Neo always manages to be an RPG of fun action with an effortless style and charm.

Beginning with the premature death of Rin and Fret adolescents, the story immerses us in the deadly game of the Reiepers.A series of challenges undertaken by teams of recently missing people, this game takes place in another reality plan called the UG (Underground).Our heroes find themselves surrounded by mower - former champions - and an endless assault of monsters called "noise".

Since this is an RPG Square Enix produced by Nomura, this whole review could be taken up by the intrigue synopsis, so do not annoy.Suffice to say that then that our fearless duo brings together friends and enemies throughout their trip, dangers and revelations are waiting on every street corner.

The world of Neo is a engaging mixture, often stimulating, of philosophical ideas and a treaty on human -assisted human connection.The inhabitants of the UG live in a hyper stylized world, exploiting the thoughts of the living and literally fighting their own demons.Themes and modes may have changed in the past 15 years, but the basic ideas initially established by Tatsuya Kando and his team remain relevant.Everyone is obsessed with creative clothes and the latest trends, the culture of fans is practically a religion.Apart from fighting, your group develops its social network by reading and influencing the spirits of the living world.It would be easy for this kind of content to appear cynical, but writing is often comforting.

Stylistically, Neo shares a lot of DNA with Kingdom Hearts and Persona 5.The fight and cradle of the characters come directly from the first, while the aesthetics and the urban framework of the user interface owe a lot to the latter.The music also recalls persona, with a decent selection of contagious melodies repeating itself in the different places.The design greatly helps to alleviate dated visuals and the fact that one has the impression that the real house of the game is on a pocket computer.

The characters fulfill traditional archetypal roles for the genre, but they are sympathetic and do not exceed their welcome.Freight, acolyte resident and comic relief, creaks at the beginning, but soon becomes his role of carefree repulsive of the team with a serious introspective of Rin.Then there is Nagi, an EDGELORD and Fangirl self -proclaimed which obtains the funniest aftershocks and the jokes of choice with the youngest male members of the group.And Sho is by default cool because he speaks in mathematical slang and looks like a member of the organization XIII.

After their initial introduction to Reaper’s Game, Rin and Fret begin daily missions that constitute the main flow of the game.Run in the streets of Shibuya, solve puzzles and recruit new team members.They obtain the ability to scan the area and view the thoughts of the population, also revealing an annoying noise that focuses on them to trigger battles.

The fights are where things become interesting.Throughout the UG, your group will collect hundreds of badges which, once equipped, attribute a bearer capacity.Each capacity also has a specific button assignment.After having succeeded in a combo with a type of attack, the enemy enters an offbeat state and the game invites you to "drop the pace".Strike the quirky enemy with the attack on another member of the group creates a power counter which, when it is full, considerably increases the statistics of the whole group.

The pins offer everything, magic attacks of melee and at a distance from care and invocations.They also go up in terms of level and evolve with use, adding higher statistics or new attacks.Experimenting with perfect party construction is an addictive process.It's easy to learn but difficult to master;You will often get a construction before the introduction of a new type of enemy that completely unbalances you.It is tempting to give Rin the biggest toys, but it is useful to reduce it to body to hand and to rush with another fighter to crush the Chanting Enemy.The health of the group is shared, so you never really feel like you are taking care of individual members.

The wide variety of skittles available means that the fights are rarely repetitive.New pins can be purchased in the many stores dispersed through Shibuya, or left to enemies in combat.

While the fights never really lose their brilliance, the same cannot be said of the other aspects of the UG tournament.Running in the same areas during recovery quests, or developing your network of social media by invading the brain of NPCs, becomes out of date after a while.

During opening hours, there is a constant flow of new capacities to add variety to crossing the outside world.Souvenirs of jogging, influence people's thoughts with keywords (start-up), fighting against the inner noise of NPCs-these methods are only used to trigger the next part of history.It never seems as dynamic as a real adventure in free roaming.

The most interesting out -of -combat mechanic is Rin's time travel.Some puzzles require going back in time and fulfilling a certain set of criteria to create a new chronology in which the characters can progress.Although it really offers only another variation on the same basic mission progression, any reminder of the classic of the PS2 Shadow of Memories is welcome.

There are notable characteristics of quality of life that divert the attention of the version.The difficulty can be changed on the fly, as well as the player level.The overall effect of this is the quality of the battles of pins in combat.This means that you can either browse history, or stop from time to time to increase the difficulty and grasp rare and powerful attacks of attack.

Elsewhere, there is a level rereading function that allows you to return to previous days with all your statistics and equipment, erase secondary quests and recover social ties for your network.The drawback is that you will have to follow the course of the story to access the areas you need.Even with a quick advance function added to dialogue screens, this can be a chore.You will want to recover all social ties, because injecting friendly points unlock everything, enemy health bars with Uber binding equipment locations (extra powerful capacities).Blocking the acquisition of these things behind a long backward mechanic makes all the experience slow.

Neo's biggest problem is that he is stuck between two worlds.The fight is fast and exciting and designed for frequent experiments, but puzzles and exploration may seem incredibly bland and repetitive.In many ways, it feels like the creators have taken Kingdom Hearts key aspects (word game), but they did not go far enough to imitate the brevity of the secondary content of this series.