Hands On: NEO: The World Ends With You Brings a Stylish Afterlife to PS4
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A little-known but well-loved entry in Square Enix's JRPG pantheon, The World Ends With You is a unique experience with gorgeous art from Kingdom Hearts director Tetsuyo Nomura. The game looked at concepts like social media influence and memetic learning way before those things were as pervasive as they are today. Nomura's designs, alongside the surprisingly deep stylus-driven combat, cemented it as a cult classic. Now, 14 years after its Nintendo DS debut, original director Tatsuya Kando’s sequel comes to PS4.
Our hands-on of NEO: The World Ends With You covers the first couple of hours, putting us in the shoes of moody teen Rindo as he sulks through the bustling streets of Shibuya. With his head buried in chat apps and mobile games, the mundane thoughts of faceless (literally) Tokyo denizens float around him. Before you can say "look both ways", Rin and his friend Fret are hit by traffic and find themselves in another reality, one in which they are competitors of the mysterious Reaper’s Game. It's a series of challenges that incorporate riddles and battles, the prize and ultimate purpose unknown to our newly-deceased protagonists. Alongside fellow competitors and previous winners, known as Reapers, the UG (short for Underground) is overrun with enemies called ‘Noise’.