| QUOTE |
Setting The World Ends with You's story is based on the fictional "Reapers' Game." The Reapers' Game is a continual week-long contest for the enjoyment of the Reapers. A Composer and a Conductor design the overall Game, while each week, a new Game Master (GM) is chosen to create missions for each day of the week; other Reapers monitor the game, and "erase" any Player that fails. Players, who are people who have recently died in real life (the Real Ground, or RG), are brought into the Game and are offered a second chance at life if they win. However, to enter the Game, each Player must sacrifice their most prized possession. The Game is played in an alternate dimension known as the Underground (UG) across the Shibuya shopping district of Tokyo, Japan. Players are invisible to the people in the RG, though they can read and at times influence their thoughts. Players are required to form a pact with another Player in order to survive, and those that fail to have a partner are also erased by the Reapers. The UG is also home to creatures known as "Noise" that are created from the negative feelings of living persons, and Players are often required to defeat them in order to progress in the Game. Missions are given to the Players via cellphone and their hand is imprinted with a countdown indicating the time left in the mission. After one day's mission is complete, remaining Players are brought to the next day, with no conscious recollection of any events in between. Gameplay The World Ends with You uses common elements of console role-playing games but includes many additional features. The game is broken down into three chapters, following the three weeks that Neku is involved in the Reaper's Game, with each chapter further divided down by each day of the week. The player controls Neku and his partner as they explore Shibuya to complete each day's mission. Though most missions require Neku and his partner to complete within a certain time, this timer is not correlated to the passage of time for the player. Shibuya is divided into several districts, and some districts may be inaccessible on certain days, or may be blocked by a wall that can only be removed by meeting the request of a nearby Reaper, such as killing a number of Noise or obtaining a certain item of clothing. Neku has the ability to scan the area by activating a special pin. This scan will reveal the thoughts of the non-player characters in the Real Ground, which may help to progress the plot. Alternatively, the scan may provide a meme, a word or phrase that Neku can then use to implant into the thoughts of others, such as reminding a mechanic to collect a new fuse from a store. The scan will also reveal random Noise that drift about the area, or in some cases, floating around a specific character. The player can initiate combat by selecting from one to four Noise while scanning in order to start battle; selecting more than one Noise to fight initiates a chain battle, where each consecutive Noise becomes tougher, but also leads to better rewards such as more yen or more powerful "psych pins" if won. In some cases, the Noise may attack Neku if the scan is initiated. The player can alter the benefits earned from battle by changing both the difficulty of the Noise and the amount of hit points Neku and his partner have going into battle through the game's menus. Each district has fashion trends that affect gameplay. By wearing pins or clothing from the more popular brands in that district, the effects of the items will be improved; wearing less popular fashions will do the opposite. However, the player can alter the fashion trends of the district by wearing less popular fashions into repeated battles. Players can enter selected shops to buy new pins and clothes, as well as food items that are gradually consumed during battles to improve the characters' basic attributes. A secondary game called "Tin Pin Slammer" is incorporated into the game which can be played by oneself against computer opponents or with up to 3 others via the local wireless capabilities of the DS. "Tin Pin Slammer" is similar to marbles, with each player attempting to use their pins one at a time to knock the other players' pins off the gameboard. Combat The game's combat system is called the "Stride Cross Battle System". The combat takes place across both screens on the DS, with Neku on the touchscreen and his current partner on the top screen; the two characters battle the same enemies simultaneously. The player controls Neku by using touchscreen actions based on the currently equipped pins. These actions may include slashing across an enemy, tapping the screen rapidly to fire bullets, or holding down on an enemy to inflict damage. Other pins need to be touched to activate them, such as for health restoration. Each pin has a limited number of uses before it must "reboot", during which time those actions produce no result. Other pins may only be used a fixed number of times during a series of battles, and do not reboot until the battle sequence is over. Neku can only be equipped with a maximum of three pins at the game's start; this can eventually be upgraded to six. The player has the ability to assign certain pins as subsidiary to others, requiring that one of the shoulder buttons on the DS be held down before their power can be activated through touchscreen motions. Neku's partner on the top screen can be controlled by the player, though the player can opt to have this character controlled by the game. Each of Neku's partners has a slightly different approach, but in general, attacks are made by completing a sequence of card-based games. For example, Neku's first partner, Shiki, requires that face-down Zener cards be correctly identified. To select a card, the player uses the directional pad or face buttons to navigate through a pathway to select the card to be used; if the card is correct, the partner will make earn a star. When enough stars are earned, a special pin appears on the touchscreen side allowing for a combination "Fusion" attack of both Neku and his partner to be unleashed; each series of stars can build up this attack further if it is not used. The player can also help the partner character dodge attacks. Neku and his partner are in synchronization during battle; they share the same health meter so that even if one character does not take any damage, the pair can fail in battle if the other takes too much. A green "light puck" will pass between the characters during battle; when the character has this puck, their damage is increased. The movement of the light puck is determined by the "sync ratio" between Neku and his partner, with the puck staying longer with one character with higher ratios, and equipment that causes the puck to move faster or slower between characters. |