4 Yrs✓#
dragonh89
4 Yrs✓#
...I had finally forgotten all about that chat...Let's just remove that word association from our minds forever, shall we?
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And would you believe me that when I wrote that phrase I thought about how you may have something to say about that? Hahaha
Will remember that hunt, then! I mostly ran Vaan/Penelo/Balthier, but I just used all of them really. Just changing around whenever, really. Balthier was definitely the one I used the least, tho. I can tell you that much.
And since you are an expert! Any thoughts on NG+? Didn't look into it any, and I don't know if there is anything that may be spoiled, but I imagine there is not much more new or different? I fired it up and saw that Reks was level 90, but didn't play past that first tutorial.
10 Yrs♥✓#
I'm touched that you thought about me when writing your post. 💖
Honestly, I never touched NG+. Between the PS2 version and The Zodiac Age, I've spent over 200 hours with the game, so as much as I love it, I felt no desire to have another go at it. After I finished the hunts and found the espers, I left the game feeling quite satisfied with my progress. So my advice would be to simply have a go at the hunts and stuff. There's PLENTY of content there to keep you busy for dozens and dozens of hours. That will also give you the opportunity to experiment with some different gambits, because going with "whatever works" is simply not an option in the later hunts.
Honestly, I never touched NG+. Between the PS2 version and The Zodiac Age, I've spent over 200 hours with the game, so as much as I love it, I felt no desire to have another go at it. After I finished the hunts and found the espers, I left the game feeling quite satisfied with my progress. So my advice would be to simply have a go at the hunts and stuff. There's PLENTY of content there to keep you busy for dozens and dozens of hours. That will also give you the opportunity to experiment with some different gambits, because going with "whatever works" is simply not an option in the later hunts.
8 Yrs♥$✓#
schiemann
8 Yrs♥$✓#
After getting the Seitengrat, what I absolutely loved doing with gambits was making my Fran a complete glass-cannon that would oneshot everything with Bravery/Hastega/Berserk. And with gambits you can also afk level until 99 if you want to do some more endgame content.
4 Yrs✓#
dragonh894 Yrs✓#
Oh, yeah. What you guys say makes sense. Probably won't mess around with NG+ then, and maybe I'll boot it back up to do some grinding and prepare for future hunts. I know I tried to do one that you had to board a ship to fight it (can't remember the name), and it was not good with the setup I had going. But didn't seem COMPLETELY out of my league. Probably can keep climing there. I think I did around 25 of the hunts....? Something around that
10 Yrs♥✓#
I seem to recall having quite a bit of fun with Reverse/Decoy/Hastega/Berserk/Bravery on Vaan for some of the elite marks. Penelo did most of the casting, as I recall, but Vaan had to stop and cast something on himself to keep it going. And then I just controlled Ashe and kept her out of the way so that she could make a quick retreat
4 Yrs✓#
dragonh894 Yrs✓#
Hahahahahaha! They called me a madman! They told me it could not be done! But I did it! WHO IS LAUGHING NOW? WHO IS?!?!?! THAT'S RIGHT! IT'S MEEEE!!!
...What? What is it that I did? Oh….Meh, nothing important. Don’t worry about it.
Anyways, moving on! Last week of October (except for Halloween itself) was here, and so the close to the spooky season arrived. My plans for tomorrow are not really gaming related (well, I may end up starting Fran Bow with a friend actually…), so no harm in updating today and having a clean slate for the next post! Let’s start with the games!
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
Yay! Halloween game number 1! While I’ve advertised this blog saying that I enjoy pretty much every genre in some way, shape or form, I cannot lie. I have my preferences. And the Castlevanias that follow the Symphony of the night formula, are really high up there. In general Metroidvanias is something I enjoy a lot...Except, oddly enough classic Metroid itself….But I don’t want to get hanged for that horrible taste of mine, so let’s move on!
Harmony of Dissonance is one of the 3 Castlevania games that were made originally for the GBA. Second of the bunch and...Unluckily, my least favorite. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad game. Far from it. But it just doesn’t do anything particularly special, nor it feels that what it brings to the table is any better than what the other games could do. Btw, Aria of Sorrow is the best. No questions asked. I’ll fight whoever over that. (Please, don’t actually fight me)
I’m assuming the general concept of Metroidvanias is understood, so I’ll skip all that. Let’s get to the interesting parts. The Castlevanias of this style tend to have really different magic systems. The one of Dissonance sounds like a great idea on paper, actually. You combine magic tomes with the classic subweapons, and a different spell comes out. Giving extra power to this classic moves is great! They even use the magic meter if you are using a tome with the sub weapon, or you can just use it “raw” and it spends hearts instead. Great motivation to use both!
Except...It gets kinda tedious to actually change which magic tome to use...Or to just turn it of and not use any at all. So you end up just liking one combo, or one subweapon, and just using that. You don’t even bother to turn on/off the magic tomes because it’s really not worth it to go through the menú-ing required. Personally, I just stuck with Dagger + Wind Tome. Many daggers go flying, things die, cool. So it ended up feeling like I had LESS options because of this system. Changing what tome to use for a different sub weapon, or turning it off just to use them as normal felt not necessary at all...So that’s a bummer.
One other thing I’d like to discuss about this one is about the end game, so I’ll just put everything under a giant spoiler tag. It’s not really a story spoiler, it’s just some things you need to do and I’d actually would have preferred to know them before playing, but better safe than sorry. At the beginning of the game you get the JB bracelet which is really important emotionally to the protagonist, and I was like “Cool. This doesn’t do anything. It’ll probably be used for triggering an event”. Feeling so genre savvy I stayed with it for the whole game. Later on you get the MK Bracelet which was the same deal and I was like “Ohhh. Got it. I need them BOTH to do stuff” and I equipped it, feeling really smart. But now I had 2 of my 3 general equipment slots filled with basically nothing useful. And I went the whole game like that.
I was right! Those items were needed! ...But just for the final boss. So instead of using the million things I picked up through the adventure, I just had one thing (sometimes one needed for progression), and nothing else.
Completely my fault, to be honest. I tried to be too clever and it was too much. It wasn’t particularly hard even with that auto-imposed unknowingly handicap. But what can you do. I wished I had known better.
It was a good game, and I had fun! Just wanted to ramble a bit about the odd points that stick out to me, and because I don’t want to talk about why I like metroidvanias. Castle was kinda confusing at times with some barriers or doors, but nothing serious. Can recommend it for fans of the genre, but don’t expect the magnum opus.
Minnit
Such a simple adventure game. You have a minute to live. Make the most out of it and get SOMETHING done. Once you respawn, whatever you did is saved and already done on the next cycle, but you have to respawn on your safe house.
Did you got most of the way to where you needed to go before dying? Too bad, try being faster. Did you find a new item on the last tick of the clock? Nice going! Think about where you can use it on the next one!
It’s a really interesting concept, and it’s very simple mechanically. Fighting is not hard, and the world is interesting enough for such a short experience. Oh, that. Did I mention it’s short? And not only because you do it on 1 minute cycles. Game is over in 1 to 2 hours. So it shouldn’t over stay its welcome.
Surprisingly for a game of that size, a lot of the content seems optional. Probably because you need to think about where you are going to go, and you don’t have the time to comb methodically every screen (unless you want to go there many times in a row), it’s good that there are many optional things and “different paths” so to speak on how to reach the end. Some of the things that are 100% required (at least to my knowledge) are kinda confusing on how to get, but it shouldn’t be too hard. The map is also pretty small all things considered, so you should be fine. Mainly thinking of the flippers. Some of the hotel guests had me scratching my head.
Only downside for this game is the final boss of the game. It just...Feels like it discards the entire uniqueness of the game to some extent. But hey, it’s not that much of a problem. Good game overall, though! Not amazing, but can make for a fun palette cleanser.
Monster Prom
Yay! Halloween game number 2! Yeah, I’m stretching the definition of a “Halloween game”, but hey! It has classic monsters. It has a Halloween update for costumes...It almost counts!
So, I have Uvehj to thank for talking to me about this game. He only had to say one phrase, and I knew I wanted to experience this thing. It was: “It’s a multiplayer competitive visual novel”. First thought was “What?” Second thought was “Sold”. And while you can actually play it alone if you want, and you can play cooperatively instead of competitively, just the option itself was so amusing that I couldn’t resist. Uvehj also guided me through one playthrough of it with Steam Remote Play, so that was awesome of him!
If that premise by itself is not enough to make you interested, you probably won’t really like this game. The game is carried mainly by how unusual that concept is, and a really over the top sense of humor that I actually extremely enjoyed. If it wasn’t as funny as it is, it probably wouldn’t hold the interest of one person for multiple potential playthroughs, let alone for a group of 2 to 4 people.
As the name may suggest, this is basically a dating sim. You play as a monster enrolled in a high school for monster and you need to find a partner for the prom. You have a set of stats that you can keep improving, and throughout 2 or 3 weeks you get many “random” events to get to know your fellow monsters better and to try to get your target date more interested in you. On some “turns” you have to choose where to hang out on campus, sometimes on what table and with whom you want to sit with during lunch, and sometimes even something happens to someone randomly in the city.
Now, the question most people I assume will have. How is this competitive? Weeeell...Remember those turns I just mentioned? If you are hanging around on campus, only one player can go to one place. You may choose to go somewhere that some other player needs to go to improve their character, effectively blocking them. When it’s a lunch turn, there are a limited number of seats on each table, so you can also screw someone over there. And the biggest one is on the random city events. Normally an NPC monster will ask you about a player (normally who is trying to get together with them), and how you see them. Depending on your answer they can feel more attracted to them, or start disliking them. You may even get some bonus depending on how you answer.
So, while there is no true 1 on 1 interactivity between players, you certainly interact with the same world, and what one does has an indirect impact on the other.
All in all, excellent game. I have played through it 3 times so far, and had a blast each time. It boasts it has over 500 events, so you won’t get much problems with repeated stuff if you try to go in somewhat different routes. Even if you start having some problems, it seems to have a quite healthy mod community on steam to add custom events and monsters, and there is even an official DLC for a second term, so you should be good to go there.
Can definitely recommend it just for the weird experience it is. And if someone gets it and needs someone to play with them….Let’s just say you can send me a PM pretty easily through here :D Would love to get a 4 player team here on HLTB to play a round or two, so don’t hesitate to shoot me a message if you are interested in that.
Mega Man X4
For some odd reason, I have done a kind of sandwich with the Mega Man X series. Played X1 during my childhood, on my cousin’s SNES. Then played X5 on a friend’s computer during early High School. After that I played X2 & X3 during college years. And now earlier this year I played through X6 just to see how horrible it actually was. Oh. X6 is horrible. Don’t play it. Please. Not worth it. Even for morbid curiosity. Not worth it.
So I hopped back and forth through the series, and the 4th one was just sorta missing there. And now I can happily say I fixed that! And now I can echo what most people say. The first half of the X series is way better than the second half.
X4 is an extremely fun game, although on the easy side for the series. It does nothing particularly innovative, but it does everything so well. Stages are fun, bosses are fun, progress is fun. Just a great action platformer. My personal favorite here will go to Cyber Peacock’s stage. Cyberworld stages are something common on the Mega Man series, but I tend to like them a lot (quite possible because of my love of Battle Network). But this one in particular also has a nice little gimmick on the first half in which you get ranked on how well you clear certain rooms, and if you manage to do it well enough, you actually get some pretty nice rewards out of them. It’s a very simple thing for collectibles, but it was so unique on what a normal Mega Man is that I just loved it.
Now, probably the worst part of the game is the final boss. I actually didn’t find it that hard, but it did get tedious. Spoilers ahead. First phase is just a giant waste of time if you are using weaknesses. Literally no challenge whatsoever once you know it. Second phase just hits like a truck. Pattern is easy to recognize, but took me a little while to know how to actually exploit it. Also, using weakness here just made it harder because and you don’t even do that much more damage, so not worth it from what I saw. Third phase had a lot more possible patterns, but just having to get to it to actually learn them was pretty annoying. That is par for the course for Sigma, though. What isn’t is that those are actually way easier to dodge than the second phase. It’s just boring to do so, since good dodging patterns make you have little to no chance to actually counter attack on most of them. He also has two full life bars because you need to defeat two forms on the same phase, which didn’t help.
That little rant aside, I loved this one. Firm contender for the best game in the series, even with my undying love for X1. Why did the edgy blue bomber fall so much after this…?
Haunt the House: Terrortown
Yay! Halloween game number 3! And as you may have noticed, none of my halloween games are really scary in any way, shape or form :D I just can’t handle most horror games. I love Silent Hill 2 & 3, and have some other horror-y games that I’m quite fond of, but I just cannot deal with scares that well. Oh well! I’m sure I’ll get the urge to play something more scary one of these days.
Anyways, back to the game! This is just a very simple game. It’s categorized as a “puzzle” game, but it really has no puzzles. You are just a small cute-sy ghost that goes around possesing different furniture and objects and try to scare the people away with hauntings. All you need to do is go to wherever they are and...Press one of the “scare” buttons.
This game really doesn’t offer much. The most entertaining thing about it is the different hauntings you can unlock on each object when people start getting more terrified, but it will only get a small “heh” out of you and not much more. Not really worth it, but the style is kinda cool, and just scaring people around can be kind of fun.
The least recommendable game of this update, by a long shot. At least it’s fairly inexpensive…?
Final Thoughts:
Spooky season is basically over now! Had a lot of fun this October, and actually completed quite a lot of games. Going on vacation actually gave me more free time. Who’d have thought?
I actually got to 2 of the 3 games I said last time I wanted to play, so I’m doing better! Linear Bounded Phenogram will probably happen soonish. Also waiting on which will be the November Game of the Month and I may join that. Fran Bow may also happen as a co-op playthrough, but definitely not counting on that. Apart from that...Maybe I’ll finally complete Ikaruga or something? Not really sure, but that is actually kind of exciting in it’s own right!
...What? What is it that I did? Oh….Meh, nothing important. Don’t worry about it.
Anyways, moving on! Last week of October (except for Halloween itself) was here, and so the close to the spooky season arrived. My plans for tomorrow are not really gaming related (well, I may end up starting Fran Bow with a friend actually…), so no harm in updating today and having a clean slate for the next post! Let’s start with the games!
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
Yay! Halloween game number 1! While I’ve advertised this blog saying that I enjoy pretty much every genre in some way, shape or form, I cannot lie. I have my preferences. And the Castlevanias that follow the Symphony of the night formula, are really high up there. In general Metroidvanias is something I enjoy a lot...Except, oddly enough classic Metroid itself….But I don’t want to get hanged for that horrible taste of mine, so let’s move on!
Harmony of Dissonance is one of the 3 Castlevania games that were made originally for the GBA. Second of the bunch and...Unluckily, my least favorite. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad game. Far from it. But it just doesn’t do anything particularly special, nor it feels that what it brings to the table is any better than what the other games could do. Btw, Aria of Sorrow is the best. No questions asked. I’ll fight whoever over that. (Please, don’t actually fight me)
I’m assuming the general concept of Metroidvanias is understood, so I’ll skip all that. Let’s get to the interesting parts. The Castlevanias of this style tend to have really different magic systems. The one of Dissonance sounds like a great idea on paper, actually. You combine magic tomes with the classic subweapons, and a different spell comes out. Giving extra power to this classic moves is great! They even use the magic meter if you are using a tome with the sub weapon, or you can just use it “raw” and it spends hearts instead. Great motivation to use both!
Except...It gets kinda tedious to actually change which magic tome to use...Or to just turn it of and not use any at all. So you end up just liking one combo, or one subweapon, and just using that. You don’t even bother to turn on/off the magic tomes because it’s really not worth it to go through the menú-ing required. Personally, I just stuck with Dagger + Wind Tome. Many daggers go flying, things die, cool. So it ended up feeling like I had LESS options because of this system. Changing what tome to use for a different sub weapon, or turning it off just to use them as normal felt not necessary at all...So that’s a bummer.
One other thing I’d like to discuss about this one is about the end game, so I’ll just put everything under a giant spoiler tag. It’s not really a story spoiler, it’s just some things you need to do and I’d actually would have preferred to know them before playing, but better safe than sorry. At the beginning of the game you get the JB bracelet which is really important emotionally to the protagonist, and I was like “Cool. This doesn’t do anything. It’ll probably be used for triggering an event”. Feeling so genre savvy I stayed with it for the whole game. Later on you get the MK Bracelet which was the same deal and I was like “Ohhh. Got it. I need them BOTH to do stuff” and I equipped it, feeling really smart. But now I had 2 of my 3 general equipment slots filled with basically nothing useful. And I went the whole game like that.
