NEO: The World Ends With You

[darksnowman]

Final trailer even though the release date is still a month out.

Various sites are saying that a demo will be available any day now (the source they all echo is a deleted S-E tweet) so I'll report back if and when it happens. It would be good to get some hands-on time with NTWEWY to see what the controls feel like. Maybe when the eShop updates later?

(Searched for a thread to bump but didn't see anything.  Feel free to merge as required, Lord @Ike!)

 

[Map]

Demo is up on PS4/5, hopefully up on switch as well.

[darksnowman]

25 minutes ago, Map said:

Demo is up on PS4/5, hopefully up on switch as well.

Great.  Looking forward to trying it over the weekend.

[Sméagol]

36 minutes ago, Map said:

Demo is up on PS4/5, hopefully up on switch as well.

It is, I'm downloading it now.

Looking forward to getting this. I don't intend to buy many games this year, but this will be one of the few (maybe monster hunters stories as well). It helps that I'm not interested in golf or skating.

I never finished the original though, maybe I'll try to play that before the game arrives. But not having to worry about a 2nd screen is kind of a relieve.

[Glen-i]

4 minutes ago, Sméagol said:

I never finished the original though, maybe I'll try to play that before the game arrives. But not having to worry about a 2nd screen is kind of a relieve.

Honestly? As unique as that game is, I never felt like I got to grips with fighting on two screens at once.

Far too confusing.

[nekunando]

15 hours ago, Glen-i said:

Honestly? As unique as that game is, I never felt like I got to grips with fighting on two screens at once.

Far too confusing.

I really enjoyed the flexibility of assigning your preferred pins to Neku and having a blast on the bottom screen.. but I basically just kept pressing directions randomly on the top screen until I was fortunate enough for something to trigger 😅

[darksnowman]

For some reason or another, I thought this would be little more than a vapid cash-in but it's actually really cool.

Only downside in the demo, imo, is the loading into and out of battles. At least coming out you can look at the battle stats.

[Sméagol]

Yeah I enjoyed the demo.

I'm again enjoying the vibe and setting, walking around in Shibuya. Combat seems cool, though a bit easy so far in the demo. The last boss in the demo was the only one to remove a chunk of my health, and that was more because I was playing on autopilot at that point, you could get away with spamming your powers. I had even lowered my level, for extra pins. But I assume things will get harder after this, especially oif you can change the difficulty, something you couldn't do in the demo. Loved collecting and evolving pins, there's plenty of stuff to collect again.

I had a few minor niggles, but nothing major so far. One thing is I don't like having no camera control, though weirdly enough I only felt that way while roaming around, I didn't have any problems with the auto camera during battles. The more significant niggle was, as @darksnowman already mentioned, the loading times. So far they haven't been too annoying, as you don't actually have to fight that much, but maybe that's different later on.

But overall I'm excited.

[darksnowman]

21 hours ago, Sméagol said:

Yeah I enjoyed the demo.

I'm again enjoying the vibe and setting, walking around in Shibuya. Combat seems cool, though a bit easy so far in the demo. The last boss in the demo was the only one to remove a chunk of my health, and that was more because I was playing on autopilot at that point, you could get away with spamming your powers. I had even lowered my level, for extra pins. But I assume things will get harder after this, especially oif you can change the difficulty, something you couldn't do in the demo. Loved collecting and evolving pins, there's plenty of stuff to collect again.

I had a few minor niggles, but nothing major so far. One thing is I don't like having no camera control, though weirdly enough I only felt that way while roaming around, I didn't have any problems with the auto camera during battles. The more significant niggle was, as @darksnowman already mentioned, the loading times. So far they haven't been too annoying, as you don't actually have to fight that much, but maybe that's different later on.

But overall I'm excited.

I got a game over in my second battle!  I'm not sure what happened but it seemed like the yellowy-blue lion one-shotted me because the encounter ended very quickly. So zetta quickly that I thought it was a forced death to teach me something about the rules of dying in the Reapers' Game. It wasn't, and after that I mashed Y + X to an A grade victory. Mashing with no real thought turned out to be enough for the demo--I hope the full game has more depth and strategy to it. 

The Buya looks great, yeah! I like the way the tall buildings and skyscrapers lean down as you head in certain directions. I tried to turn the camera too, but I think having it fixed is totally fine for this... it would help more if the map in the lower corner was oriented in the same direction as the fixed camera view because it didn't seem like running left on screen, for example, took me left on the map. A strange way of presenting things, imo.

