Introduction

As we kick off a summer of some pretty exciting releases there’s one surprising game that’s kind of flying under most people’s radar. I’m talking about Neo: The World Ends With You (NTWEWY), a sequel to the cult classic Nintendo DS game from 2007. While it doesn’t come out until the end of the month, Square Enix has released a demo on PS4 and Nintendo Switch that comprises the first few hours of the game. I tried out what the demo has to offer and found it to be a very fun, if niche, role-playing game.

Story

The story and aesthetic for NTWEWY have strong Kingdom Hearts vibes, which makes sense considering it’s from the same development team. Two teenagers, Rindo and Fret, somehow end up in the middle of a fierce competition amongst the recently deceased at the behest of a mysterious group of strangers. Dubbed the Reapers’ Game, this contest is won by solving puzzles and defeating monsters as quickly as possible. The winner gets to leave the game; the loser gets erased.

In order to participate in this game, Rindo and Fret are gifted these small pins that give them access to fantastic abilities. The pins take the place of the standard RPG weapons, allowing the boys to defend themselves against monstrous threats known as “the Noise.” The Noise takes the shape of various different monsters ranging from large, crow-like creatures to a massive, deformed gorilla.

The characters you can meet in the demo are were well-acted, even if the writing was a little stiff. The interactions between characters are where the writing loosens up, revealing more of their personalities without feeling like they’re reading from a script. It’s just a shame we don’t see the main characters play off others more often, as the secondary characters don’t really get much to do other than offer exposition.

As with most Japanese RPGs, the story doesn’t really get very far in these early hours. There are some big story beats early on, but these games tend to run for dozens if not hundreds of hours so the character development and story building feel a little shallow. A teaser trailer at the very end hints at what’s to come, but what we get with the demo doesn’t give a clear idea of the quality of the overall story.   

Gameplay

When it comes to combat, though, I’m completely on board. NTWEWY offers a battle system that is easy to pick up but feels like it has deep tactical potential. In battle, you control every member of the party with each character’s attack assigned to a single button. For example, on PlayStation 4 Rindo starts out with a sword attack that uses the triangle button while Fret launches energy blasts from afar with a square.

While you can just swing at your enemies with reckless abandon the game incentivizes the use of careful strategy. You only have a certain number of attacks before each pin needs to recharge, and chaining attacks together across different members of your party boosts a percentage bar called the Groove Meter. Get this meter to 100% and you can activate a Mashup, a powerful attack that deals massive damage and temporarily boosts attack power for your entire team.

It’s a deceptively simple system with a lot of room for fun, tactical play. Different pins offer different attack styles, some of which have elemental affinities. I found one pin that created a fire tornado while holding down the L2 button and another that hit enemies from below with an ice pillar after charging up with R2. There are hundreds of different pins to find with thousands of viable combinations to try out, so the potential combat variety has me very excited.

Depending on your loadout battles can play out like a carefully orchestrated ambush or a frantic, desperate scramble. None of the attacks feel any worse than the others, but knowing which pins to bring into a specific fight feels like it’ll be key to navigating some of the trickier battles.   

Outside of the combat, though, the gameplay does feel a little limited. There’s a slight amount of exploration available in these early chapters, but the game is clearly funneling you toward the next big story beat. A ways into the demo you’ll unlock a minigame that requires a frustrating amount of precision, but it only gets used here to further the story. There is a collections tab in the menu, so hopefully, exploration will open up as the game progresses.  

Expectations

The story promises to offer something for both new and returning fans, though whether or not it will be truly great is still up in the air. I enjoyed what the demo had to offer, but there just isn’t enough of it to get a good idea of what the entire story will look like. We’ll just have to wait until the end of the month to see if the journey truly pays off.

The combat is what I found to be the most exciting about this game, with plenty of potential for some crazy combos and high-octane battles. While you can’t assign two characters to the same button prompt in the demo it is teased that this will unlock, later on, allowing for some high-risk, high-reward builds for your team. I can’t wait to discover all the different pins and experiment to find the best load-outs.  

Verdict

I really enjoyed these couple of hours I had with NTWEWY. It put a smile on my face to play a bombastic, over-the-top JRPG again. The art style is fun and bright with awesome character designs by the great Tetsuya Nomura, and they’re backed by an insane soundtrack by Takeharu Ishimoto that runs the gamut from electro-pop to heavy metal. 

I encourage anyone who enjoyed the original game (or just likes cool JRPGs) to check this demo out. Any progress you make in the demo carries over to the full game if you buy it on the same platform, so there’s nothing to lose! The demo is currently available on both PS4 and Switch with a full release for those systems coming on July 27, 2021, and a PC release slated for later this year.