I was right! Those items were needed! ...But just for the final boss. So instead of using the million things I picked up through the adventure, I just had one thing (sometimes one needed for progression), and nothing else.
Completely my fault, to be honest. I tried to be too clever and it was too much. It wasn’t particularly hard even with that auto-imposed unknowingly handicap. But what can you do. I wished I had known better.
It was a good game, and I had fun! Just wanted to ramble a bit about the odd points that stick out to me, and because I don’t want to talk about why I like metroidvanias. Castle was kinda confusing at times with some barriers or doors, but nothing serious. Can recommend it for fans of the genre, but don’t expect the magnum opus.
Minnit
Such a simple adventure game. You have a minute to live. Make the most out of it and get SOMETHING done. Once you respawn, whatever you did is saved and already done on the next cycle, but you have to respawn on your safe house.
Did you got most of the way to where you needed to go before dying? Too bad, try being faster. Did you find a new item on the last tick of the clock? Nice going! Think about where you can use it on the next one!
It’s a really interesting concept, and it’s very simple mechanically. Fighting is not hard, and the world is interesting enough for such a short experience. Oh, that. Did I mention it’s short? And not only because you do it on 1 minute cycles. Game is over in 1 to 2 hours. So it shouldn’t over stay its welcome.
Surprisingly for a game of that size, a lot of the content seems optional. Probably because you need to think about where you are going to go, and you don’t have the time to comb methodically every screen (unless you want to go there many times in a row), it’s good that there are many optional things and “different paths” so to speak on how to reach the end. Some of the things that are 100% required (at least to my knowledge) are kinda confusing on how to get, but it shouldn’t be too hard. The map is also pretty small all things considered, so you should be fine. Mainly thinking of the flippers. Some of the hotel guests had me scratching my head.
Only downside for this game is the final boss of the game. It just...Feels like it discards the entire uniqueness of the game to some extent. But hey, it’s not that much of a problem. Good game overall, though! Not amazing, but can make for a fun palette cleanser.
Monster Prom
Yay! Halloween game number 2! Yeah, I’m stretching the definition of a “Halloween game”, but hey! It has classic monsters. It has a Halloween update for costumes...It almost counts!
So, I have Uvehj to thank for talking to me about this game. He only had to say one phrase, and I knew I wanted to experience this thing. It was: “It’s a multiplayer competitive visual novel”. First thought was “What?” Second thought was “Sold”. And while you can actually play it alone if you want, and you can play cooperatively instead of competitively, just the option itself was so amusing that I couldn’t resist. Uvehj also guided me through one playthrough of it with Steam Remote Play, so that was awesome of him!
If that premise by itself is not enough to make you interested, you probably won’t really like this game. The game is carried mainly by how unusual that concept is, and a really over the top sense of humor that I actually extremely enjoyed. If it wasn’t as funny as it is, it probably wouldn’t hold the interest of one person for multiple potential playthroughs, let alone for a group of 2 to 4 people.
As the name may suggest, this is basically a dating sim. You play as a monster enrolled in a high school for monster and you need to find a partner for the prom. You have a set of stats that you can keep improving, and throughout 2 or 3 weeks you get many “random” events to get to know your fellow monsters better and to try to get your target date more interested in you. On some “turns” you have to choose where to hang out on campus, sometimes on what table and with whom you want to sit with during lunch, and sometimes even something happens to someone randomly in the city.
Now, the question most people I assume will have. How is this competitive? Weeeell...Remember those turns I just mentioned? If you are hanging around on campus, only one player can go to one place. You may choose to go somewhere that some other player needs to go to improve their character, effectively blocking them. When it’s a lunch turn, there are a limited number of seats on each table, so you can also screw someone over there. And the biggest one is on the random city events. Normally an NPC monster will ask you about a player (normally who is trying to get together with them), and how you see them. Depending on your answer they can feel more attracted to them, or start disliking them. You may even get some bonus depending on how you answer.
So, while there is no true 1 on 1 interactivity between players, you certainly interact with the same world, and what one does has an indirect impact on the other.
All in all, excellent game. I have played through it 3 times so far, and had a blast each time. It boasts it has over 500 events, so you won’t get much problems with repeated stuff if you try to go in somewhat different routes. Even if you start having some problems, it seems to have a quite healthy mod community on steam to add custom events and monsters, and there is even an official DLC for a second term, so you should be good to go there.
Can definitely recommend it just for the weird experience it is. And if someone gets it and needs someone to play with them….Let’s just say you can send me a PM pretty easily through here :D Would love to get a 4 player team here on HLTB to play a round or two, so don’t hesitate to shoot me a message if you are interested in that.
Mega Man X4
For some odd reason, I have done a kind of sandwich with the Mega Man X series. Played X1 during my childhood, on my cousin’s SNES. Then played X5 on a friend’s computer during early High School. After that I played X2 & X3 during college years. And now earlier this year I played through X6 just to see how horrible it actually was. Oh. X6 is horrible. Don’t play it. Please. Not worth it. Even for morbid curiosity. Not worth it.
So I hopped back and forth through the series, and the 4th one was just sorta missing there. And now I can happily say I fixed that! And now I can echo what most people say. The first half of the X series is way better than the second half.
X4 is an extremely fun game, although on the easy side for the series. It does nothing particularly innovative, but it does everything so well. Stages are fun, bosses are fun, progress is fun. Just a great action platformer. My personal favorite here will go to Cyber Peacock’s stage. Cyberworld stages are something common on the Mega Man series, but I tend to like them a lot (quite possible because of my love of Battle Network). But this one in particular also has a nice little gimmick on the first half in which you get ranked on how well you clear certain rooms, and if you manage to do it well enough, you actually get some pretty nice rewards out of them. It’s a very simple thing for collectibles, but it was so unique on what a normal Mega Man is that I just loved it.
Now, probably the worst part of the game is the final boss. I actually didn’t find it that hard, but it did get tedious. Spoilers ahead. First phase is just a giant waste of time if you are using weaknesses. Literally no challenge whatsoever once you know it. Second phase just hits like a truck. Pattern is easy to recognize, but took me a little while to know how to actually exploit it. Also, using weakness here just made it harder because and you don’t even do that much more damage, so not worth it from what I saw. Third phase had a lot more possible patterns, but just having to get to it to actually learn them was pretty annoying. That is par for the course for Sigma, though. What isn’t is that those are actually way easier to dodge than the second phase. It’s just boring to do so, since good dodging patterns make you have little to no chance to actually counter attack on most of them. He also has two full life bars because you need to defeat two forms on the same phase, which didn’t help.
That little rant aside, I loved this one. Firm contender for the best game in the series, even with my undying love for X1. Why did the edgy blue bomber fall so much after this…?
Haunt the House: Terrortown
Yay! Halloween game number 3! And as you may have noticed, none of my halloween games are really scary in any way, shape or form :D I just can’t handle most horror games. I love Silent Hill 2 & 3, and have some other horror-y games that I’m quite fond of, but I just cannot deal with scares that well. Oh well! I’m sure I’ll get the urge to play something more scary one of these days.
Anyways, back to the game! This is just a very simple game. It’s categorized as a “puzzle” game, but it really has no puzzles. You are just a small cute-sy ghost that goes around possesing different furniture and objects and try to scare the people away with hauntings. All you need to do is go to wherever they are and...Press one of the “scare” buttons.
This game really doesn’t offer much. The most entertaining thing about it is the different hauntings you can unlock on each object when people start getting more terrified, but it will only get a small “heh” out of you and not much more. Not really worth it, but the style is kinda cool, and just scaring people around can be kind of fun.
The least recommendable game of this update, by a long shot. At least it’s fairly inexpensive…?
Final Thoughts:
Spooky season is basically over now! Had a lot of fun this October, and actually completed quite a lot of games. Going on vacation actually gave me more free time. Who’d have thought?
I actually got to 2 of the 3 games I said last time I wanted to play, so I’m doing better! Linear Bounded Phenogram will probably happen soonish. Also waiting on which will be the November Game of the Month and I may join that. Fran Bow may also happen as a co-op playthrough, but definitely not counting on that. Apart from that...Maybe I’ll finally complete Ikaruga or something? Not really sure, but that is actually kind of exciting in it’s own right!
10 Yrs♥✓#
How can you possibly follow the enchanting Mega Man X storyline when you play the games out of order like that? 🤣
And honestly, I think that innovation is the thing that tanked the series. X1-X4 are so good because they didn't really mess with the formula. Each game built upon the last, but there were no dramatic changes. Then the developers decided to start trying new things in the later games and most of that didn't really work out. My expectations for X8 are definitely LOW.
And honestly, I think that innovation is the thing that tanked the series. X1-X4 are so good because they didn't really mess with the formula. Each game built upon the last, but there were no dramatic changes. Then the developers decided to start trying new things in the later games and most of that didn't really work out. My expectations for X8 are definitely LOW.
8 Yrs♥$✓#
schiemann8 Yrs♥$✓#
I've been looking forward to play Minit for a super long time now, so I'm happy to read such a positive review of it! I just have a white people problem not letting me play it right now, and it is that I currently have it for PC... I just don't feel like playing single player games on my PC anymore, so I might wait for a Switch deal :P
4 Yrs✓#
dragonh894 Yrs✓#
Clearly experiencing the story out of order is why I didn't enjoy X6. I didn't have the full context of all the nuances of X4! I should probably go and re-play it 3 more times just to make sure I get it right this time :D But seriously, the countdown thing in X5 does make more sense now.
I mean, maybe you are right about innovation. But it has helped before on Classic Mega Man at least. Adding the slide in 3 or the charge shot in 4 were mechanics that I loved. But who knows! They at least say X8 is better than 7 so....Hope it's at least somewhat enjoyable when we play in the future.
I've just also realized that the number 4 seems to be very good for Mega Man...Mega Man 4 is my favorite of the classic series. X4 is amazing and the last high point of that series. Zero 4 was a great conclussion. And Battle Network 4, while it has some weird stuff, has some really neat ideas and excellent in it's own right.
4 Yrs✓#
dragonh894 Yrs✓#
Hahahaha, I can understand that feeling, weirdly enough haha. Hope you can ge to minnit at some point, then! Definitely worth to take a look at it, and since it's so short, no real reason to NOT finish it once you start.
10 Yrs♥✓#
I have been playing them in order and X6 is still garbage. 😂 Also, I didn't really follow the story in X7, but it seems to ignore a lot of things that happened in X6, so....
And yeah, a lot of the tweaks made to the NES Mega Man games seemed to work. In addition to the ones that you mentioned, I loved the inclusion of Rush in Mega Man 3. That game is probably my favorite of the classic games, but it was also the only one that I had access to back when I was a young cricket.
It's also good to know that X8 is better than X7. That's not saying much, though, given how LOW the bar was set with X7. I probably won't tackle X8 until next year, though. I still intend to replay Donkey Kong Country 2 and tackle the new Hyrule Warriors game and play Assassin's Creed Valhalla. That's probably the rest of my year right there. 🤣
4 Yrs✓#
dragonh894 Yrs✓#
Huh...I was doing so good with playing games and updating this blog. I thought I had my routine organized and my time management was better than ever...But I was just fooling myself. My vacation ended, and the slow progress returned.
But hey! Gaming is still my favorite pastime, so let’s see what I have been up to! (Well...I actually already know what I’ve been up to. And you are more going to read it than actually see….There are a couple of screenshots but….Uhmmm...Yeeeaaaaahh……)
Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram
This was the bulk of my gaming time for the past couple of weeks, and I have talked about it here and there on the forum. This is a side-game of the (very popular) visual novel Steins;Gate, that just presents 10ish alternate universe stories from the perspective of different characters from the game. Nothing related to Steins;Gate 0, so no problems there if you haven’t played that one.
Now...This is a visual novel, that really toes the line to being a kinetic novel. Apart from choosing the next story to play, you really cannot affect much of what happens. Some different answers on text messages, but they don’t influence anything like they could on the original game. It’s more flavor than anything. So...Not much to talk about in terms of gameplay. And I can’t talk much about it without spoiling stuff...Consider this a warning for spoilers ahead! I’ll talk freely about spoilers for the original Steins;Gate below, and only put spoiler tags spoilers for Linear Bounded Phenogram itself. You’ve been warned (if you even care about it, that’s it).
******SPOILERS OF STEINS;GATE AHEAD******
So, the 10 stories actually take place in different timelines, most of them in 0.XXXXX divergence timelines, and some on a 3.XXXXXX divergence timeline. As a reminder, the original game all occurs in 1.XXX and 0.XXX divergence timelines.
Some of the stories inside LBP that are on the 0.X timelines, are presented in a way that makes them seem like they are actually part of the original story, through various time-leaps. Particularly the one from Kurisu is heavily implied to be part of it, but most of them connect heavily to the original flow of jumps and story beats.
I have a slight problem with these chapters, since it’s clear that they were not really intended to be part of the original story, and just try to force their way in. While yes, this game is all in all considered non-canon, in a story like Steins;Gate all wordlines are technically kind of canon, so it just doesn’t feel that right sometimes. Just a minor complaint, to be honest, but one I definitely felt, particularly in Lukako's chapter.
On the other hand, the 3.X stories are all part of another attractor field, and those are generally just “happy” timelines. Not related in the slightest to the original game. With these, I have much less of a problem with. Since the characters are pretty much the same, but they don’t have the necessity to restrict themselves to the original plot and events, they can just be put in whatever situation is best to tell a new story. In turn, this makes these ones feel more alive, and that they actually can do what the game promises. Dive deeper into the characters that you have grown attached to.
There is also a brief visit to a negative divergence timeline which always is a super interesting place to visit for a few minutes, and one that is on a 4.X timeline that I think...Has never appeared before? Seemed like a pretty normal timeline that could be just a 3.X, but there is probably I’m missing there.
Just to throw my personal opinions into this, I'd say that probably my favorites of the bunch were probably Daru's because it combined pretty well action with the what-if feeling of an important point of the story that is never gone into, and Mr. Braun's just because of how cute it is. And my least favorite was probably Lukako's, because it felt unnecessary, extremely wishy-washy, and tried to completely negate one of the original S;G endings by saying what happens next.
******SPOILERS ABOUT STEINS;GATE END******
All in all, I had a lot of fun with this one, aside from some problems with how it’s handled. I love the characters, and getting more of them is just amazing. I’d probably consume whatever new story comes up from the Steins;Gate saga, just because of how much of an impact it had on me.
I wouldn’t say this is a great game, because it does not do anything amazing. It’s a game just for fans, and for what it is and wanted to be, I think it succeeded.
TLOZ: A Link to the Past Randomizer (Keysanity)
Ha...Ha...Ha...I’m not a smart man….
For those who don’t know about randomizers in general or this one in particular, it’s just a different way to play alttp. Item locations are changed randomly (but always in “possible to beat” places), and you have to adjust to whatever thing the game decides to drop on you. There was a major item somewhere? Hope you are happy with 10 arrows now. That random chest that had a bomb? Say hello to the Hookshot! You spent 500 rupees to buy what would be the zora flippers? Instead you got 20 rupees! 480 net loss for you, yay!
Now brief comments about my previous experience with this stuff. I have done alttp randos before, and I have for the most part been able to complete them. However, I haven’t done any in quite a while, and trying to remember stuff before starting I just...Couldn’t remember any pathing nor where all the item locations where...But I just wanted to do another one! And instead of being a sensible person and setting up an easy common seed, I decided to go a step further and randomize not only the items and the enemies/bosses….But through in the Keysanity option as well...I’m a fool.
Keysanity is an option in which not only the items are randomized throughout the whole world, but also the maps, compasses, boss keys, and small keys of all dungeons. And they are just thrown randomly in any possible item location. Let’s just say, there is a loooot of backtracking.
So now let’s finally talk about my run and my seed finally! It was a very...defensive seed, the one I happened to come across. I got many hearts and even the first armor upgrade fairly soon, but I was stuck with the normal sword for most of the run. Also, I kept getting all items for Ganon’s Tower early on, which didn’t help at all for 95% of the run since I couldn’t get the darn crystals to access that place. Pegasus boots were also a very late item, so in general this was a veeeery slow run. It took around 6 and a half hours to complete for me.
