The World Ends With You: Final Remix

Genre: Action-RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

The World Ends With You is an Action-RPG that has to be one of the more unique entries the genre has ever seen. Originally released on the Nintendo DS in 2007, the game made extensive use of the touchscreen, as well as the dual screen format, making it a game clearly built around the unique hardware of that platform. However, in 2012 a version of the game was created for Smartphones that consolidated the game’s actions onto one screen, and then in 2018 this version was brought to the Nintendo Switch with improved visuals and added content.

Visually, The World Ends With You is decent, with a stylized 2D design that highlights the signature art style of producer and artist Tetsuya Nomura, albeit with a modern twist where elements of the game look stylish like grafitti tags and stylized “pins” that play a large part in the gameplay. However, it’s the sound where this game really shines, with the game’s soundtrack infuses with pop, rock, and hip-hop that really highlights the game’s contemporary setting. This version of the game remixes the original game’s soundtrack, but those preferring the original can opt to swap to that in the game’s menus.

This game’s story is something many will see as one of its main draws, and a part of the joy of it is figuring out just what the heck is going on, so I’ll try not to spoil much here. Suffice it to say, the characters in this game find themselves in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, unable to be seen or touched by the crowds of people wandering the streets. While trying to get to the bottom of this mystery, they find themselves hounded by monsters called “Noise”, with the mysterious events seemingly masterminded by people known as “Reapers”, who seem to have set this up as a “game” of sorts, with participants forced to complete goals within a time limit or else face “erasure”. Suffice it to say, it’s a fairly unique plot, and one that feels like it came right out of an anime.

However, while this unique plot is compelling, I have to make one caveat – the game’s protagonist, Neku, is at least at the outset of the game a huge jerk, and at least the first hour or so was particularly rough because I couldn’t stand the guy, who seems to take every opportunity to be a royal pain to those around him he’s depending on for help and information. It gets better, but this is definitely game where you need to give the characters time to grow on you.

As for the gameplay, this is a game that was clearly designed with the Nintendo DS in mind, and as a result it doesn’t feel quite at home on the Nintendo Switch. In handheld mode, the game is played exclusively with the touchscreen, and this mostly works pretty well, although the Nintendo Switch’s capacitive touchscreen lacks the precision of the Nintendo DS’s pressure-sensitive touchscreen, which can muddle up commands and make them less responsive than they should be. You can still feel the unique nature of this game’s controls coming through, but I really wish more was done to incorporate traditional controls, even for something as simple as being an optional alternative for basic movement. It’s particularly frustrating when characters pile up on one another, or multiple commands require a similar input, resulting in it becoming far too easy to issue the wrong command.

However, while the gameplay with the touchscreen is flawed, the moment you put the game in docked mode that’s compounded by an extra layer of detachment, as playing the game docked requires players to use a single Joy-Con as a motion-sensing cursor, which technically works but not very well, and clearly isn’t the way the game was designed to be played. I really wish the game’s designers had put more time into coming up with alternate control schemes that could make use of more traditional controls. Yes, it’s not what this game was originally designed for, but neither are the other controls schemes the Nintendo Switch has to offer, and the result was always going to be imperfect.

The really unfortunate thing about this is that docked mode is where one of this version of the game’s biggest new features resides, its 2-player co-op mode. But because players have to use the worst control scheme to take advantage of this mode, it hardly feels worth the effort.

In the end, while the Nintendo Switch version of The World Ends With You is the definitive version in terms of its presentation and content, I hesitate to recommend it over the Nintendo DS original, since every other platform the game has been ported to has had to contend with the fact that this was a game built specifically for the Nintendo DS. If you’re willing to put up with some frustration in the controls department, this is still an excellent and unique game with a compelling story (well, if you can put up with the jerk of a protagonist), and playing the game in handheld mode using a touchscreen isn’t terrible, at least.

tl;dr – The World Ends With You is a unique Action-RPG originally released for the Nintendo DS in 2007, with this version getting an updated presentation and updated controls to work on the Nintendo Switch. Unfortunately, it’s clear that this is a game that was designed with the Nintendo DS in mind, as the controls don’t work nearly as well on the Nintendo Switch. It’s still decent in portable mode using the touchscreen, but playing the game docked using motion controls is frustrating. Players willing to put up with that frustration may still want to give the game a try for its unique gameplay and original story about a mysterious life-or-death contest in Tokyo’s Shibuya district… though I could’ve done without the protagonist being such a jerk.

Grade: C+

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