TWEWY has a very complex storyline, so much so that after
you finish the game you are encouraged to go back and look for secret reports
that explain it more! But the basic story is that this teenager, Neku, wakes up
in the middle of an intersection in Shibuya with no memory and no idea how he
got there. He realizes that he’s in the middle of the Reaper’s Game, and losing
means that he loses his life and getting erased. Neku is not a people person,
and would rather hide behind his headphones than talk to people. Which is a bit
of a disadvantage here. He partners up with a girl named Shiki, and they are
quickly at odds with each other. Neku has to learn to open up and trust her, or
risk getting erased. Beat and Rhyme are another pair, Beat is full of energy
and eager to go, while Rhyme balances him out with her patience. Joshua is
another character, he is a little obnoxious, but knows things about the
Reaper’s Game that the rest don’t.
In addition to this main storyline, there are tons of little
separate ones that you can follow while the game goes on. For example, one of
the more minor characters is trying to be an entrepreneur, and you can follow
his trials as he attempts to rule the trends of Shibuya. There’s also a pin
that allows you to scan the area and read the thoughts of the people walking
around, which change from day to day and week to week. With some sleuthing, you
can tell the connections between the different weeks and how their stories are
developing.
Gameplay here is really interesting, it’s a Nintendo DS
game, and battle scenes involve Neku fighting on the bottom screen, with his
partner on the top screen. Neku fights using various pins, each has its own
activation, or psych. It could be touching the screen, slashing, or even
blowing into the microphone. His partner fights using the arrow buttons or the
ABXY buttons. And if it’s too complicated, his partner can fight on their own!
However, using his partner successfully results in a bigger pin that unleashes
their fusion power, refilling HP and dealing damage to all enemies.
You can also customize your pins that Neku has, equip all
the characters with different clothes for different powers, eat food to gain
power, and play a mini-game called Tin-Pin Slammer!
There’s a bunch of fun quirks to this game. It’s literally
99% sass, for example when you try to have a character wear two different
clothes that go on the same body part, you get a message saying “why? Because
you can’t. Deal with it.” Another interesting fact about clothes is that it
takes more bravery (a stat that’s unique to all of the individual clothes as
well as the characters, but you can improve this with eating) to wear female
clothes, but they also have better powers that go along with them. And since
most of the characters are male, yup, the game is encouraging you to send
teenagers into battle cross-dressing. There’s also a few references to other
games, notably Final Fantasy. I’m not a huge FF fan, so I can’t pick up on all
of them, but they’re there. Also, after you finish the game you are introduced
to “Another Day”, an alternative universe version of the game where all the
characters have been exaggerated and it’s hilarious. I laugh every time I play
it. You have to appreciate people who are willing to make fun of their own
creation.
The game also provides you with a map of Shibuya. And there
have been comparisons between the game’s graphics and the real thing, it’s very
similar. The graphics overall are really good, the characters look unlike any
other game. The music is also insanely good, the composers probably took
inspiration from urban trends when they made this game because some of the
songs have lyrics and everything.
The overall message of the game is also very unique. Of
course, it involves Neku opening up and expanding his world a little. (Which is
what the title is in reference too, not the world ending.) But it also involves
trusting others and things like that. And my favorite aspect is that it turns
out that the “bad guys” aren’t bad people, they’re just doing what they think
is right at the time. There isn’t any “good” or “bad” it’s just people doing
what they think is right and clashing. Which is essential for growth.
The characters have also shown up in Kingdom Hearts: Dream
Drop Distance but I haven’t actually played that game, so I don’t know much
about it.
And the most infuriating thing about this is that it’s been
seven years since the game came out and there hasn’t been a sequel yet (but
they have adapted it for iOS systems). What I would like to see in a sequel:
familiar faces returning with more stories and explanation, particularly one
about Neku’s friend who died a while ago; there’s a girl who shows up at the
end of the iOS version, a completely new character, it’d be nice to know who
she is; and finally in “Another Day” Mr. H comments on how you can see the Noise
(enemies) in that world as well, then says that Neku could be able to help him
sooner than he thinks, I want this to be developed on!
So that’s TWEWY in a nutshell. I can’t begin to explain how
much this game means to me. It has been with me since middle school, and I
would be lying if I said that I didn’t learn a few valuable things from it. I
would highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.
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