I had a pretty easy time order-wise, though. The game gave me access to the dark-world very soon with both mirror and moon pearl, and apart from not getting the second set of gloves, I had pretty much free reign in exploration. I was just missing keys more than anything, and the whole wide world was open for me to go grab stuff.
Worst part was about 3 fourths of the way into the game. I only had 4 dungeons left to complete, and two of them had pendants, so I didn’t even need to go there. But I couldn’t complete either of the others (Swamp and Misery Mire). Lacking Big Boss key for the former, and Medallion for the latter. And I exhausted pretty much everywhere, so I just ran around Hyrule like a headless cucco...Because I forgot about the dang shovel minigame which apparently had the quake medallion hidden...Whoops.
After that, it was pretty straightforward when I got back into it. Got finally the master sword around this time (luckily I had silver arrows already so that was my damage dealing tool before that), and finally got to fight Ganon...And let me tell you. It had been a hot minute since I had beaten him without the butter sword. So I decided to go around and try to find the other upgrades! 1 hour later, I only found a bottle and a Heart Container that helped with the fight...Again this seed didn't want me to deal damage, just be a damage sponge.
Never found Bombos medallion either, so the inaccessible Turtle Rock is probably where all missing upgrades were. Not sure exactly where I missed that cursed thing, but hey, stuff happens.
A little while later and a couple of Ganon tries, rando was complete! Good job, Jack Frost! You did a thing!
I have a lot of fun with these randomizers. It’s extremely well made. Probably will do more runs in the future, and will only talk about them if something really interesting happens. If anyone knows a game extremely well, I’d encourage you to search for a randomizer for it. It brings so much more life and replayability to it...
Ikaruga
Now this is a good shmup right here. I haven’t played one of these in ages, and I’m pretty bad at them according to my own performance when playing this one. The only other ones I put any serious time into were some of the Touhou danmaku games, and then again, I think I only beat a couple of those, and pretty sure it was on normal…
But anyways, back to Ikaruga. As common with this kind of game, it’s extremely short and very difficult. The most noteworthy thing about it, to me personally, is the iconic polarity system it presents. To be honest, I don’t know enough about the genre as a whole to start drawing parallels or to give the correct amount of praise or point out the drawbacks of this one in particular. What I can offer is my much more instinctive feeling. “Oh! This mechanic is so cool! I can dodge everything if I just switch on time!”
Before playing I thought that same mechanic was going to make the game fairly easy. I have good enough reflexes, right? I can totally change polarity whenever I need, no problems there….Hahaha, no. But anyways.
The other thing that made the game slightly harder than I expected was that the “bomb” system was not a “solve all my problems” panic button that I’m used to, but actually sometimes it even created more problems that it solved. The “bomb” just damages enemies and doesn’t get rid of their shots, and in Ikaruga when you kill an enemy of the same polarity as you (in normal mode), it fires back…So I hope you didn’t need to change polarity right after, because you are probably dead if that’s the case!
Another thing I can mention about this is that I played a little while with a friend, and that was also extremely fun. Even if we together couldn’t make it past stage 2 while playing normally. It’s just fun going pew pew and then panicking about dodging. Fun times indeed.
Had to finish this one on Free Play since I didn’t feel like throwing who knows how many hours to actually git good, but it was very enjoyable anyways.
Smash Bros. Ultimate (Road to Elite Smash)
I actually haven’t put much time into Smash Ultimate lately. I played a bunch the first week when Steve was released, but after that...Just played a game here or there.
Tried to pick it back up and continue with this thing of getting everyone into Elite, and got a couple of them. Pit was fairly straightforward since I had done my fair share of fights with Dark Pit, and Byleth is one of my most used characters in casuals so that was good.
After that, I tried a bunch with Lucina and...No dice. I don’t feel like I’m particularly bad with her, but there is clearly something I’m not doing right. Probably she just doesn’t have enough “Oomph”, and I’m not good at closing up kills with her. Not really good at the whole “methodical” character thing. I just go in and do stuff….Well...I normally go in and do stuff….But then I decided to get some zoners into elite, and had some success!
Managed to get Min Min into elite with some good old luck. Had extremely good fights that just happened to tip in my favor with some cheesy edge-guards from noodle lady. The reach is so insane, even if it’s just a giant gimmick. Spamming forward smash into forward smash from across the stage just...Works so well, it’s incredible.
And then I got Samus and Dark Samus into elite as well. Not really sure how I did that, but it apparently wasn’t a fluke. I’m guessing the charge shot is just that strong. And being so deceptively heavy characters also helps, definitely.
So, now I finally have more than 25% of the cast in elite, and the road seems harder than ever. I look at the roster and...I just don’t know who I can get there now. Lucina, Chrom, Robin, Shulk, Dr. Mario, Mii Brawler….Those are all characters that I think I should have a good shot with reaching elite, but...I just don’t seem able to do so. Probably just need to keep grinding at it, but hey. Probably nothing will be super easy going forward now!
Final Thoughts
So...Next games? Not really sure. Hoping I’m actually going to be participating in whatever December game of the month is, and I’ve started Fran Bow as I said on the last blog update, but the friend I’m playing with had to have their wisdom teeth removed, so we haven’t been able to continue. Apart from that….Maybe I’ll play some Pokemanz? Maybe Hyper Light Drifter? Not tonight is also a contender….We shall see I guess!
But hey! Gaming is still my favorite pastime, so let’s see what I have been up to! (Well...I actually already know what I’ve been up to. And you are more going to read it than actually see….There are a couple of screenshots but….Uhmmm...Yeeeaaaaahh……)
Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram
This was the bulk of my gaming time for the past couple of weeks, and I have talked about it here and there on the forum. This is a side-game of the (very popular) visual novel Steins;Gate, that just presents 10ish alternate universe stories from the perspective of different characters from the game. Nothing related to Steins;Gate 0, so no problems there if you haven’t played that one.
Now...This is a visual novel, that really toes the line to being a kinetic novel. Apart from choosing the next story to play, you really cannot affect much of what happens. Some different answers on text messages, but they don’t influence anything like they could on the original game. It’s more flavor than anything. So...Not much to talk about in terms of gameplay. And I can’t talk much about it without spoiling stuff...Consider this a warning for spoilers ahead! I’ll talk freely about spoilers for the original Steins;Gate below, and only put spoiler tags spoilers for Linear Bounded Phenogram itself. You’ve been warned (if you even care about it, that’s it).
******SPOILERS OF STEINS;GATE AHEAD******
So, the 10 stories actually take place in different timelines, most of them in 0.XXXXX divergence timelines, and some on a 3.XXXXXX divergence timeline. As a reminder, the original game all occurs in 1.XXX and 0.XXX divergence timelines.
Some of the stories inside LBP that are on the 0.X timelines, are presented in a way that makes them seem like they are actually part of the original story, through various time-leaps. Particularly the one from Kurisu is heavily implied to be part of it, but most of them connect heavily to the original flow of jumps and story beats.
I have a slight problem with these chapters, since it’s clear that they were not really intended to be part of the original story, and just try to force their way in. While yes, this game is all in all considered non-canon, in a story like Steins;Gate all wordlines are technically kind of canon, so it just doesn’t feel that right sometimes. Just a minor complaint, to be honest, but one I definitely felt, particularly in Lukako's chapter.
On the other hand, the 3.X stories are all part of another attractor field, and those are generally just “happy” timelines. Not related in the slightest to the original game. With these, I have much less of a problem with. Since the characters are pretty much the same, but they don’t have the necessity to restrict themselves to the original plot and events, they can just be put in whatever situation is best to tell a new story. In turn, this makes these ones feel more alive, and that they actually can do what the game promises. Dive deeper into the characters that you have grown attached to.
There is also a brief visit to a negative divergence timeline which always is a super interesting place to visit for a few minutes, and one that is on a 4.X timeline that I think...Has never appeared before? Seemed like a pretty normal timeline that could be just a 3.X, but there is probably I’m missing there.
Just to throw my personal opinions into this, I'd say that probably my favorites of the bunch were probably Daru's because it combined pretty well action with the what-if feeling of an important point of the story that is never gone into, and Mr. Braun's just because of how cute it is. And my least favorite was probably Lukako's, because it felt unnecessary, extremely wishy-washy, and tried to completely negate one of the original S;G endings by saying what happens next.
******SPOILERS ABOUT STEINS;GATE END******
All in all, I had a lot of fun with this one, aside from some problems with how it’s handled. I love the characters, and getting more of them is just amazing. I’d probably consume whatever new story comes up from the Steins;Gate saga, just because of how much of an impact it had on me.
I wouldn’t say this is a great game, because it does not do anything amazing. It’s a game just for fans, and for what it is and wanted to be, I think it succeeded.
TLOZ: A Link to the Past Randomizer (Keysanity)
Ha...Ha...Ha...I’m not a smart man….
For those who don’t know about randomizers in general or this one in particular, it’s just a different way to play alttp. Item locations are changed randomly (but always in “possible to beat” places), and you have to adjust to whatever thing the game decides to drop on you. There was a major item somewhere? Hope you are happy with 10 arrows now. That random chest that had a bomb? Say hello to the Hookshot! You spent 500 rupees to buy what would be the zora flippers? Instead you got 20 rupees! 480 net loss for you, yay!
Now brief comments about my previous experience with this stuff. I have done alttp randos before, and I have for the most part been able to complete them. However, I haven’t done any in quite a while, and trying to remember stuff before starting I just...Couldn’t remember any pathing nor where all the item locations where...But I just wanted to do another one! And instead of being a sensible person and setting up an easy common seed, I decided to go a step further and randomize not only the items and the enemies/bosses….But through in the Keysanity option as well...I’m a fool.
Keysanity is an option in which not only the items are randomized throughout the whole world, but also the maps, compasses, boss keys, and small keys of all dungeons. And they are just thrown randomly in any possible item location. Let’s just say, there is a loooot of backtracking.
So now let’s finally talk about my run and my seed finally! It was a very...defensive seed, the one I happened to come across. I got many hearts and even the first armor upgrade fairly soon, but I was stuck with the normal sword for most of the run. Also, I kept getting all items for Ganon’s Tower early on, which didn’t help at all for 95% of the run since I couldn’t get the darn crystals to access that place. Pegasus boots were also a very late item, so in general this was a veeeery slow run. It took around 6 and a half hours to complete for me.
I had a pretty easy time order-wise, though. The game gave me access to the dark-world very soon with both mirror and moon pearl, and apart from not getting the second set of gloves, I had pretty much free reign in exploration. I was just missing keys more than anything, and the whole wide world was open for me to go grab stuff.
Worst part was about 3 fourths of the way into the game. I only had 4 dungeons left to complete, and two of them had pendants, so I didn’t even need to go there. But I couldn’t complete either of the others (Swamp and Misery Mire). Lacking Big Boss key for the former, and Medallion for the latter. And I exhausted pretty much everywhere, so I just ran around Hyrule like a headless cucco...Because I forgot about the dang shovel minigame which apparently had the quake medallion hidden...Whoops.
After that, it was pretty straightforward when I got back into it. Got finally the master sword around this time (luckily I had silver arrows already so that was my damage dealing tool before that), and finally got to fight Ganon...And let me tell you. It had been a hot minute since I had beaten him without the butter sword. So I decided to go around and try to find the other upgrades! 1 hour later, I only found a bottle and a Heart Container that helped with the fight...Again this seed didn't want me to deal damage, just be a damage sponge.
Never found Bombos medallion either, so the inaccessible Turtle Rock is probably where all missing upgrades were. Not sure exactly where I missed that cursed thing, but hey, stuff happens.
A little while later and a couple of Ganon tries, rando was complete! Good job, Jack Frost! You did a thing!
I have a lot of fun with these randomizers. It’s extremely well made. Probably will do more runs in the future, and will only talk about them if something really interesting happens. If anyone knows a game extremely well, I’d encourage you to search for a randomizer for it. It brings so much more life and replayability to it...
Ikaruga
Now this is a good shmup right here. I haven’t played one of these in ages, and I’m pretty bad at them according to my own performance when playing this one. The only other ones I put any serious time into were some of the Touhou danmaku games, and then again, I think I only beat a couple of those, and pretty sure it was on normal…
But anyways, back to Ikaruga. As common with this kind of game, it’s extremely short and very difficult. The most noteworthy thing about it, to me personally, is the iconic polarity system it presents. To be honest, I don’t know enough about the genre as a whole to start drawing parallels or to give the correct amount of praise or point out the drawbacks of this one in particular. What I can offer is my much more instinctive feeling. “Oh! This mechanic is so cool! I can dodge everything if I just switch on time!”
Before playing I thought that same mechanic was going to make the game fairly easy. I have good enough reflexes, right? I can totally change polarity whenever I need, no problems there….Hahaha, no. But anyways.
The other thing that made the game slightly harder than I expected was that the “bomb” system was not a “solve all my problems” panic button that I’m used to, but actually sometimes it even created more problems that it solved. The “bomb” just damages enemies and doesn’t get rid of their shots, and in Ikaruga when you kill an enemy of the same polarity as you (in normal mode), it fires back…So I hope you didn’t need to change polarity right after, because you are probably dead if that’s the case!
Another thing I can mention about this is that I played a little while with a friend, and that was also extremely fun. Even if we together couldn’t make it past stage 2 while playing normally. It’s just fun going pew pew and then panicking about dodging. Fun times indeed.
Had to finish this one on Free Play since I didn’t feel like throwing who knows how many hours to actually git good, but it was very enjoyable anyways.
Smash Bros. Ultimate (Road to Elite Smash)
I actually haven’t put much time into Smash Ultimate lately. I played a bunch the first week when Steve was released, but after that...Just played a game here or there.
Tried to pick it back up and continue with this thing of getting everyone into Elite, and got a couple of them. Pit was fairly straightforward since I had done my fair share of fights with Dark Pit, and Byleth is one of my most used characters in casuals so that was good.
After that, I tried a bunch with Lucina and...No dice. I don’t feel like I’m particularly bad with her, but there is clearly something I’m not doing right. Probably she just doesn’t have enough “Oomph”, and I’m not good at closing up kills with her. Not really good at the whole “methodical” character thing. I just go in and do stuff….Well...I normally go in and do stuff….But then I decided to get some zoners into elite, and had some success!
Managed to get Min Min into elite with some good old luck. Had extremely good fights that just happened to tip in my favor with some cheesy edge-guards from noodle lady. The reach is so insane, even if it’s just a giant gimmick. Spamming forward smash into forward smash from across the stage just...Works so well, it’s incredible.
And then I got Samus and Dark Samus into elite as well. Not really sure how I did that, but it apparently wasn’t a fluke. I’m guessing the charge shot is just that strong. And being so deceptively heavy characters also helps, definitely.
So, now I finally have more than 25% of the cast in elite, and the road seems harder than ever. I look at the roster and...I just don’t know who I can get there now. Lucina, Chrom, Robin, Shulk, Dr. Mario, Mii Brawler….Those are all characters that I think I should have a good shot with reaching elite, but...I just don’t seem able to do so. Probably just need to keep grinding at it, but hey. Probably nothing will be super easy going forward now!
Final Thoughts
So...Next games? Not really sure. Hoping I’m actually going to be participating in whatever December game of the month is, and I’ve started Fran Bow as I said on the last blog update, but the friend I’m playing with had to have their wisdom teeth removed, so we haven’t been able to continue. Apart from that….Maybe I’ll play some Pokemanz? Maybe Hyper Light Drifter? Not tonight is also a contender….We shall see I guess!
10 Yrs♥✓#
Yeah, Lucina is one of those characters who can deal a good amount of damage but doesn't seem to have any finishing power. Toon Link is the same way. I can deal massive amounts of damage with the little twerp but usually end up with very little to show for it. Ugh.
4 Yrs✓#
dragonh894 Yrs✓#
Ufff, yeah. I can feel you. Probably Toon Link is the Link I use the least out of the 3 of them, but I can totally see that being the case. You need to either do a very good play off stage with some nice edge-guarding, do a big read with a raw smash attack, or just keep racking up percent. None of the 3 is really easy or risk-free, huh? That's probably also why I just can't get into playing Sheik either. Too much hard work for me
4 Yrs✓#
dragonh894 Yrs✓#
Woo! Long time between updates! This time it was a combination of picking long-ish games, and also having used most of my time used on multiplayer games and other hobbies. But, really, who is checking if I update this? At least now I have a fun little collection of games to talk at least a bit about, so hey. Join me if you have nothing better to do!
