Wednesday, August 18, 2021

This Is Beautiful: Neo: The World Ends With You

 I'm sure I'm going to be writing a lot about this game, but wow is it good! I have not finished it yet, but I already know that I adore this game. In a way I was going to love it no matter what, it's the long-awaited sequel to my favorite game of all time. Just the fact that it exists makes me happy.

There are a number of changes to the new game from the original one, like the fact that the streets are in 3D. I've talked about this previously when the demo came out. The art is certainly a glow-up. What's wildly different now about the game is that your opponents aren't so much the Reapers, the bad guys in the original, but the other Players in the Reaper's Game. I'm interested to see how much this one pits you against the others, because the original was a lot about teamwork. 

There's also been a couple references to Neku as a legendary Player that turned the game on its head. Of course there was going to be some sort of legend about him or whatever, but I'm also interested in seeing where this goes. I know he eventually appears, I'm fascinated to see how he changes over time.

Finally I've run into a pandemic reference, if in a roundabout way. I don't think the writers could fully avoid it, Rindo was designed before the pandemic and he wears a mask as a fashion statement. Essentially there's a reference to a pop group that is made up of germ-phobes that practice hand washing and social distancing. I think if that's all that it is, that's great and I'm actually amused by that. Hopefully that's all, I don't think I could handle the pandemic being in this game.

I am annoyed with some things about the game. You can't easily use HP restoring pins during battle, and battle in general I don't think is as great as the original. Might be a bit of a hot take, but I prefer the touch screen controls with the buttons that control your partner as well. In Neo, you control each pin with a different button. It's just less customizable to me, I'm just button mashing no matter what I equip. And the 3D fights make it harder for me to tell what's going on, which character I'm controlling. Maybe this'll change as I go through the game, we'll see.

Other nitpicky thing I'm complaining about is the shops. You can only eat within a restaurant now, and strangely enough you cannot sell pins in a restaurant? Only place you can sell pins is in a shop. So I continually have to leave the restaurant, head to a shop, and then return with money. It also means that you cannot buy food and save it for later. Which I'm finding increasingly annoying. And everyone has to eat in a restaurant. The details of this system I find pretty irritating, the original game's byte system worked just fine.

Anyways, this game is amazing and everyone should play it. I'm taking my time getting through it, but it'll for sure be back once I'm done with it.

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