Longtime listeners of a podcast we do here on The Outerhaven, the Nintendo Entertainment Podcast, will know that I am a big fan of The World Ends With You. I got it on the Nintendo DS way back when and then got The World Ends with You: Final Remix when it came out to Switch because I wanted a sequel to this game more than anything. And now, we’re about a month away from the release of the said sequel in NEO The World Ends With You. To help get people “back to Shibuya”, they released a demo for it, and I have to say, this is shaping up to be pretty fun. So here we go folks, my NEO The World Ends With You Demo Impressions for you all to enjoy!
So, right off the bat, NEO The World Ends With You‘s demo shows just how different things are from the first game. For example, you play as a young teen named Rindo, who is hanging out with his best friend “Fret” when things start to go from strange, to weird, to deadly, to finally…they’re in the Reaper’s Game. But not unlike a certain other protagonist from the franchise, HOW they got there is a bit…unclear. One of many mysteries to come in this game no doubt.
Easily one of the first things that strikes me about NEO The World Ends With You is the visuals. The first game (and especially its remix) did its best with the 2D visuals from the DS and the Switch, but NEO takes it to a whole new level. Blending 2D, 3D, and particle effects in a way that makes it feel fresh and fun while still being true to the game’s origins.
The picture above is from one of the cutscenes in the opening section and I honestly didn’t notice any frame rate drops or anything (and I always play my Switch in handheld mode) so we’re in for some very fun shots when things get even crazier.
Furthermore, unlike the first game which had a bit of a “talking head syndrome” at points with characters just staying on screen and “swiping” in and out for other ones, NEO takes it to a more entrancing level by making it feel more like a comic-book feel by making things get bigger, smaller, cutting in and out and so on. It makes every talking scene feel free and while the “talking heads” was still present, it wasn’t as bad because of the variety of styles they sometimes did.
Of course, for many, the big question is how different NEO The World Ends With You is from the original. The answer is…different…but also an evolution. I’ll explain.
For example, a lot of the elements of the original game are here. From the Reaper’s Game to the Reapers, to the “You Have 7 Days” element, fighting noise, scans, doing puzzles, etc. But the evolution of NEO is how they take things and they twist them to make them feel special and fresh.
A great example is your “teams’. In the original game, you only had partners, which is why Neku had arcs with Shiki, Joshua, and Beat. Here, you “teams”, and you’re all but told you NEED teams to survive. Rinoda and Fret are part of the team, obviously. But one spoiled twist is that former antagonist Minamimoto from the original game is “on your side”. And if you don’t know who that is…YOU’RE SO ZETTA SLOW!!!!
So since you have more partners this time around, how does the combat work? In short, each member of your team has a Badge (very much like the original game with Neku) that they can use in combat. But this time, you ONLY have one badge per person, You press X, Y, R, ZL, and so on to activate the badge ability to strike at the noise. The goal is to work together without overly relying on one badge to go and get victory over the noise.
Admittedly, it can get a little chaotic in the 3D space that you are now in. But, if you play it right, and take your time via a few fights, you’ll pick it up pretty easily and get some strategies going despite this only being a demo.
Another thing that’s evolved is the “scan” feature because apparently, you and your teammates will have “latent abilities” that can go help people do certain things. Rinoda seems to have a time-travel feature while Fret can “remind” people of certain things that’ll help you on your daily missions. It’s a simple addition, but it really works here.
This brings us to…how long IS the demo? It’s surprisingly robust. We go through the first day “days” and we get a true sense of just how big the scope of NEO The World Ends With You is. We get teases of mysteries with the Reapers, a mystery person named “Swallow” who somehow can contact Rinoda despite him not being able to contact others, a glimpse of the other “teams’ we’ll be facing within the first 7 days of the game, and more.
I also want to pause and give a shoutout to the characters of the game and how well they’re written. The original game very much played up Neku Sakuraba as the “amnesiac protagonist” mixed with an “emo personality” and Shiki (along with others) have to draw out his drew nature and personality. Here, with NEO, Rinoda and Fret have their own dynamic that is really fun to watch. And when you add that in with some of the others you meet, like the Reaper Shoka, you already have a rich dynamic of what this game can be.
Another thing I want to praise is how they portray Shibuya as a whole. The game has more or less a fixed-camera style and it works here. But also, we get to see Shibuya in an exaggerated way that allows it to feel like a mysterious place versus just another city you’re in. A little detail I liked is the people you see in the “RG” that you hear thoughts from. They’re the literal “faceless masses” and it really paints a picture of just how different things are for you here.
I have no doubt I’ve only scratched the surface of NEO The World Ends With You via this demo. But what I’ve played is a lot of fun, I wish I didn’t have to wait until next month to see more. But if the Final Trailer for the game is any indication, once we start playing, it’s going to be a rush from start to finish.
The demo is out now for Switch and PS4, and you can enjoy it until NEO The World Ends With You releases on July 27th!