Pokémon Black 2
I love me some pokemanz. Probably Black & White 2 are the oddball within the mainline pokemon games. Being a direct sequel is something only second gen had done before, and this one depends much more on that. Also repeating the region (while slightly modifying it) with a different game is also pretty unusual. Thinking about it, 5th generation in general was pretty weird…And it was the biggest generation in terms of new Pokémon too….
So, yeah! Mainline Pokémon! Probably anyone reading this has at least a vague idea of how the game goes and what the franchise is about, so no real reason to explain it. Instead I’ll just give my general feelings on the game.
Let’s start with the bad. To me, the DS games are the ones that looked the worst for what they were. Obviously objectively it’s better than the original GB games graphically, but how the sprites are animated and the slight usage of 3D in places makes it look...So odd to me. Like they tried to make something interesting with how it looked, but only half-tried. This resulted in me sometimes just tilting my head like “something is not quite right here”. Also B&W 2 in particular has, for the very core idea of the game, a bigger feeling of “been there, done that”, with seeing the same locals and creatures running about.
However! I’d still say this is probably one of my favorite mainline games, and the last one I had left to play (not counting remakes at least). First of all, this one (along with B&W) actually has a story! It’s not amazing. It’s not even great probably. But it’s decent! And that is frankly astonishing. I do prefer less serious tones in general when Pokémon is concerned (loved how dumb Team Skull was, for example). But this one actually has some interesting ideas with Old Plasma vs New Plasma, and it follows the steps of B&W which also made a big effort (por PKMN standards) on that front. Also, seeing the progress and how the region evolved in 2 years is pretty interesting.
Also, being a direct sequel and reusing so much of the game assets and structure, it allowed it to do other tons of things that, while not really important, gave a lot of flavor or made the world look more alive. The Pokestar studios was a great addition for more “puzzly” battles, the PWT is a nice throwback to all generations, and the medal collecting is a really weird but at least interesting way to put achievements in the game.
Finally...Maybe it’s just me, but this game was actually harder? Maybe I abused repels too much because I knew the region, but I didn’t skip almost any trainer and was almost for the full game on par if not lower leveled than the random trainers on the routes. Let alone gym leaders and other story battles. Heck, sometimes my repels even didn’t work because wild pokemon were the same level as me. And not only levels! Other pokemon have equipped items, random trainers may use X Attack or something to try and swipe you, and they seem to have actual strategies sometimes. It definitely caught me off-guard. I wouldn’t say it’s a hard game, but not a casual walk in the park like many other PKMN games.
So yeah. While my heart will forever say that 2nd Gen is the best and I’ll hold that opinion close to me, I actually think the 5th gen as a whole probably should be at the top of the food chain. Which...I don’t think is a very common opinion? I don’t know, I know nothing of the PKMN fandom. Definitely a standout for me, that’s for sure.
OldTV
--
--
Now this is a fun little free indie game! It’s like 20 minutes to play through the “full game”. Maybe a little more if you are kinda distracted while playing. But it does have a ton of weird achievements and has some extra modes and ways to play if you want to get even more out of it.
The gameplay is extremely simple. You are always seeing the image of an old tv, in which you are shown a word of a certain color. That word is also a color, that may or may not be the same. If it is the same, you press one button. If not, you press another. That’s it. That’s the whole concept. You have limited time to do a certain amount of it (the game description says you should do about 1 per second, but probably not), and you get extra time when you get one right. When you get one wrong, the round is over.
Now, it does get more complicated as it goes on. Words may appear flipped, the screen may turn on another color, or there may be some static to make it harder. You can actually turn off a lot of visual effects (like TV Lines or static), and that would make the game easier, but I feel that it gives it a lot of charm and the little annoyances are part of the fun. And I tend to hate those old-timey filters. But hey, it makes sense here!
You can also purchase some powerups to use or to start further ahead when you lose if you completed a continent (basically stages). I only really used that one for starting in the latest stage I reached, but there are things like getting one extra error before being disconnected.
The situation you are in “story-wise” is supposedly that you are trying to get to change through all the channels of the world, going continent by continent. It makes no sense with the gameplay itself, but it serves as an excuse to...Actually be using an Old TV, I suppose.
It’s extremely simple, but it’s the addictive kind of simple that you say “I just want to reach the next continent”, and you can start again very fast if you want it. And it’s free and takes like half an hour to beat, so no many downsides when taking that into account. I’m glad I gave it a shot at least!
Smash Bros Ultimate (Road to Elite Smash)
So, hey! I actually had a quite decent streak since last update! I don’t know if something clicked in my own way of playing, or if I’m just getting more used to how most people play and how to counter it, but it definitely has been working!
A grand total of 11 have joined elite since last time. Those are: Zelda, Falco, Lucina, Young Link, Meta Knight, Ike, Pokemon Trainer, Robin, Ridley, Simon & Hero. Probably the most difficult was Simon, since it has a kinda (for me) boring passive zoner playstyle. Dash attack and Up-B are the only “in your face” attacks that I was doing, which is kinda boring. I’ve also got quite a bit of a habit of grabbing a lot, so that also counts I guess…
Next up...Probably the other Belmont? I’m guessing that shouldn’t be much worse than getting Simon there, right? And then...Who knows anymore...Marth? Chrom? Maybe. Sephiroth if it comes out and I like it!
Really looking forward to Sephiroth...I like long ass sword as a character playstyle, and from the trailer (which is always misleading), he seems to be quite suited for my regular playstyle. We shall see!
Evoland: Legendary Edition
This legendary edition contains both Evoland 1 & 2, so I’ll be just talking a bit about both I guess! As a quick intro, the main concept of evoland is showing how games (mostly from japan) have evolved throughout the years. It combines some different genres of games, and it has references to multiple franchises basically non-stop.
Mostly, both games are adventure / jrpg games, switching between both of them pretty frequently, and changing the mechanics as the game progresses. There are also some other game genres referenced that have short gameplay segments (like Dungeon Crawling, TCG, 2D platformer…), but I’d say the first two I mentioned are the most prevalent.
However! And here is what I find interesting about the Legendary Edition “collection”...Both games have extremely different ideas at their cores. And I’d like to dive a little deeper into that.
Evoland 1 has a very simple idea, and it executes it extremely well. You start with original GB kinda aesthetic and zelda 1 like gameplay, and it keeps evolving both graphically and mechanically very steadily throughout the whole game. It’s very focused and each area of the game, while referencing some specific games sometimes, feels like a true evolution from the last. And it keeps moving forward super fast, finding new elements and gameplay changes sometimes inside one same “dungeon”. Story also keeps appearing more and more throughout the game. It ends with PS1 era or so story beats and flow, but it does reference some older stuff.
And, even though the game keeps changing constantly, there are clear gameplay threads and ideas that keep appearing even through all the changes. It’s not like the evolution of the entire gaming industry, but the evolution of a franchise or IP through time. Which is extremely interesting for me, without a doubt.
On the other hand, Evoland 2 throws the whole “evolve” concept out the window. It really shouldn’t be called Evoland at all, in my opinion. This one has a clear story that is developing from the beginning, and you keep changing in styles back and forth instead of a linear progression through history. It has a “time travel” sort of plot, and the different eras are represented by the different graphical and gameplay styles.
And this one also says “screw it”, and really gives a very big spectrum of gameplay styles all through the game (though, still, mostly japanese in execution). Not only the rpg, and classic adventure, but it has stuff like Layton puzzles, Metal Gear stealth, Shmup sections, Street Fighter fights, a bomberman level, platformers of different styles, Beat ‘em Ups like Double Dragon, a mini Fire Emblem style campaign, rhythm games like Guitar Hero, real time fights like Chrono Trigger…..It has soooo much and many that I just won’t remember. And it keeps moving and moving between styles it’s truly incredible.
Now, I extremely enjoyed both games. This is actually the second time I played them, and both times I went for 100% on each. They feel so much like a love-letter to gaming history that I can’t just not appreciate them. And it’s difficult to really compare the two because of how different yet similar they are. I’d say the first one has a way better concept and is more unique, while the second one is a way better….game in general, and better execution. Both also sometimes lack their own identity since they are basically “reference other games: the game”, but still I haven’t played anything quite like them.
I’d probably say that the second one is my favorite of this collection, but I think the first one is more worth experiencing, for being shorter and having a way more clear idea. Definitely not for everyone, but being so deep in this gaming universe we all share here, I just can’t help but smile when the next new thing in either comes up…
Final Thoughts:
I had a lot of fun with this little collection! I’d mostly encourage people to try out OldTV if they have 10 minutes to burn since it’s free and so simple, and Evoland for anyone that found it mildly interesting from my explanation.
Now I need to finish Night in the Woods that I’ve been having quite a lot of fun with, and maybe Fran Bow if I keep playing with my friend (hopefully). After that….I’ll probably soon be playing Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore as the next big title. I don’t know how much I’ll like it, but it has always piqued my interest since the original release, so I hope I’ll have a good time with it! Aside from that...just some short stuff? Mandew vs the Colorless Curse, Kirby's Dream Land 3, A Bird Story, Last Word….Probably one of those. We shall see!
Thanks for joining me once more!
Pokémon Black 2
I love me some pokemanz. Probably Black & White 2 are the oddball within the mainline pokemon games. Being a direct sequel is something only second gen had done before, and this one depends much more on that. Also repeating the region (while slightly modifying it) with a different game is also pretty unusual. Thinking about it, 5th generation in general was pretty weird…And it was the biggest generation in terms of new Pokémon too….
So, yeah! Mainline Pokémon! Probably anyone reading this has at least a vague idea of how the game goes and what the franchise is about, so no real reason to explain it. Instead I’ll just give my general feelings on the game.
Let’s start with the bad. To me, the DS games are the ones that looked the worst for what they were. Obviously objectively it’s better than the original GB games graphically, but how the sprites are animated and the slight usage of 3D in places makes it look...So odd to me. Like they tried to make something interesting with how it looked, but only half-tried. This resulted in me sometimes just tilting my head like “something is not quite right here”. Also B&W 2 in particular has, for the very core idea of the game, a bigger feeling of “been there, done that”, with seeing the same locals and creatures running about.
However! I’d still say this is probably one of my favorite mainline games, and the last one I had left to play (not counting remakes at least). First of all, this one (along with B&W) actually has a story! It’s not amazing. It’s not even great probably. But it’s decent! And that is frankly astonishing. I do prefer less serious tones in general when Pokémon is concerned (loved how dumb Team Skull was, for example). But this one actually has some interesting ideas with Old Plasma vs New Plasma, and it follows the steps of B&W which also made a big effort (por PKMN standards) on that front. Also, seeing the progress and how the region evolved in 2 years is pretty interesting.
Also, being a direct sequel and reusing so much of the game assets and structure, it allowed it to do other tons of things that, while not really important, gave a lot of flavor or made the world look more alive. The Pokestar studios was a great addition for more “puzzly” battles, the PWT is a nice throwback to all generations, and the medal collecting is a really weird but at least interesting way to put achievements in the game.
Finally...Maybe it’s just me, but this game was actually harder? Maybe I abused repels too much because I knew the region, but I didn’t skip almost any trainer and was almost for the full game on par if not lower leveled than the random trainers on the routes. Let alone gym leaders and other story battles. Heck, sometimes my repels even didn’t work because wild pokemon were the same level as me. And not only levels! Other pokemon have equipped items, random trainers may use X Attack or something to try and swipe you, and they seem to have actual strategies sometimes. It definitely caught me off-guard. I wouldn’t say it’s a hard game, but not a casual walk in the park like many other PKMN games.
So yeah. While my heart will forever say that 2nd Gen is the best and I’ll hold that opinion close to me, I actually think the 5th gen as a whole probably should be at the top of the food chain. Which...I don’t think is a very common opinion? I don’t know, I know nothing of the PKMN fandom. Definitely a standout for me, that’s for sure.
OldTV
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Now this is a fun little free indie game! It’s like 20 minutes to play through the “full game”. Maybe a little more if you are kinda distracted while playing. But it does have a ton of weird achievements and has some extra modes and ways to play if you want to get even more out of it.
The gameplay is extremely simple. You are always seeing the image of an old tv, in which you are shown a word of a certain color. That word is also a color, that may or may not be the same. If it is the same, you press one button. If not, you press another. That’s it. That’s the whole concept. You have limited time to do a certain amount of it (the game description says you should do about 1 per second, but probably not), and you get extra time when you get one right. When you get one wrong, the round is over.
Now, it does get more complicated as it goes on. Words may appear flipped, the screen may turn on another color, or there may be some static to make it harder. You can actually turn off a lot of visual effects (like TV Lines or static), and that would make the game easier, but I feel that it gives it a lot of charm and the little annoyances are part of the fun. And I tend to hate those old-timey filters. But hey, it makes sense here!
You can also purchase some powerups to use or to start further ahead when you lose if you completed a continent (basically stages). I only really used that one for starting in the latest stage I reached, but there are things like getting one extra error before being disconnected.
The situation you are in “story-wise” is supposedly that you are trying to get to change through all the channels of the world, going continent by continent. It makes no sense with the gameplay itself, but it serves as an excuse to...Actually be using an Old TV, I suppose.
It’s extremely simple, but it’s the addictive kind of simple that you say “I just want to reach the next continent”, and you can start again very fast if you want it. And it’s free and takes like half an hour to beat, so no many downsides when taking that into account. I’m glad I gave it a shot at least!
Smash Bros Ultimate (Road to Elite Smash)
So, hey! I actually had a quite decent streak since last update! I don’t know if something clicked in my own way of playing, or if I’m just getting more used to how most people play and how to counter it, but it definitely has been working!
A grand total of 11 have joined elite since last time. Those are: Zelda, Falco, Lucina, Young Link, Meta Knight, Ike, Pokemon Trainer, Robin, Ridley, Simon & Hero. Probably the most difficult was Simon, since it has a kinda (for me) boring passive zoner playstyle. Dash attack and Up-B are the only “in your face” attacks that I was doing, which is kinda boring. I’ve also got quite a bit of a habit of grabbing a lot, so that also counts I guess…
Next up...Probably the other Belmont? I’m guessing that shouldn’t be much worse than getting Simon there, right? And then...Who knows anymore...Marth? Chrom? Maybe. Sephiroth if it comes out and I like it!
Really looking forward to Sephiroth...I like long ass sword as a character playstyle, and from the trailer (which is always misleading), he seems to be quite suited for my regular playstyle. We shall see!
Evoland: Legendary Edition
This legendary edition contains both Evoland 1 & 2, so I’ll be just talking a bit about both I guess! As a quick intro, the main concept of evoland is showing how games (mostly from japan) have evolved throughout the years. It combines some different genres of games, and it has references to multiple franchises basically non-stop.
Mostly, both games are adventure / jrpg games, switching between both of them pretty frequently, and changing the mechanics as the game progresses. There are also some other game genres referenced that have short gameplay segments (like Dungeon Crawling, TCG, 2D platformer…), but I’d say the first two I mentioned are the most prevalent.
However! And here is what I find interesting about the Legendary Edition “collection”...Both games have extremely different ideas at their cores. And I’d like to dive a little deeper into that.
Evoland 1 has a very simple idea, and it executes it extremely well. You start with original GB kinda aesthetic and zelda 1 like gameplay, and it keeps evolving both graphically and mechanically very steadily throughout the whole game. It’s very focused and each area of the game, while referencing some specific games sometimes, feels like a true evolution from the last. And it keeps moving forward super fast, finding new elements and gameplay changes sometimes inside one same “dungeon”. Story also keeps appearing more and more throughout the game. It ends with PS1 era or so story beats and flow, but it does reference some older stuff.
And, even though the game keeps changing constantly, there are clear gameplay threads and ideas that keep appearing even through all the changes. It’s not like the evolution of the entire gaming industry, but the evolution of a franchise or IP through time. Which is extremely interesting for me, without a doubt.
On the other hand, Evoland 2 throws the whole “evolve” concept out the window. It really shouldn’t be called Evoland at all, in my opinion. This one has a clear story that is developing from the beginning, and you keep changing in styles back and forth instead of a linear progression through history. It has a “time travel” sort of plot, and the different eras are represented by the different graphical and gameplay styles.
