DS #2230: The World Ends With You (Europe)

[jhoff80]

I'm on chapter 1 day 3, and might not pick the game up again after what I did today. Its partly my fault but I started the game today at the beginning of Day 3, and since I was having such an easy time of things, put my level down to 1, played through until I walked right into a cutscene, after which it threw me into the middle of a boss fight. Of course, I had realized a boss fight was coming up as soon as I got to the cutscene, but there was no way for me to go back into the phone and put my level up to full (13 at that point.) So basically, I died and now I'm back where I started at.

I know, my fault for not saving more, but I wish there had been a way to change my level back during the cutscene, or even a little time after the conversation was over to change before I was forced to fight the noise.

I know I'm lying and I'll play it some more, but still, its very frustrating.

 

[Kellicros]

I'm on chapter 1 day 3, and might not pick the game up again after what I did today. Its partly my fault but I started the game today at the beginning of Day 3, and since I was having such an easy time of things, put my level down to 1, played through until I walked right into a cutscene, after which it threw me into the middle of a boss fight. Of course, I had realized a boss fight was coming up as soon as I got to the cutscene, but there was no way for me to go back into the phone and put my level up to full (13 at that point.) So basically, I died and now I'm back where I started at.

I know, my fault for not saving more, but I wish there had been a way to change my level back during the cutscene, or even a little time after the conversation was over to change before I was forced to fight the noise.

I know I'm lying and I'll play it some more, but still, its very frustrating.

Moral of story: save more often.

Or you can choose "replay in simple" in the game over screen.

 

[Harpuia]

I'm on chapter 1 day 3, and might not pick the game up again after what I did today. Its partly my fault but I started the game today at the beginning of Day 3, and since I was having such an easy time of things, put my level down to 1, played through until I walked right into a cutscene, after which it threw me into the middle of a boss fight. Of course, I had realized a boss fight was coming up as soon as I got to the cutscene, but there was no way for me to go back into the phone and put my level up to full (13 at that point.) So basically, I died and now I'm back where I started at.

I know, my fault for not saving more, but I wish there had been a way to change my level back during the cutscene, or even a little time after the conversation was over to change before I was forced to fight the noise.

I know I'm lying and I'll play it some more, but still, its very frustrating.

Moral of story: save more often.

Or you can choose "replay in simple" in the game over screen.

You won't get that until later.

Ah well, missing out on such an awesome game.

I guess so far it's either love or hate for this game

 

[IAmTheRad]

Sweet! After getting past the 'freezing' part with the open-close method, it worked fine!

 

[Dragonlord]

Thought about making a review about this one... maybe. So here just a short round-up of the game.

The story is good... well... if you consider this "kind" of story good. It keeps you hooked but only because the characters are all dumbfags unable to drive story forward in a reasonable time. Everything stretched out very long. Story could have been done with in less than a quarter of the time. Many complained about the emo character but he goes away roughly around the end of the first week. Music is definitely the best thing and it's one of the few DS games I pull out my phones for. Although this game itself would be in very good shape all-around it has a serious problem: gameplay.

Dual-Screen fights would be possible if the controls don't require matching key sequences. Old game-dev rule: key-matching is something to tick people off so use it VERY wisely... they did not. Furthermore many pen-moves for triggering attacks do fail. Only "tap empty spac", "tap enemy" or "swipes" ( example ice pilar ) do work as expected. Most others just fail. So the end result is you chain-gunning all time ( fill neku up with tap/swipe moves and just chain-gun them without thinking and keep pressing > constantly for shiki ). high scores and leveling like an ass ( as well as collecting drops like hell ) is way too easy. Chaining 4 battles is a joke like that. The only thing that can trip you a bit are boss fights... but not because they would be hard but because you can not switch your level-lock as soon as you realized you slide into a boss fight ( I always got caught with 25-50% level-lock... still beat them though but it's annoying ).

Many judge this game while playing the first week: DON'T! More and more things are unlocked along the path but unfortunately the battles get so sick and stupid that it's not funny any more. Especially in week 3 you are just going to zip through the story as fast as possible since combat makes you vomit. Where the first week is a sleeping pillow what goes for combat the third is just next to impossible ( on normal with chains! ). Also the first week has "missions" which give the gameplay purpose to exist. Unfortunately week 2 and 3 the missions are more or less vanished replaced by annoying children games ( tin pin? who designed this damned crap! ) and annoying mini-games ( like match noise patterns to continue or hunt down memes and inject them into people... come on... is this kindergarden? ). It's a pity since this kills the very good impression of the first week.

Finally... customization. I don't know what they smoked but it must be damn good. There's a lot of stuff to buy ( music, cloth, pins ) but most of them are useless at best. The stats bonus they give are unimportant ( +50HP? ... rofl... put your level-lock one notch to the right and you have the same effect ) and their "special abbilities" often as useless. There are a few exceptions... which you are though never able to use since everyone except shiki has bravery under 60 and the stuff with the useful abilities is usually 100 and above. So tons of useless stuff and the only useful thing... can not be acquired. They should have stripped all this useless crap from the game and concentrating on the meat of it.

