Like most adults I spend a good amount of my week commuting back and forth from work. On the other hand, unlike most adults, I’m a pretty hardcore gamer so I bring my Nintendo DS on the train with me every day. Still not every game is well suited for travel amongst strangers. For example some games have long stretches that don’t allow you to save your progress, so odds are once you reach your stop you will lose all your progress. Other games expect you to scream at your DS and do other embarrassing actions that I don’t even feel comfortable doing in private. Still there are a few games are able to provide a satisfying amount of fun in 20 minute chunks. Currently my favorite example is The World Ends With You, a smartly designed RPG by Square Enix. Thematically I would lump it in with modern urban fantasy such as Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere or the world of White Wolf’s games. In other words you wake up in some alternate version of Shibuya, a trendy area of
The only people who are truly able to see your characters are the Reapers, who act as both referees and antagonists in a greater overarching game. These characters exist to test and challenge the player, erasing them from existence if they fail. In the end the goal is to survive for seven consecutive days and defeat the game master in order to get your normal life back. Still the game is soaked in twisted nightmare logic so don’t expect things to be fair, even when you win you lose and soon your character finds himself enrolled for another seven days accompanied by a different partner. Regardless of which partner accompanies you the basic combat mechanics of the game remain the same. On the bottom screen you control the main character that has a large variety of mental powers that you can trigger with the stylus by dragging and tapping it. On the top screen you have a melee oriented character that strings together combinations of blows by using the touch pad. This means that battles are played out on both screens at once, controlling one with your right hand and the other with your left. While this sounds kind of difficult fortunately the game is extremely flexible, allowing you to customize the difficulty at any given moment and rewarding you for playing on harder settings. Also you are not forced to fight all the time. Except for boss fights you usually pick and choose your encounters by scanning the environment and choosing which monsters you want to eliminate. Later on you will get ambushed sometimes but it never gets as tedious as the Final Fantasy series.
Still despite all the progressive elements I was thoroughly annoyed by the inability to skip dialog, a privilege they reserve for players who have finished the game. Also the clothing available in the game is representative of most Japanese subcultures from Loli Goths to Kogals but no matter what your character wears it only reflects in your stats, it does not affect the way you look at all. While that’s a pretty big thing to ask for it really makes the fashions in the game a purely mechanical element without any stylistic flourish. More interesting is the food you can consume in the game, which provides a bonus but also after a certain amount of battles you get a permanent bonus, which allows you to build your character up over time. Then again you can only eat a certain amount of food each day, and that in combination with the fact that you gain experience between playing sessions I have to admit that this game actually rewards you for taking your time and playing it in small doses instead of playing marathon sessions and finishing it in a few days. And when you do finish the game you get to play it again, but this time it’s actually worthwhile. Not only do they now give you achievements and more back story but also you are able to skip back and forth and play any section of the story you want. So while it does have its flaws I do consider it one of the most modern and fun Japanese RPG’s in recent memory.