And this one also says “screw it”, and really gives a very big spectrum of gameplay styles all through the game (though, still, mostly japanese in execution). Not only the rpg, and classic adventure, but it has stuff like Layton puzzles, Metal Gear stealth, Shmup sections, Street Fighter fights, a bomberman level, platformers of different styles, Beat ‘em Ups like Double Dragon, a mini Fire Emblem style campaign, rhythm games like Guitar Hero, real time fights like Chrono Trigger…..It has soooo much and many that I just won’t remember. And it keeps moving and moving between styles it’s truly incredible.
Now, I extremely enjoyed both games. This is actually the second time I played them, and both times I went for 100% on each. They feel so much like a love-letter to gaming history that I can’t just not appreciate them. And it’s difficult to really compare the two because of how different yet similar they are. I’d say the first one has a way better concept and is more unique, while the second one is a way better….game in general, and better execution. Both also sometimes lack their own identity since they are basically “reference other games: the game”, but still I haven’t played anything quite like them.
I’d probably say that the second one is my favorite of this collection, but I think the first one is more worth experiencing, for being shorter and having a way more clear idea. Definitely not for everyone, but being so deep in this gaming universe we all share here, I just can’t help but smile when the next new thing in either comes up…
Final Thoughts:
I had a lot of fun with this little collection! I’d mostly encourage people to try out OldTV if they have 10 minutes to burn since it’s free and so simple, and Evoland for anyone that found it mildly interesting from my explanation.
Now I need to finish Night in the Woods that I’ve been having quite a lot of fun with, and maybe Fran Bow if I keep playing with my friend (hopefully). After that….I’ll probably soon be playing Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore as the next big title. I don’t know how much I’ll like it, but it has always piqued my interest since the original release, so I hope I’ll have a good time with it! Aside from that...just some short stuff? Mandew vs the Colorless Curse, Kirby's Dream Land 3, A Bird Story, Last Word….Probably one of those. We shall see!
Thanks for joining me once more!
4 Yrs✓#
dragonh894 Yrs✓#
Welcome one, welcome all! You may be wondering where this blog was and why it hasn’t updated recently….But we both know you weren’t wondering that at all and probably just want to see what in the world this random person on the internet wants to write about. Fair enough. Won’t waste much of your time with intros, then.
I’ve recently finished NEO: The World Ends With You. The sequel to my favorite game of all time. And with that, I had a lot of feelings and thoughts that have been lurking in my head and writing them down felt like the best way to get them organized. And if I went through the trouble of writing everything for myself, I might as well post it on the internet. Maybe someone else will care? Hopefully? Probably not? Onwards with the review!
By the way, this review will not contain spoilers without properly warning the reader before. I’ll put a block of text with SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD when only people that don’t want to know anything at all related to game mechanics or very vague story flow would want to skip. That section will end with SLIGHT SPOILERS END (self explanatory, really). I’ll also use actual spoiler tags when it’s stuff that are really considered spoilers that should only be seen after playing through the game, or if you just don’t care. And there’ll be no spoilers of the original twewy that are not directly and intimately related with this game, and even on those cases it will be on spoiler tags.
Also there’s a FAQ at the end before the conclusion where I answer never asked questions before, but I imagine someone may want to ask them about if you should play the game or if something is present.
Style (Visuals and Music)
Let’s get the eye catcher out of the way. The whole presentation of the game is excellent and very much in line with what the original was. Visuals and character design translated to 3D way better than I thought they would. There are a couple of oddities here and there and it’s definitely not a graphic showcase, but it’s stylized so much that it still looks great. A little bit more polish on some things would obviously be appreciated, but no complaints from this area!
Music is also amazing. How could it not be? I’ve never seen anyone complain about the music of the series before (if you want to complain about the music of the series don’t show it to me so I can keep saying this :D), and it is very much in the same style and quality, But I do have two little not-so-good points to put here, and they are VERY MUCH nitpicks of a crazy fan such as myself.
First one is the main menu screen music. It was….a very odd piece of music to use as a title screen. Or, more precisely, the first 10 seconds or so of it. It opens so softly and peacefully that it really can take you off-guard (in not a great way) the first time you hear it. It definitely clashes with how the game presents itself otherwise, and what the game actually delivers. After that it gets going with something much more appropriate to my liking. But going through the first 10 seconds of that song everytime I boot the game back up still feels weird, even after more than 40 hours with it.
Second point of the music is that it relies very heavily on the tracks of the first game. Which I know by heart and I love them and I don’t really mind hearing them over and over until the day I die. But the new music, particularly for combat and walking around, also feels amazing and I wish there was some more of it if it was going to be of such high quality.
But yeah. All in all A+ on the style and presentation category. Good job, NEO. You are rocking it so far!
Gameplay
This is a point where more people will feel divided I think. Knowing how the series started with dual screens in mind, and how the translation into one screen setup was not entirely successful, NEO obviously had to mix things up!
The part of running around the city and exploring and spending money and searching for stuff on all that good stuff is good. The 3D setup works well with the world and it’s a pretty seamless experience. Shibuya is a great city to wander around, and you also get the opportunity to see what random NPCs walking are thinking about and get a glimpse into their thoughts which makes it feel even more alive.
The combat, however, can be a bit of a hit or miss. I found it enjoyable personally, but it can turn into a bit of a mash fest instead of a more calculated and strategic combat. Some people may say the same of the original, but it’s probably more true with NEO. Some enemies (called Noise in the game) do require a bit more strategy and careful planning, but that’s not the bulk of the fights unfortunately. Also combat will be extremely dependent on the “weapons” or “abilities” (called Pins in the game) you decide to bring into the fight. Every character you have can wield only one of them this time around, and they can’t do anything except run around if they are “reloading” (rebooting) or their particular attack is not effective. So some combinations of pins may make it feel more mashy rather than strategic, but that soon enough becomes players choice...With a few limitations on what pins you can equip at the same time. Mainly that they can’t be the same kind of attack. SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD At least not at the start of the game. SLIGHT SPOILERS END
There are from time to time some puzzle-like elements, but really these are not the best part of the game. Most of them boil down to a “find the odd thing and press A on it”, trial and error, or some basic logic. Sometimes they do throw a harder one your way, but the game knows that puzzles are not what you are here for, so there are normally ways to circumvent the most difficult ones...Just be prepared to look around for stuff from time to time. Prompts for interacting with objects also tend to not appear unless you stop close to them, so that can be frustrating when walking around to see where the heck the thing you need to touch is exactly.
Difficulty
The progression and the difficulty curve are well achieved, I feel. And the difficulty is customizable in a very interesting way. While running through the world you can, at any moment, drop your level if you feel you are having too easy a time with the game. This will make you have less HP to make battles harder, and even net you a higher probability of rewards in the fight! The game also starts in what is called “Normal” mode, but you get the ability to unlock “Easy” and “Hard” modes later on that you can also change at any point while not in a fight or on a story event.
I played through most of the game on Hard mode with a couple of levels down, but decided to change it to Normal on the final days because I didn’t feel like fighting random Noise anymore and was getting a bit weak. I also wanted to use bad pins instead of the good ones I had access to, so that was definitely on me. Pin loadout definitely has a heavy impact on how difficult the game is. Also this is more a tip than a spoiler but just in case: SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD please just shove food into your mouth continuously. It does make a difference. SLIGHT SPOILERS END.
Dying in the game also doesn’t have much of a penalty. You can just retry the fight again on the spot, adjust the difficulty, or even restart before the fight to get a handle on things. Obviously it’s still recommended to save often just in case, but there shouldn’t be much of an issue. You even keep the experience you may have gained during the fight!
All in all, between the customizable difficulty experience, the huge difference you can make with what you choose to bring into battle, and the low penalty of death, you will find a setting that is just right for you and for that particular moment in the story.
Story
Oh boy. Oh boy here we go. I’ll start with this: I liked it. Had a lot of cool moments. Also had times where what they were going for definitely didn’t land correctly. It tried to do a lot of new things, while also honoring and adhering to the canon that had been presented. It definitely feels like a continuation and a next step for the series and it opens it up. But it also can feel somewhat heavy handed and it tangles itself unnecessarily with subplots that don’t get enough space to breathe.
I don’t know how to handle talking more about the story without going into at least slight spoilers, so here is the warning:
SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD
NEO tries to follow a similar structure as the original TWEWY, with everything that that means. However, it ditches the Partner system of the first game for a new Team system. This is not a problem and it’s a nice change of pace, but it does bring in an important change. Now there are WAY more characters. At least when counting important characters, protagonists or secondary.
This is not bad by itself, but since each of them now have to share screentime they have much less space to feel like themselves. And the focus of NEO story is definitely in the characters, how they feel, how they interact, how they solve problems, and how they evolve throughout the entire game. How you get to know them. Even if the game is 10ish hours longer than the original, it definitely can feel that some developments get rushed just to be able to cram more and more of them. I feel like if it had a bit more breathing room, or some connections were cut, the story itself would improve or at least land better.
I’d say that my enjoyment of the story was as follows throughout the game. The first act was good. The second act was amazing. And the third act stumbled and jumped around between “Great!” and “What?”.
Now let’s talk about the conclusion & ending! Won’t recommend reading this if you have not played the game yourself. Mechanically what they did was very good. Many of the plot points of the story came together perfectly with the antagonists changing and the actual final boss building and building over the many end game iterations. It felt like a perfect way to end it in that sense. But many of the character connections felt extremely cheesy and corny. And I normally like stuff to be cheesy and corny, but it felt very out of place. The friendship and feelings of the characters got turned up to 11 just because it was the ending and “WE NEED THIS GUYS TO FEEL UNITED!” Obviously they had grown together throughout the game, but they tried to hammer a lot of stuff unnecessarily. Particularly the friendship/romance between Rindo and Shoki or Fret and Kanon. Felt like they wanted fans to be happy because of all this romance, but neither landed particularly well to my liking. And I love romance in stories and I’m a sucker for it. But this just...didn’t feel like it fit well with everything going on and the general tone of the game. Same with much of the fanservice for fans of the first game. I loved that it’s there, but don’t like how it was done. Felt forced and not that deserved.
SLIGHT SPOILERS END
Overall positive and I had fun with it. But if someone felt that it wasn’t for them, I can completely see where they are coming from.
Other stuff / Opinions / Ramblings
Now to randomly discuss stuff that is on my head and I didn’t know where to put it! I’ll add spoiler tags on each section and some subtitles for you to know what I’m talking about. If you don’t care about spoiling that particular aspect or have already played it, feel free to read on! I’ll indicate if there are slight, medium or heavy spoilers on each part. Also, these are just basically fanboy squeals or nitpicks. Onwards!
Team Mechanic
(Slight to Medium Spoilers)
This is just a quick thing that I wanted to write about. Game using teams instead of partners works very well on a gameplay level, but just feels so odd on a story level, particularly in the rules of the Reapers Game itself. I understand why teams are used both in game design and regarding the plot, but it still also raises a couple of questions that leave me wondering.
The amount of team members in each team is something that never felt quite right to me. Seems like it should just break the game story wise, particularly regarding the numbers in the variabeauties, deep river society, and the truehearts. Just keep adding more and more people and you should always be in a better position. There is very little to no downside to just have more bodies to throw into the noise and into the other teams. And this just makes the wicked twisters look way better than they are portrayed as being, particularly around Day 5 and 6.
This is also linked to the following section of Shibuya Slams
Shibuya Slams
(Heavy Spoilers)
How do these work? Really. I’m asking. It’s seen in the game that, to take a section of the map from another team you need to beat them, or at least the leader of that section. How is that the Wicked Twisters can hold onto so much, then? We see on one of the week 2 Slams that you can get your turf stolen as a twister, but how did they do it? Did Shibuya Slam Noise spawn in that area since there was no one else? Then why isn’t everybody just stealing it from the twisters in most of it? They have no numbers to defend with!
Also, why on the slams you don’t fight the actual leaders of the other teams? Are they just too good for it? Even when they know more than well enough what it’d mean to not have points? A fight with Kanon to actually show here being an experienced player in one of these would be a perfect opportunity at least!
Mechanically, Shibuya Slam is a neat concept, but it gets so tiring to actually try to farm the rewards on the first time through that I dreaded it when it appeared again and now going back to those days on replays. Really want to dodge those as much as possible.
Ruinbringers
(Heavy Spoilers)
Now, I don’t have much to say here. It’s clear they were cheating a lot throughout the entirety of NEO, but what they can and can’t do still feels very odd to me. They are clearly powerful, but they are not exempt from the rules of gaining points. Evidence being the end of Week 2 where they need to threaten the twisters to surrender with the new noise so they can win….But they also kind of cheat with the points? How can they stay on top when they don’t do practically anything in the missions? Particularly obvious on Shibuya Slam (And week 2 has two of those!)?
You can tell me “Oh, it’s because on the final day you steal all the points if you beat them!” Well...Yeah...But! At the end of Week 2 they DON’T defeat the leader! So what? If I defeated a random deep river societist member in the middle of the city on day 7 would I steal all the points from that group? Makes no sense!
Sidequests & Social Network
(Slight Spoilers)
I like how they did these in this game! They are very good for making Shibuya feel so lived in and broad in scope that they are a perfect fit for what the game is trying to show. And the rewards system is very interesting with how “customizable” or “adaptable” it is. Some of the rewards do feel like they should be part of the basic abilities you have or unlocked through story progress, but I still think they were handled great! Kudos!
Only problem I have is that they do get repetitive towards the end. There are only so many ways you can do the same tasks until you know what you are getting into before even starting it. A bit more variety on them would have gone a long way.
Post-Game content
(Slight Spoilers)
There is not much post-game content unfortunately...I was kinda expecting it to be a bit longer and be more fun and quirky in general from the setup of it, but I did end up feeling a bit let down. It felt more like the developers said “We need to do this so let’s get it out of the way” instead of “Let’s now have fun with these characters!” Enjoyed it enough, but really nothing special I’m afraid...
Tin Pin Slammer
(Slight Spoilers)
WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY? My precious tin pin slammer….Gone...Reduced to atoms… This is entirely my fan boy speaking but why is it not here? A simple mini-game to break up the pace of the game and just be silly about it...I really wanted to get my Slam On...
Reaper / UG Hierarchy
(Heavy Spoilers)
Now...This is something that I just want some opinions of someone who actually played through NEO...Isn’t the reaper hierarchy kinda...Complex, now? Or better said that they have too many levels of power?
Now we have the composer at the top, and then the conductor….And then an executor somewhere in the line? And then the game master (which it’s definitely a shame that it doesn’t keep changing)? Not sure exactly where the executor fits with all these other roles. It does seem to have a lot of power but...Why is it there? What does it do? It felt more like it was added to have a sudden “Look who is powerful now!” moment at the end of the game and an important part of the main twist of the game….But I’m not clear on the specifics. The UG got very bureaucratic, yo.
FAQ
Do I need to play the original TWEWY to understand this game?
To understand it? No. To get the most out of it? Yeah, definitely. Everything story-wise will be presented to you in a way that newcomers will understand and gameplay is so different that little knowledge carries over. However, references to people and events that are not in the game will be there. And the game sometimes hinges on your emotional connection with some characters for the full impact. So I’d recommend you go through the original before, but it’s not a hard requirement.
Do I need to play the extra content of TWEWY: Final Remix to understand this game?
Nnnnnooo….But the stuff from A New Day is directly related to the NEO story. If you don’t know what happens in Final Remix that wasn’t present on the original release, there are about two or three storylines that will feel slightly off. New characters, and some story points won’t feel entirely connected. I’d personally not recommend buying the entire Final Remix to play the new content JUST to justify understanding NEO better...But, I’d suggest looking into the wiki to see what happens in it (https://twewy.fandom.com/wiki/A_New_Day), or looking a playthrough of just that day in Youtube or something.
You can also tag me on the HLTB Discord if you want me to fill you in! Free of charge!
Is the demo a good indication of the game?
The demo is basically the first couple of hours of the real game. And while there are a lot of game mechanics that get introduced later, it’ll definitely tell you if you are into it or not. You can also play the demo and continue the main game from where the demo left off if you want, so no real downside in starting there! But then please buy it so it’s more likely they make more? Please? With a cherry on top? (Obviously joking! ….Unless…)
Is it worth it?
Definitely, if you liked the first one and or liked the demo. Even if it stumbles at some points and I don’t think it’s as good as the original, it feels like how a sequel to twewy should be made. Changing a lot so it doesn’t feel like the original is undone or obsolete, but enough carrying over to truly feel like the same world.
Did you complete the game?