So is this good or bad? Tricky to say. It's one of those games polarizing: either you like it a lot or you hate it a lot. The story and especially the music are good but the combat and the useless customization is bad. Furthermore week 1 is good ( due to missions ) and week 2 and 3 are only good due to story as the rest is going to annoy you. I would give this a try for sure. Buying it though is a different story. It's a cat in the bag if you buy it without knowing it. Testing 3 or 6 days into the game is not going to tell you all that is so chances are you get burned once hitting week 2 or 3.

Game-Dev recommendations:
- Get rid of customization or make them useful
- Introduce missions again in the later weeks since they give all some sense
- Take out the tricky controls and use simpler ones so the intended focus on combos finally gets some weight.

 

[xshinox]

um..i cant get ds lazy/ds buff to swap the voices. everytime i try, the .nds file ends with 119mb and when i load it, it asks to create save file which i do so and it just freezes from there. how did you get it to work?

 

[knl]

...any solution to getting mingle PP for us third-world peoples who know of no-one with actual DSes to mingle with?

ps. mingle PP is needed to evolve a lot of badges

 

[Harpuia]

...any solution to getting mingle PP for us third-world peoples who know of no-one with actual DSes to mingle with?

ps. mingle PP is needed to evolve a lot of badges

Leave it on overnight for Aliens.

 

[knl]

...any solution to getting mingle PP for us third-world peoples who know of no-one with actual DSes to mingle with?

ps. mingle PP is needed to evolve a lot of badges

Leave it on overnight for Aliens.

hey, that worked, I got 3 in one night O_O

 

[Dragonlord]

...any solution to getting mingle PP for us third-world peoples who know of no-one with actual DSes to mingle with?

ps. mingle PP is needed to evolve a lot of badges

So that's what this mingle stuff is for. I really don't like games that "force" me to play with others to get important stuff ( since I can't... blame the crappy WiFi hardware in the NDS ).

 

[Doomsday Forte]

All right, managed to get it working with the SAV file, but I have yet another concern: I know that there's a New Game+ feature in this game. Having not gotten very far in this game at the moment, but wouldn't the cutscene freezing problem occur there too?

 

[jhoff80]

So, I lied in my last post, I ended up picking it up again, though I'm now paranoid about saving. (And now I get the retry option, would have been nice then.)

 

[Urza]

All right, managed to get it working with the SAV file, but I have yet another concern: I know that there's a New Game+ feature in this game. Having not gotten very far in this game at the moment, but wouldn't the cutscene freezing problem occur there too?

If theres cut scenes, I'd imagine it would.

 

[Doomsday Forte]

All right, managed to get it working with the SAV file, but I have yet another concern: I know that there's a New Game+ feature in this game. Having not gotten very far in this game at the moment, but wouldn't the cutscene freezing problem occur there too?

If theres cut scenes, I'd imagine it would.

Hrmm, sounds like a "do everything you can before you beat it the first time" kind of situation then. I honestly hope there isn't any post-game content, which I have a sneaking suspicion that it does. =\

I wonder how the (U) release is going to fare?

 

[IAmTheRad]

There is post game content. The only cutscene that freezes the game, is the one in the beginning. Other cutscenes work out fine.

 

[Urza]

There is alot of post-game content.

 

[ndela007]

Just my $0.02, this game is fantastic. The music is fun, the difficulty curve is enjoyable, and finally having a purely stylus game that is enjoyable has pleased me. Also for you folks with problems with the M.PP (mingle pp), just set your game to mingle mode and let it sit while you are not playing. Random chance encounters with 'Aliens' equate to 100pp a pop.

Oh yeah, do not forget to stuff your face with food, those second bonuses are permanent and can make a -huge- difference.

 

[King Zargo]

Game of the Month!!!

 

[Dragonlord]

Just my $0.02, this game is fantastic. The music is fun, the difficulty curve is enjoyable, and finally having a purely stylus game that is enjoyable has pleased me. Also for you folks with problems with the M.PP (mingle pp), just set your game to mingle mode and let it sit while you are not playing. Random chance encounters with 'Aliens' equate to 100pp a pop.

Oh yeah, do not forget to stuff your face with food, those second bonuses are permanent and can make a -huge- difference.

Yeah, which is exactly the problem ( didn't mention it explicitly in the mini-review ). You have to wait 24 real hours before you can eat again. Rather stupid to have to eat some stuff and digest it ( I would say at best 10 minutes ) and then waiting 24 hours before doing the next feeding. How did Yathzee say so well? The definition of a game is to amuse you not that you have to go amuse yourself "while" you play a game ( which is here the case ).

 

[Szyslak]

Little late to the table here, but DAMN I love this game. When it came out, I played into the second day for a while and put it down, thinking it was just decent. So glad I picked it back up. The gameplay is awesome. The customization is great. I'm even starting to really dig the music.

There were a couple of main turning points for me in my enjoyment of the game. First and foremost, chaining battles. Going from fighting one at a time (boring) to 4 in a row (awesome) really made me appreciate the battle system. "How's my HP? Which pin will I start off with this time? Use the synch pin or let it level again? What's the fastest possible combo to kill these types of noise?". Turned it into a whole new game for me. Now it seems like every time I unlock a new book or ability, it just gets better. Can't wait to find that next awesome pin.

Now I'm a good bit farther into the game (How do you say where without spoilers?), and I think I'll be sinking quite a bit more time into this. Well done SE. By far the best game of the year at this point.