I haven’t 100% it but I went through almost everything unique the game has to offer! I’m pretty sure I’m missing a secret final boss and a couple of scenes, but I need to grind a bit before going through that. And believe me. I’ll keep going for it!
Do you love this game?
Yes c:
Do you love it more than the original?
No :c But I still love it c:
Conclusion
I waited years and years and years for this game to be announced, and it finally was and I played it….And I’m beyond overjoyed. I always knew it wasn’t going to be as good as the first one was to me because I’m way older now and the themes and turns won’t resonate with me as much. And the amount of love for the original that I cultivated all this time could not possibly be matched...But I’m just so glad that it exists and I have such a blast playing through it. Played 20hs on the weekend when I was going through this game. Haven’t put that much time into gaming in quite a while….And both days when I went to sleep I was thinking “wish I could have played more”.
This is not a perfect game, nor a perfect sequel. But it quench a thirst I had for so long and it did so beautifully. It met the expectations I had and made me very happy to still be a fan and find such joy in gaming.
Would give the game an 8.5/10 as a game, but a number doesn’t come close to expressing how much the existence and execution of this game means to me personally. I’d love another sequel and I hope we get one someday, but I’m not holding my hopes. I don’t think the game is doing very well sales-wise so it probably will be at least 10 to 20 years to get a new one if we are lucky...But I’m satisfied. Thanks for reading and joining me on this extreme excitement!
4 Yrs✓#
dragonh894 Yrs✓#
TWEWY (The World Ends With You)
Preface
Sooo….Yeah! This probably will be a long one. I’ve made no effort to hide the fact that I absolutely adore this game, so forgive me for all my biases in this post. However, I really want to make an effort to share what and why I love TWEWY, and hopefully bring a bit of shared joy to anyone who didn’t really vibe with this game by experiencing it vicariously through heavily heavily rose tinted glasses. Also, I fully believe that this game was made with nothing but love from their developers and designers, and it shows in so many little touches that I think should be appreciated
Another thing is, while this is my favorite game of all time and I’d rate my personal enjoyment at a 10+/10, I don’t think this is a perfect game in any way, shape, or form. This game is definitely NOT for everyone, and I always have a hard time recommending it because of some issues. The gameplay being confusing to pick up (two screens and many attack types), the initial difficulty spike without retries, the general angstiness of the story particularly at the beginning, etc. However, when this game hits it HITS. This is most definitely a cult classic sort of game. There are very passionate fans (myself included) and they will praise this game all day long if you let them.
I’ll have to definitely go through spoilers to give my full opinions and I’ll try to mark them as I go along and let you know how heavy of a spoiler it is or some other metric. Also, I’ll mostly be talking about the DS version since that one is my favorite from the three, but most non-combat things are very similar.
One last thing, I’ll leave a tl;dr after each section for a quick overview. Because I know I can get wordy
tl;dr: I love this game. It’s not for everyone, but it’s amazing to me and I don’t think it will ever not be my favorite.
Mechanics
This is probably one of the aspects that turn away the most people when they give the game a chance (particularly in the DS version which is harder to get used to, but happens in all three of ‘em). How combat is done is one of the most unique aspects of the original twewy release. There’s really nothing quite like it. Unique ideas is one of the things I personally enjoy most in gaming, so to me this was a hook when I started it for the first time.
Neku controls very well for a stylus-controlled system. Moving around is simple and most pins can be activated quickly. The different types of psyches also give a ton of variety for many different fight styles. You want to get close and personal? Enemy slash, and press rush attacks, and even impact run attacks can deal a ton of damage very quickly (my personal favorite types of pin). Wanna keep your distance? There are projectiles to shoot, traps to set, and objects to throw. Want to play a more supportive role and leave your partner to do the damage? Passive debuffs, healing, invincibility, stuns and so forth. Want to faint in real life and get sent to the hospital? Microphone activated pins to lose all your breath and get your head dizzy in no time flat!
The real thing is that you will most likely mix and match all this types of pins with just the strongest ones you get if you are rushing through the story, or cool combinations you find if just going through hunting them down whenever you can. This I feel is true character customization. There are so many games that say “You can play in whichever way you like! You can use a swords, axes, lances, or your fists to fight! They all have slightly different ranges, power and attack animations! Wow, variety!”. TWEWY is not like that. I’ve played this game around 7 times probably, and every single time I end up using a different set of pins and psyches, playing in different ways and finding other options that are very useful in different ways. My latest playthrough I mostly used AoE attacks for some reason with Jelly (Pin 282) at the end was probably my most used one in the end game. But I also had some healing,
And I’ve not even talked about the second screen and your partner yet! They are way simpler to control in general, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have their depth. Combo routes for getting stars, jumping and blocking at the right moments, and countering to their back when you need it can get very tricky in some hectic fights. I feel like your partner is there as a bonus for being able to concentrate on them. They can do well with minimal concern (with auto settings or just spamming in a general enemy direction) but can give you substantial benefits if you can concentrate on them. Another way this game allows for multiple playstyles in an organic way!
Finally, there is also the ways in which both characters interact. There is the obvious one, fusion attacks, and the more subtle one, the green puck. Fusion attacks are mostly spectacle, and a “please kill them and give me some health” panic option, and the main reward for actually using your partner well instead of just mashing (I quote the fusion one-liners to this day. Just because I’m a giant nerd like that). Also the different levels of fusion serves as a nice push and pull. You want to hold off on using your fusion attacks to get them to get the next level of them, and building a new fusion attack in the same chain fight is more difficult each time. But at the same time…The big shiny button that makes everything go away is juuuuuuuuust there….Just a little tap won’t hurt….Right?
But the green puck really is an amazing addition. It’s not intrusive enough that you need to master it (you can play most of the game without paying any attention to it), but giving you up to x5 multipliers for damage or healing can make such a difference if you want to strive for it in more difficult fights. Not a super fan of (spoiler for a noise type) ||taboo noise that basically require this mechanic||, but I guess it serves as a tutorial for the green puck in some way.
tl;dr: You can do a lot of different things, and many of them feel amazing. You don’t have to interact with every mechanic to have an effective fighting style, and you can mostly ignore the ones you don’t want to care about.
Difficulty
Now, this will probably be weird to read, but I also love the way TWEWY handles its difficulty. It doesn’t start super great (no easy mode to get your bearings with the combat style, no easy retry at the start, etc), but after you get all the basic customization options the difficult can feel just right for basically every fight. You are actually actively encouraged by the game (and expected to) to change the difficulty settings throughout the game to match your needs at that moment! It’s a way more fluid system of difficulty than I’ve seen in basically any other game, and I just thing that’s neat. I’ll go over every different difficulty system in detail because this opinions post isn’t lengthy enough as is.
The obvious one is the difficulty setting. You start with only Normal, but get the Easy mode after a bit and Hard mode some time later. There is also Ultimate difficulty, but if memory serves you can only get that one on the post-game. This is your standard difficulty configuration from most games. You kill enemies faster and they kill you slower in lower difficulties. Reverse for higher difficulties. The neat thing is that it also changes the pins you get for each noise. When you play a higher difficulty you may get pins from that difficulty or any difficulty below it as a reward, which somewhat encourages you to try the more difficult setting if you can. However, the reward system isn’t just “harder difficulty = better pins”, which would basically just means you get underpowered by playing easy mode. It’s true that some of the better pins in the game are from harder enemies, but there are many exclusive pins that you get for easier difficulties too that can be very useful
Now a more interesting difficulty system is the level adjust system. In the main menu you can temporarily reduce your set level to anywhere down to 1. Reducing the set level gives you less max HP to work with, but also dramatically increases the drop rate for rewards in the fights. For every level you reduce, you get a +100% change to get any specific pin that a noise drops (-1 level, 2x odds. -2 levels, 3x odds, and so on). You can also easily check the drop rate for specific pins in the noisepedia for any noise you have encountered before, so if you really really REALLY care about a specific reward, you know how much you may want to reduce your level by. Easily accessible information for rewards in a JRPG is always a good one in my book!
You say that adjusting your level and changing the difficulty is not enough customization for you? Well then, let me introduce you to chain battles then! Chain battles is yet another way for increasing your battle rewards, but this time mostly restricted to the common enemies. I don’t think the game makes this super obvious, but the difficulty here is not only in chaining the battles so your damage carries over and you have more spent uses of any healing pins. It also makes the difficulty of each battle after the first a bit harder. Which means…You want to have an extremely tough fight? Get a long chain and put the difficult noise at the very last. You want easier rewards with not too much hassle? Put easy fights at the end to increase your chain multiplier while not having to worry too much!
Now let’s get to indirect difficulty setting mechanics. Alongside the difficulty setting there is a setting for often you want your partner to go into auto mode. If you are really struggling with keeping them in mind, or you just want to focus more on Neku you can just set it so auto takes over immediately. And if you want to leave them as a sitting duck unless you press a button you can turn off auto mode. You can always take manual control of your partner in the middle of the fight if you like, so technically having auto in a lower setting is easier. It just changes the pressure you have to pay attention to them.
All in all, by combining all these four systems in different ways you can some extremely specific feels to the game that may suit you just right. You are having a bit too easy of a time? Drop down your level a few pegs and turn off auto-partner fully. You want to get some quick money? Let’s do some chain battling on a harder difficulty. That boss is giving you trouble? Easy mode with your current highest level should take care of that! You want that specific pin that has a 0.5% drop rate? How about we increase that to 100% drop rate by dropping down 20 levels and going for a 10 chain link battle?
In most games I just choose my difficulty setting at the start and forget about it. In some good games the game may tell me sporadically “Hey, you are having too easy/hard of a time. Want to switch it up to X difficulty?”. Twewy just…Gives you a lot of options, and they all feel different and substantial.
tl;dr: It has a ton of ways to adjust the game to your liking, and rewards you for doing so. I love being able to change things on the fly and being rewarded for taking a higher challenge while not being punished for making things easier on myself.
Aesthetics, Music, and general Style
Now, if you ask anyone who knows about twewy, how the game looks and their general style is one of the first things that always come up in the conversation. There is no accounting for taste, but one thing that I think we can all agree on is that this game does NOT look or sound generic at all. I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a visuals or music guy, so this section will probably feel a bit more shallow than the others. I just like how this thing looks and sounds, man!
The character design is probably my personal favorite part of the visual sense of the game. The designs feel very bold with the thick black lines. They are expressive and interesting without really being too over the top (obviously, this is from a anime-ish JRPG standpoint). The different characters personalities and characteristics get very clearly conveyed but both the way their different expressions and poses, as well as the way they dress. Obviously clothes are important for the visual style of most videogame characters, but clothes carry a very important role in TWEWY’s Shibuya, so the ability to tell you something about the character is greatly appreciated and a great tie in between the character design and the setting itself.
For other graphics stuff, I do like how Shibuya itself looks but it’s probably not the strongest part (definitely feels like DS is a limiting factor here). The in fight background feel a bit better and some boss fights have very interesting effects, but I wouldn’t go too much further than them being “nice”. The noises designs I do definitely very much enjoy, and they all very much feel like they are linked by a common thread.
Now let’s talk music! I have said before that if you are on the fence if you will like this game or not, go listen to some of the songs in the soundtrack (Twister and Calling probably being the first ones that I link if they feel like it). I feel the music does an amazing job of capturing the feel of the game. Can’t describe it with words very well, but it just suits the game so well… I wish I knew more about music in general so I could better express what makes it great… But I enjoy it listening to it outside of the game, and it heightens the game at every moment. A+ here, TWEWY. (And just as a random note, my favorite song on the soundtrack is probably “O-Parts” :D)
tl;dr: Style yes. Me like like. Music good. Me listen lots. If you don’t know the music, go listen to some of it please.
Story
Now here it is! Alongside the gameplay, this is the other pilar that this game stands on for my personal enjoyment. Story is somewhat divisive between people. A common complaint is that it is a bit too-angsty (particuarly with the focal point being Neku) and that is targetted to much to teenagers. Full disclosure, I played this game when I was a teen myself so I was totally in the target audience with this one at the time! I do agree that this game resonates with one more on their teen years. But about the angsty part? I actually think the game does a good job subverting this more and more as the game progresses. I’ll talk more about this later, on the “Theme” section of this mega-post. For now, I’ll talk about the story itself and what I like most!
This section will be FULL GAME SPOILERS. Please do not read on if you are planning to play the game yourself (or watch the anime, which is decent!). I’ll start each section with what I’ll be talking about in case you are curious, but please don’t read on if you don’t want to get spoiled. This won’t be a full story overview, but just a collection of things I personally enjoy. Let’s get to it!
Beat and Rhyme Spoilers. ||Weird play to start, huh? Don’t know why, but I enjoyed Beat on my latest playthrough, so I want to give a special mention. There are some neat foreshadowing things with these two, but nothing major. That Beat is trying to hide their true relationship from Rhyme is hinted at on Day 2 when he hesitates to introduce her, and the way they both died very blatantly shown when Rhyme saves beat on Day 4. Both pretty cool on replays, but nothing more than that.
Now why did I resonate with Beat in particular this time? Beat feels like an extremely well-done foil for Neku as both a rival and a partner. When he is a Reaper during Week 2, he is basically fighting for the same thing as Neku, but going through it in an opposite way. They both just want to save the person they care about that depends on them, without thinking much about their own well being aside from needing to stay alive to save them.
Later on, when he is a partner, he clashes with Neku more than any other, even though their goals are more aligned than with either Shiki or Joshua. His impulsiveness is a nice contrast to Neku’s more methodical approach to problem solving, and they argue all the time about what to do next and the panic setting in. They are both powerhouses in terms of raw power by this point, but Week 3 mission not being something fighting based catches Beat completely out of his element. Also, since Neku after finishing Week 2 and feeling like he should have trusted Joshua, Beat serves as a nice final personal growth challenge of trusting your partner and respecting others, by pairing with very much his polar opposite in attitude.||
Intro movie Spoilers. ||Another weird spoiler section! Just want to point out a couple of neat things on the intro movie. It walks the thin line of giving you a lot of info about the story without spoiling its twists, and I think it achieves it great. It shows all main characters as expected and lets you know with colors and expressions “this one good, this one bad, this one kinda?” as a general intro should, but not much more than that on a first watching. I just like rewatching it. Stuff like Beat being concerned about Rhyme from minute one, and Joshua already looking into Neku on Day 1 are nice hints that are not overly obvious but fun to catch on a second viewing.||
Reapers Spoilers ||Some minor things to point out about some reapers. It’s fun how the Game Master for both Week 1 and Week 2 are almost completely indifferent towards Neku, but instead choose to fixate on his partners. On Week 1 he just wants Shiki to be his food since she has so much jealousy, and on Week 2 Minamimoto has as his main objective getting rid of Joshua in any way he can. And in both cases Neku thinks they are talking about him. At least on Week 3 he realizes that the Game Master is going after Beat when he sees the stuff about Noise Rhyme first hand…||
Joshua Spoilers ||This is the guy you need to talk about on a spoiler section. Him and Mr. H for sure. There is not too much I wanna add. I just love checking in on people playing through the game and hearing their theories about them. It’s almost a 50%/50% if they think Joshua is the actual murderer for Neku, what role he occupies in the grand scheme, what Mr. H. is doing or even is… And it’s definitely not even fully clear even by games end! If you want to know more there are ways to know more, but this pair is one of the best executed secret good/bad/neutral guy guess who that I’ve seen||
Post-Game story
You want some real juicy stuff? The post game in this game is one of the most amazing things it has in my opinion. It is absolutely not necessary to enjoy the game (hate when games make their postgame mandatory for reaching a resolution), but it gives the players that really want to dig deeper so much more background information and extra characters interactions.
The post-game is divided in two main aspects (three if you have the Final Remix version). Another Day, and the Secret Reports (And A New Day in Final Remix). A New Day is basically a prologue for the story on NEO: TWEWY and only tacked on many many years later, so I won’t talk about that too much. It has some fun gameplay additions and lets you know a little more about the greater lore of the franchise, but nothing really important. But I want to talk about the other two!
Another Day is basically a side Alternate Universe story that happens on a single day. It’s super wacky with a “Yu-Gi-Oh” or “Beyblade” kinda feel to it. The world almost revolves around a children’s game called Tin Pin Slammer (which is a minigame I enjoy oh so much), and the story itself is lighthearted and is just for seeing the different characters interact in a less serious fashion when their lives are not really at stake. If you enjoy these guys, you will probably enjoy them being a bit goofier and poking fun at themselves. Now for some slight spoilers for this mode, Another Day also contains ||the Super Secret Boss and Final Time Attack, both of which have some story attached to them. This is the only part of Another Day that has any connection with the main story, giving some nice info about Mr. H and about Joshua respectively.|| This gives some nice background info, but nothing that you would be lesser for not knowing.
But the Secret Reports? Oh, those are great. I vividly remember the first time playing through the game hunting them down, ravenous for getting to read the next one. This part of the post-game basically asks you to do extra side-stuff in the main story. Some of it is new interactions with some characters, but it’s mostly hunting down specific noise, going to specific places, etc. You don’t have to fully play the story (you get an option to jump to any day freely whenever you want after you finish the main game), but you have to re-play through some stuff. These little reports offer a ton of background information about the game. How the universe works, what important characters are doing in the background, explaining what appear to be plot-holes, etc. If you like the universe, I encourage you to hunt them down or look them up online! They are super interesting!
tl;dr: The story is great if a bit angsty at the beginning. It hits better when you are a teen for its message, but can still be enjoyed as an adult. The post-game is amazing lore-wise and to get to know characters, but you don’t miss anything major if you skip it. Reading it online is a fine alternative if you are somewhat interested in the world.
Theme
So I’ll now talk about the general theme of the game and what it wants to say and how it does it. The message is not something extremely original by itself, but I want to bring attention to little details about how it is achieved, and why I think it’s executed so well.. The main messages for this game in my opinion are ||how learning and trusting others can help you grow|| and ||the joy of people diversity itself||.
I’ll now talk about how Neku’s progress through twewy reflects this, and why I think it’s done so well. ||Well…This is really about both Neku and Neku’s partners, but saying partners in plural is a bit spoiler-y. I just want to talk about the growth Neku has during the entire game and the way Shiki, Joshua, and Beat help him in particular.
Neku is an angst machine at the start of the game. That much is true. He needs to get pushed by Mr. H. to start trying to sync with Shiki. But really the load of the work is done by Shiki herself. Being so easygoing, considerate, and passionate (also a bit of a pushover) makes her like an easy tutorial for Neku in terms of respecting and trusting others. But what really starts turning his attitude is learning the struggle of Shiki with her inferiority complex with Eri. This is the first wake up call that actually hits him about other people’s problems and how it affects their own internal worlds. After this he not only cares more about Shiki herself during Day 6, but also shows actual concern for Beat on Day 7. At the end of Week 1 he changes from “People are horrible and I don’t need them” to “People are mostly annoying, but there are exceptions”. It’s definitely progress! To match this his next entry fee changes from “His Memory” which is super personal to “Shiki”, which is the person he currently appreciates the most.
Week 2 is probably the most challenging for Neku in his personal growth. Joshua at this point just wants Neku to win and is not particuarly interested in him changing. Joshua is untrustworthy from the first instant since he forms the pact by his own without Neku even knowing about it (in fact, he doesn’t know who his partner is until after the first fight!). Obviously Week 2 is absolutely filled to the brim with Joshua giving off bad vibes, so the progress in Neku’s attitude is a bit stalled at this point. There is no day in Week 2 that a new thing is not revealed about or hinted at from Joshua in universe, so he always has a new reason to be wary. Mr. H still pushes him to trust him however, and by the end of the weak he (mistakenly) learns that Joshua did not kill him and that he can trust him. He also has some very nice moments with Nao and Sota (those two other players), Reapers like 777, and the Tin Pin community. How much he thinks other people are important can be seen more clearly when Taboo noise start attacking everyone, in which he can choose to either help or leave them be. In all cases he shows clear empathy, even if you decide he believes it’s better to not help others at that time. By the End of Week 2 he changes from “People are mostly annoying, but there are exceptions” to “Everyone has something unique, and everyone can help anyone”. The final words from Joshua also resonate with him a ton at this point (although he doesn’t fully internalize it just yet) which were “If you give up on yourself, you give up on the world”. To match this his new entry fee is “Every other player” (AKA everyone who can help him, and not every PERSON).
By Week 3 his growth just needs some adjusting but has made major progress. With Beat by his side, he mostly needs to learn that trusting others doesn’t mean just ignoring what you think, by trying to convince him about better courses of action. This is mostly symbolized in the mission Pinky gives them about Reaper Sport 4, in which he goes the full day trusting him even though he knows Beat is getting it wrong. Even by the end of the game, he is fully on board with letting Beat be the new Composer since he trusts him. One final note is that, by the end of the game, the actual attitude towards people in general is left up to the player. Because the message of this game is NOT “You should like everyone, everyone is great” but instead “You should learn from other people, and open yourself to them to grow”. Kitaniji directly asks Neku if he likes people, and you have the option to say either Yes or No. This has exactly 0 impact on the game and story after because this is not important for the message. People need people to grow as people, whether you like them or not is not the important part.||
Apart from this, there are also some other things that I want to point out about the theme! There is the fact that, throughout the entire game, you are able to read random people's minds! This is mostly something minor and for flavor, but it heightens the message of ||every person having their own personal views and feelings, and why reaching out to them may be interesting. It doubles the impact when on the final days' everyones thoughts get highjacked to think the same thing, as it paints that as unnatural and a horror to live in.||
Other minor stuff that reflect and show these themes can be seen throughout the game. ||The ramen story in which the owner loses himself by cooking extravagant ramen and can later reconnect by making the ramen he wants to make. The interactions between Lollipop and Pinky with Neku and Beat even though they are on completely different sides. The girls in Shiki Day 4 not trusting each other even though they wanted the same thing. Etc.||
The theme is made also super obvious by the end credits, in which ||the game title changes from The World Ends With You to The World Begins With You||. Fun fact, the title of TWEWY in japanese translates to “What a wonderful world”! I think it fits very well although a bit on the nose!
tl;dr: This is not a simple. “Hey, let’s all be friends!” JRPG theme, but more about how one interacts with the world and why that can be good and bad. It’s interesting when you look deeper into it
Other Minor Personal Favorites Things and Moments
I very much like the store and friendship system in this game! This is so minor, but I always loved ranking up in the different shops and see how the attitude of the clerks changed after you become a regular shopper at each place. Being able to read their minds to see past their customer service face is a huge plus for this. This gives so much character to each shop and (even each brand) outside of just being “the menu where you buy the things“. And you are encouraged to see this change in them by the locked ability system. Just a neat touch.
There are some ways this game was a bit ahead of its time. Look at the pin level up and evolution system for example. It has the mingle system with is basically a precursor to the streetpass functionality from the 3DS, while also having the shutdown PP system which levels up your pins just for taking breaks.
I’ve said it above, but I also like Tin Pin Slammer way more than I think the game expected me to…? I don’t know why, but I always wanted to play multiplayer with someone else. Never got to, though…Hopefully some day…
Pig Noises are also a neat way of making collectibles! They appear way before you know about them and you can stumble into them. When you know about them you can definitely search for them. And if you dig a bit more and you learn about the pig indicator icon it’s very easy to know where they are! It’s also cool that these collectibles offer a unique challenge each and give you a very specific reward by themselves. I can’t help but track these down every time I play through the game!
tl;dr: I’m a massive nerd and think way to hard about TWEWY way too often
Final Thoughts
Really, customization and expression is the name of the game here. I love how free this game makes me feel with its gameplay, and I played this game at a time in my life that it’s core theme of appreciating everyone for who they are and opening up to the world resonated with me. It may be cheesy (and some may say pitiable) but I feel that this game changed me in subtle ways during my teenage years. Being more accepting of different people for how they think, while also mantaining my own sense of self and what makes myself me.
I love this freaking game so much. It’s super important to me on a personal level, and I hope everyone that gives it a chance gets a little bit out of it! It’s a game made with a lot of passion behind it, and I think it shows clear through its entire run.
tl;dr: Thanks for reading! In case it wasn’t clear, I love this game!
Preface
Sooo….Yeah! This probably will be a long one. I’ve made no effort to hide the fact that I absolutely adore this game, so forgive me for all my biases in this post. However, I really want to make an effort to share what and why I love TWEWY, and hopefully bring a bit of shared joy to anyone who didn’t really vibe with this game by experiencing it vicariously through heavily heavily rose tinted glasses. Also, I fully believe that this game was made with nothing but love from their developers and designers, and it shows in so many little touches that I think should be appreciated
Another thing is, while this is my favorite game of all time and I’d rate my personal enjoyment at a 10+/10, I don’t think this is a perfect game in any way, shape, or form. This game is definitely NOT for everyone, and I always have a hard time recommending it because of some issues. The gameplay being confusing to pick up (two screens and many attack types), the initial difficulty spike without retries, the general angstiness of the story particularly at the beginning, etc. However, when this game hits it HITS. This is most definitely a cult classic sort of game. There are very passionate fans (myself included) and they will praise this game all day long if you let them.
I’ll have to definitely go through spoilers to give my full opinions and I’ll try to mark them as I go along and let you know how heavy of a spoiler it is or some other metric. Also, I’ll mostly be talking about the DS version since that one is my favorite from the three, but most non-combat things are very similar.
One last thing, I’ll leave a tl;dr after each section for a quick overview. Because I know I can get wordy
tl;dr: I love this game. It’s not for everyone, but it’s amazing to me and I don’t think it will ever not be my favorite.
Mechanics
This is probably one of the aspects that turn away the most people when they give the game a chance (particularly in the DS version which is harder to get used to, but happens in all three of ‘em). How combat is done is one of the most unique aspects of the original twewy release. There’s really nothing quite like it. Unique ideas is one of the things I personally enjoy most in gaming, so to me this was a hook when I started it for the first time.
Neku controls very well for a stylus-controlled system. Moving around is simple and most pins can be activated quickly. The different types of psyches also give a ton of variety for many different fight styles. You want to get close and personal? Enemy slash, and press rush attacks, and even impact run attacks can deal a ton of damage very quickly (my personal favorite types of pin). Wanna keep your distance? There are projectiles to shoot, traps to set, and objects to throw. Want to play a more supportive role and leave your partner to do the damage? Passive debuffs, healing, invincibility, stuns and so forth. Want to faint in real life and get sent to the hospital? Microphone activated pins to lose all your breath and get your head dizzy in no time flat!
The real thing is that you will most likely mix and match all this types of pins with just the strongest ones you get if you are rushing through the story, or cool combinations you find if just going through hunting them down whenever you can. This I feel is true character customization. There are so many games that say “You can play in whichever way you like! You can use a swords, axes, lances, or your fists to fight! They all have slightly different ranges, power and attack animations! Wow, variety!”. TWEWY is not like that. I’ve played this game around 7 times probably, and every single time I end up using a different set of pins and psyches, playing in different ways and finding other options that are very useful in different ways. My latest playthrough I mostly used AoE attacks for some reason with Jelly (Pin 282) at the end was probably my most used one in the end game. But I also had some healing,
And I’ve not even talked about the second screen and your partner yet! They are way simpler to control in general, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have their depth. Combo routes for getting stars, jumping and blocking at the right moments, and countering to their back when you need it can get very tricky in some hectic fights. I feel like your partner is there as a bonus for being able to concentrate on them. They can do well with minimal concern (with auto settings or just spamming in a general enemy direction) but can give you substantial benefits if you can concentrate on them. Another way this game allows for multiple playstyles in an organic way!
Finally, there is also the ways in which both characters interact. There is the obvious one, fusion attacks, and the more subtle one, the green puck. Fusion attacks are mostly spectacle, and a “please kill them and give me some health” panic option, and the main reward for actually using your partner well instead of just mashing (I quote the fusion one-liners to this day. Just because I’m a giant nerd like that). Also the different levels of fusion serves as a nice push and pull. You want to hold off on using your fusion attacks to get them to get the next level of them, and building a new fusion attack in the same chain fight is more difficult each time. But at the same time…The big shiny button that makes everything go away is juuuuuuuuust there….Just a little tap won’t hurt….Right?
But the green puck really is an amazing addition. It’s not intrusive enough that you need to master it (you can play most of the game without paying any attention to it), but giving you up to x5 multipliers for damage or healing can make such a difference if you want to strive for it in more difficult fights. Not a super fan of (spoiler for a noise type) ||taboo noise that basically require this mechanic||, but I guess it serves as a tutorial for the green puck in some way.
tl;dr: You can do a lot of different things, and many of them feel amazing. You don’t have to interact with every mechanic to have an effective fighting style, and you can mostly ignore the ones you don’t want to care about.
Difficulty
Now, this will probably be weird to read, but I also love the way TWEWY handles its difficulty. It doesn’t start super great (no easy mode to get your bearings with the combat style, no easy retry at the start, etc), but after you get all the basic customization options the difficult can feel just right for basically every fight. You are actually actively encouraged by the game (and expected to) to change the difficulty settings throughout the game to match your needs at that moment! It’s a way more fluid system of difficulty than I’ve seen in basically any other game, and I just thing that’s neat. I’ll go over every different difficulty system in detail because this opinions post isn’t lengthy enough as is.
The obvious one is the difficulty setting. You start with only Normal, but get the Easy mode after a bit and Hard mode some time later. There is also Ultimate difficulty, but if memory serves you can only get that one on the post-game. This is your standard difficulty configuration from most games. You kill enemies faster and they kill you slower in lower difficulties. Reverse for higher difficulties. The neat thing is that it also changes the pins you get for each noise. When you play a higher difficulty you may get pins from that difficulty or any difficulty below it as a reward, which somewhat encourages you to try the more difficult setting if you can. However, the reward system isn’t just “harder difficulty = better pins”, which would basically just means you get underpowered by playing easy mode. It’s true that some of the better pins in the game are from harder enemies, but there are many exclusive pins that you get for easier difficulties too that can be very useful
Now a more interesting difficulty system is the level adjust system. In the main menu you can temporarily reduce your set level to anywhere down to 1. Reducing the set level gives you less max HP to work with, but also dramatically increases the drop rate for rewards in the fights. For every level you reduce, you get a +100% change to get any specific pin that a noise drops (-1 level, 2x odds. -2 levels, 3x odds, and so on). You can also easily check the drop rate for specific pins in the noisepedia for any noise you have encountered before, so if you really really REALLY care about a specific reward, you know how much you may want to reduce your level by. Easily accessible information for rewards in a JRPG is always a good one in my book!
You say that adjusting your level and changing the difficulty is not enough customization for you? Well then, let me introduce you to chain battles then! Chain battles is yet another way for increasing your battle rewards, but this time mostly restricted to the common enemies. I don’t think the game makes this super obvious, but the difficulty here is not only in chaining the battles so your damage carries over and you have more spent uses of any healing pins. It also makes the difficulty of each battle after the first a bit harder. Which means…You want to have an extremely tough fight? Get a long chain and put the difficult noise at the very last. You want easier rewards with not too much hassle? Put easy fights at the end to increase your chain multiplier while not having to worry too much!
Now let’s get to indirect difficulty setting mechanics. Alongside the difficulty setting there is a setting for often you want your partner to go into auto mode. If you are really struggling with keeping them in mind, or you just want to focus more on Neku you can just set it so auto takes over immediately. And if you want to leave them as a sitting duck unless you press a button you can turn off auto mode. You can always take manual control of your partner in the middle of the fight if you like, so technically having auto in a lower setting is easier. It just changes the pressure you have to pay attention to them.
All in all, by combining all these four systems in different ways you can some extremely specific feels to the game that may suit you just right. You are having a bit too easy of a time? Drop down your level a few pegs and turn off auto-partner fully. You want to get some quick money? Let’s do some chain battling on a harder difficulty. That boss is giving you trouble? Easy mode with your current highest level should take care of that! You want that specific pin that has a 0.5% drop rate? How about we increase that to 100% drop rate by dropping down 20 levels and going for a 10 chain link battle?
In most games I just choose my difficulty setting at the start and forget about it. In some good games the game may tell me sporadically “Hey, you are having too easy/hard of a time. Want to switch it up to X difficulty?”. Twewy just…Gives you a lot of options, and they all feel different and substantial.
tl;dr: It has a ton of ways to adjust the game to your liking, and rewards you for doing so. I love being able to change things on the fly and being rewarded for taking a higher challenge while not being punished for making things easier on myself.
Aesthetics, Music, and general Style
Now, if you ask anyone who knows about twewy, how the game looks and their general style is one of the first things that always come up in the conversation. There is no accounting for taste, but one thing that I think we can all agree on is that this game does NOT look or sound generic at all. I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a visuals or music guy, so this section will probably feel a bit more shallow than the others. I just like how this thing looks and sounds, man!
The character design is probably my personal favorite part of the visual sense of the game. The designs feel very bold with the thick black lines. They are expressive and interesting without really being too over the top (obviously, this is from a anime-ish JRPG standpoint). The different characters personalities and characteristics get very clearly conveyed but both the way their different expressions and poses, as well as the way they dress. Obviously clothes are important for the visual style of most videogame characters, but clothes carry a very important role in TWEWY’s Shibuya, so the ability to tell you something about the character is greatly appreciated and a great tie in between the character design and the setting itself.
For other graphics stuff, I do like how Shibuya itself looks but it’s probably not the strongest part (definitely feels like DS is a limiting factor here). The in fight background feel a bit better and some boss fights have very interesting effects, but I wouldn’t go too much further than them being “nice”. The noises designs I do definitely very much enjoy, and they all very much feel like they are linked by a common thread.
Now let’s talk music! I have said before that if you are on the fence if you will like this game or not, go listen to some of the songs in the soundtrack (Twister and Calling probably being the first ones that I link if they feel like it). I feel the music does an amazing job of capturing the feel of the game. Can’t describe it with words very well, but it just suits the game so well… I wish I knew more about music in general so I could better express what makes it great… But I enjoy it listening to it outside of the game, and it heightens the game at every moment. A+ here, TWEWY. (And just as a random note, my favorite song on the soundtrack is probably “O-Parts” :D)
tl;dr: Style yes. Me like like. Music good. Me listen lots. If you don’t know the music, go listen to some of it please.
Story
Now here it is! Alongside the gameplay, this is the other pilar that this game stands on for my personal enjoyment. Story is somewhat divisive between people. A common complaint is that it is a bit too-angsty (particuarly with the focal point being Neku) and that is targetted to much to teenagers. Full disclosure, I played this game when I was a teen myself so I was totally in the target audience with this one at the time! I do agree that this game resonates with one more on their teen years. But about the angsty part? I actually think the game does a good job subverting this more and more as the game progresses. I’ll talk more about this later, on the “Theme” section of this mega-post. For now, I’ll talk about the story itself and what I like most!
This section will be FULL GAME SPOILERS. Please do not read on if you are planning to play the game yourself (or watch the anime, which is decent!). I’ll start each section with what I’ll be talking about in case you are curious, but please don’t read on if you don’t want to get spoiled. This won’t be a full story overview, but just a collection of things I personally enjoy. Let’s get to it!
Beat and Rhyme Spoilers. ||Weird play to start, huh? Don’t know why, but I enjoyed Beat on my latest playthrough, so I want to give a special mention. There are some neat foreshadowing things with these two, but nothing major. That Beat is trying to hide their true relationship from Rhyme is hinted at on Day 2 when he hesitates to introduce her, and the way they both died very blatantly shown when Rhyme saves beat on Day 4. Both pretty cool on replays, but nothing more than that.
Now why did I resonate with Beat in particular this time? Beat feels like an extremely well-done foil for Neku as both a rival and a partner. When he is a Reaper during Week 2, he is basically fighting for the same thing as Neku, but going through it in an opposite way. They both just want to save the person they care about that depends on them, without thinking much about their own well being aside from needing to stay alive to save them.
Later on, when he is a partner, he clashes with Neku more than any other, even though their goals are more aligned than with either Shiki or Joshua. His impulsiveness is a nice contrast to Neku’s more methodical approach to problem solving, and they argue all the time about what to do next and the panic setting in. They are both powerhouses in terms of raw power by this point, but Week 3 mission not being something fighting based catches Beat completely out of his element. Also, since Neku after finishing Week 2 and feeling like he should have trusted Joshua, Beat serves as a nice final personal growth challenge of trusting your partner and respecting others, by pairing with very much his polar opposite in attitude.||
Intro movie Spoilers. ||Another weird spoiler section! Just want to point out a couple of neat things on the intro movie. It walks the thin line of giving you a lot of info about the story without spoiling its twists, and I think it achieves it great. It shows all main characters as expected and lets you know with colors and expressions “this one good, this one bad, this one kinda?” as a general intro should, but not much more than that on a first watching. I just like rewatching it. Stuff like Beat being concerned about Rhyme from minute one, and Joshua already looking into Neku on Day 1 are nice hints that are not overly obvious but fun to catch on a second viewing.||
Reapers Spoilers ||Some minor things to point out about some reapers. It’s fun how the Game Master for both Week 1 and Week 2 are almost completely indifferent towards Neku, but instead choose to fixate on his partners. On Week 1 he just wants Shiki to be his food since she has so much jealousy, and on Week 2 Minamimoto has as his main objective getting rid of Joshua in any way he can. And in both cases Neku thinks they are talking about him. At least on Week 3 he realizes that the Game Master is going after Beat when he sees the stuff about Noise Rhyme first hand…||
Joshua Spoilers ||This is the guy you need to talk about on a spoiler section. Him and Mr. H for sure. There is not too much I wanna add. I just love checking in on people playing through the game and hearing their theories about them. It’s almost a 50%/50% if they think Joshua is the actual murderer for Neku, what role he occupies in the grand scheme, what Mr. H. is doing or even is… And it’s definitely not even fully clear even by games end! If you want to know more there are ways to know more, but this pair is one of the best executed secret good/bad/neutral guy guess who that I’ve seen||
Post-Game story
You want some real juicy stuff? The post game in this game is one of the most amazing things it has in my opinion. It is absolutely not necessary to enjoy the game (hate when games make their postgame mandatory for reaching a resolution), but it gives the players that really want to dig deeper so much more background information and extra characters interactions.
The post-game is divided in two main aspects (three if you have the Final Remix version). Another Day, and the Secret Reports (And A New Day in Final Remix). A New Day is basically a prologue for the story on NEO: TWEWY and only tacked on many many years later, so I won’t talk about that too much. It has some fun gameplay additions and lets you know a little more about the greater lore of the franchise, but nothing really important. But I want to talk about the other two!
Another Day is basically a side Alternate Universe story that happens on a single day. It’s super wacky with a “Yu-Gi-Oh” or “Beyblade” kinda feel to it. The world almost revolves around a children’s game called Tin Pin Slammer (which is a minigame I enjoy oh so much), and the story itself is lighthearted and is just for seeing the different characters interact in a less serious fashion when their lives are not really at stake. If you enjoy these guys, you will probably enjoy them being a bit goofier and poking fun at themselves. Now for some slight spoilers for this mode, Another Day also contains ||the Super Secret Boss and Final Time Attack, both of which have some story attached to them. This is the only part of Another Day that has any connection with the main story, giving some nice info about Mr. H and about Joshua respectively.|| This gives some nice background info, but nothing that you would be lesser for not knowing.
But the Secret Reports? Oh, those are great. I vividly remember the first time playing through the game hunting them down, ravenous for getting to read the next one. This part of the post-game basically asks you to do extra side-stuff in the main story. Some of it is new interactions with some characters, but it’s mostly hunting down specific noise, going to specific places, etc. You don’t have to fully play the story (you get an option to jump to any day freely whenever you want after you finish the main game), but you have to re-play through some stuff. These little reports offer a ton of background information about the game. How the universe works, what important characters are doing in the background, explaining what appear to be plot-holes, etc. If you like the universe, I encourage you to hunt them down or look them up online! They are super interesting!
tl;dr: The story is great if a bit angsty at the beginning. It hits better when you are a teen for its message, but can still be enjoyed as an adult. The post-game is amazing lore-wise and to get to know characters, but you don’t miss anything major if you skip it. Reading it online is a fine alternative if you are somewhat interested in the world.
Theme
So I’ll now talk about the general theme of the game and what it wants to say and how it does it. The message is not something extremely original by itself, but I want to bring attention to little details about how it is achieved, and why I think it’s executed so well.. The main messages for this game in my opinion are ||how learning and trusting others can help you grow|| and ||the joy of people diversity itself||.
I’ll now talk about how Neku’s progress through twewy reflects this, and why I think it’s done so well. ||Well…This is really about both Neku and Neku’s partners, but saying partners in plural is a bit spoiler-y. I just want to talk about the growth Neku has during the entire game and the way Shiki, Joshua, and Beat help him in particular.
Neku is an angst machine at the start of the game. That much is true. He needs to get pushed by Mr. H. to start trying to sync with Shiki. But really the load of the work is done by Shiki herself. Being so easygoing, considerate, and passionate (also a bit of a pushover) makes her like an easy tutorial for Neku in terms of respecting and trusting others. But what really starts turning his attitude is learning the struggle of Shiki with her inferiority complex with Eri. This is the first wake up call that actually hits him about other people’s problems and how it affects their own internal worlds. After this he not only cares more about Shiki herself during Day 6, but also shows actual concern for Beat on Day 7. At the end of Week 1 he changes from “People are horrible and I don’t need them” to “People are mostly annoying, but there are exceptions”. It’s definitely progress! To match this his next entry fee changes from “His Memory” which is super personal to “Shiki”, which is the person he currently appreciates the most.
Week 2 is probably the most challenging for Neku in his personal growth. Joshua at this point just wants Neku to win and is not particuarly interested in him changing. Joshua is untrustworthy from the first instant since he forms the pact by his own without Neku even knowing about it (in fact, he doesn’t know who his partner is until after the first fight!). Obviously Week 2 is absolutely filled to the brim with Joshua giving off bad vibes, so the progress in Neku’s attitude is a bit stalled at this point. There is no day in Week 2 that a new thing is not revealed about or hinted at from Joshua in universe, so he always has a new reason to be wary. Mr. H still pushes him to trust him however, and by the end of the weak he (mistakenly) learns that Joshua did not kill him and that he can trust him. He also has some very nice moments with Nao and Sota (those two other players), Reapers like 777, and the Tin Pin community. How much he thinks other people are important can be seen more clearly when Taboo noise start attacking everyone, in which he can choose to either help or leave them be. In all cases he shows clear empathy, even if you decide he believes it’s better to not help others at that time. By the End of Week 2 he changes from “People are mostly annoying, but there are exceptions” to “Everyone has something unique, and everyone can help anyone”. The final words from Joshua also resonate with him a ton at this point (although he doesn’t fully internalize it just yet) which were “If you give up on yourself, you give up on the world”. To match this his new entry fee is “Every other player” (AKA everyone who can help him, and not every PERSON).
By Week 3 his growth just needs some adjusting but has made major progress. With Beat by his side, he mostly needs to learn that trusting others doesn’t mean just ignoring what you think, by trying to convince him about better courses of action. This is mostly symbolized in the mission Pinky gives them about Reaper Sport 4, in which he goes the full day trusting him even though he knows Beat is getting it wrong. Even by the end of the game, he is fully on board with letting Beat be the new Composer since he trusts him. One final note is that, by the end of the game, the actual attitude towards people in general is left up to the player. Because the message of this game is NOT “You should like everyone, everyone is great” but instead “You should learn from other people, and open yourself to them to grow”. Kitaniji directly asks Neku if he likes people, and you have the option to say either Yes or No. This has exactly 0 impact on the game and story after because this is not important for the message. People need people to grow as people, whether you like them or not is not the important part.||
Apart from this, there are also some other things that I want to point out about the theme! There is the fact that, throughout the entire game, you are able to read random people's minds! This is mostly something minor and for flavor, but it heightens the message of ||every person having their own personal views and feelings, and why reaching out to them may be interesting. It doubles the impact when on the final days' everyones thoughts get highjacked to think the same thing, as it paints that as unnatural and a horror to live in.||
Other minor stuff that reflect and show these themes can be seen throughout the game. ||The ramen story in which the owner loses himself by cooking extravagant ramen and can later reconnect by making the ramen he wants to make. The interactions between Lollipop and Pinky with Neku and Beat even though they are on completely different sides. The girls in Shiki Day 4 not trusting each other even though they wanted the same thing. Etc.||
The theme is made also super obvious by the end credits, in which ||the game title changes from The World Ends With You to The World Begins With You||. Fun fact, the title of TWEWY in japanese translates to “What a wonderful world”! I think it fits very well although a bit on the nose!
tl;dr: This is not a simple. “Hey, let’s all be friends!” JRPG theme, but more about how one interacts with the world and why that can be good and bad. It’s interesting when you look deeper into it
Other Minor Personal Favorites Things and Moments
I very much like the store and friendship system in this game! This is so minor, but I always loved ranking up in the different shops and see how the attitude of the clerks changed after you become a regular shopper at each place. Being able to read their minds to see past their customer service face is a huge plus for this. This gives so much character to each shop and (even each brand) outside of just being “the menu where you buy the things“. And you are encouraged to see this change in them by the locked ability system. Just a neat touch.
There are some ways this game was a bit ahead of its time. Look at the pin level up and evolution system for example. It has the mingle system with is basically a precursor to the streetpass functionality from the 3DS, while also having the shutdown PP system which levels up your pins just for taking breaks.
I’ve said it above, but I also like Tin Pin Slammer way more than I think the game expected me to…? I don’t know why, but I always wanted to play multiplayer with someone else. Never got to, though…Hopefully some day…
Pig Noises are also a neat way of making collectibles! They appear way before you know about them and you can stumble into them. When you know about them you can definitely search for them. And if you dig a bit more and you learn about the pig indicator icon it’s very easy to know where they are! It’s also cool that these collectibles offer a unique challenge each and give you a very specific reward by themselves. I can’t help but track these down every time I play through the game!
tl;dr: I’m a massive nerd and think way to hard about TWEWY way too often
Final Thoughts
Really, customization and expression is the name of the game here. I love how free this game makes me feel with its gameplay, and I played this game at a time in my life that it’s core theme of appreciating everyone for who they are and opening up to the world resonated with me. It may be cheesy (and some may say pitiable) but I feel that this game changed me in subtle ways during my teenage years. Being more accepting of different people for how they think, while also mantaining my own sense of self and what makes myself me.
I love this freaking game so much. It’s super important to me on a personal level, and I hope everyone that gives it a chance gets a little bit out of it! It’s a game made with a lot of passion behind it, and I think it shows clear through its entire run.
tl;dr: Thanks for reading! In case it wasn’t clear, I love this game!
5 Yrs♥✓#
Illusera
5 Yrs♥✓#
Looking back on it, I had a love/hate relationship with this game. I would get frustrated when I was having trouble with my pin setup or just by using certain pins. Then I would figure out how the pins worked and how to make a strategy with the setup and I'd be good until I had to re-evaluate my setup. Maybe just when I was getting to like certain characters there would be a setback and I would get upset with them (although this didn't bother me nearly as much as my gameplay troubles). Sometimes I wondered if I would retire it when I couldn't get a certain function to work, but I always wanted to give it just a little more time each time. Soon enough I would figure things out and would be glad that I had patience with it.
I wouldn't say that this was my favorite game, but on reflecting on it after finishing it I did come to appreciate it more. From your review there are some aspects that I could have explored a bit more. At some point I stopped scanning thoughts and I didn't shop too much. I mainly liked how the story developed, although leveling up the pins was a little addicting; finger burn be damned. Neku was very unlikable in the beginning but you did see that he was willing to give people another try (perhaps like I was willing to give the game another try). His character development was enough that it genuinely felt heartbreaking seeing his reaction when I thought he was still stuck in the Underground at the end of the game. And because Neku had decided to give the world around him a second chance, so did Joshua. Perhaps for different reasons, but all the same.
As it's been said that it resonates more strongly with a younger generation, I sort of wonder if would have had a different takeaway if I had played this when it first came out. Maybe yes, maybe no, but I can still admire the positive message it ends with.
I wouldn't say that this was my favorite game, but on reflecting on it after finishing it I did come to appreciate it more. From your review there are some aspects that I could have explored a bit more. At some point I stopped scanning thoughts and I didn't shop too much. I mainly liked how the story developed, although leveling up the pins was a little addicting; finger burn be damned. Neku was very unlikable in the beginning but you did see that he was willing to give people another try (perhaps like I was willing to give the game another try). His character development was enough that it genuinely felt heartbreaking seeing his reaction when I thought he was still stuck in the Underground at the end of the game. And because Neku had decided to give the world around him a second chance, so did Joshua. Perhaps for different reasons, but all the same.
As it's been said that it resonates more strongly with a younger generation, I sort of wonder if would have had a different takeaway if I had played this when it first came out. Maybe yes, maybe no, but I can still admire the positive message it ends with.
#What I love about this blog is the variety of games in it!