The loading times aren't annoying, I agree, but they are noticeable which is what I find strange. At least loading out of battle has the results screen to camouflage it, but no attempt has been made (in the demo) to mask the few seconds it takes to load in. It's a wee bit jarring as otherwise the game seems pretty smooth!

Displaying noise erased rather than "NOISE CANCELLED!" at the end of battle is a missed opportunity.  

[darksnowman]

Launch trailer!

[Sméagol]

Got this yesterday, and have been playing all night. Loving it, I like the battle system, and love to collect everything. I like trying out the new pins, got my first game over when I was trying a couple of new ones that took some adjusting of my playstyle. It's a bit like a rhythm game in that, as you have to figure out how to best combo your attacks, as this is how you do well.I've unlocked hard (and easy), so I'm playing mostly hard 10 levels below, but I'll check the other difficulties to see if they have some exclusive pins I'm not getting on hard. I'm on day 7, but the game's only about 18% complete. Got 55 or something pins out of over 300.

[Dcubed]

Decided to pick up the physical version for this one.  Normally I’d get digital first and then physical later when it’s cheaper; but I figured that chances are that this game’s physical version will become rare very quickly, as S-E don’t seem particularly interested in giving this game much of a push (so I suspect a very low print run).  So figured I might as well pick it up physically now while I can and I’ll nab the digital version on discount later  

Edited July 30, 2021 by Dcubed

[darksnowman]

It is between NEO: TWEWY and P5S for OST of the year.* Great songs and music in both. Gives the games their strong identity, energises the player, you can't help but crank the volume. These OSTs are packed with material that you can brazenly slot into your iTunes rotation. 

It has been years and years since the first TWEWY dominated "best of" discussions across the gaming world, yet in the year the long-anticipated sequel has arrived, NEO has been stuck on the peripheries of the 2021 nominees--perhaps garnering a passing best of the rest mention, more likely overlooked entirely. Make no mistake about it: NTWEWY is outright one of the best games of 2021 and the OST easily stands up against the best the year has to offer, too. It's noisy like the crowded city streets, hip like the cast, catchy, headbanging, raw and emotional. There are battles you wish lasted longer so you could smack the enemies around for another verse of a song you particularly enjoy. Returning songs are held back for the moment they will get you most hepped up. 

P5S, you are fantastic--a credit to musou--and I want to see and hear more from your series on Switch, but NEO: The World Ends With You takes it!   

 

* Disclaimer: not sure I've played much from 2021 so all my awards (bar disappointment of the year) would likely be split between these two and the Bowser's Fury half of 3D World. 

[nekunando]

On 31/12/2021 at 11:15 AM, darksnowman said:

Make no mistake about it: NTWEWY is outright one of the best games of 2021

Definitely been thinking about it while it's still on sale at £24.99 on eShop..

[Glen-i]

I bought it. The original game, while confusing, was a fun time.

That said, I bought, like, 6 other RPG's as well in that sale, so no idea when I'll feel like starting it, but I will.

Edited January 5, 2022 by Glen-i

[WackerJr]

15 hours ago, Glen-i said:

I bought it. The original game, while confusing, was a fun time.

That said, I bought, like, 6 other RPG's as well in that sale, so no idea when I'll feel like starting it, but I will.

Haha - similar situation here! 😁 NTWEWY is also on sale physically in a few places right now for both Switch and PS4 (Amazon, Game) so I gave in to temptation!

[darksnowman]

On 04/01/2022 at 1:35 PM, nekunando said:

Definitely been thinking about it while it's still on sale at £24.99 on eShop..

Seems like the cart isn't on sale anymore but worth getting next time the price dips. Plenty of hours to be had from it.

On 04/01/2022 at 11:44 PM, Glen-i said:

I bought it. The original game, while confusing, was a fun time.

That said, I bought, like, 6 other RPG's as well in that sale, so no idea when I'll feel like starting it, but I will.

Tales of Vesperia is down again if you haven't got it already.  

On 05/01/2022 at 3:21 PM, WackerJr said:

Haha - similar situation here! 😁 NTWEWY is also on sale physically in a few places right now for both Switch and PS4 (Amazon, Game) so I gave in to temptation!

Just right. No need to deprive yourself of NEO any longer!

[Hero-of-Time]

With Resident Evil VII done and dusted, I was looking for my next game to play. I wanted it to be an RPG and I seen this sat on the shelf. I picked it up last year when it was on sale and figured now would be a good time to play it. Not sure how much time i've put into it ( on day 7 ) but i've really enjoyed what i've experienced so far.

The game is stupidly stylish. The original game was but this one takes it to another level, what with it being 3D this time around. It actually gives me strong Persona 5 vibes. One of the characters even reminds me of Futaba. Here are a few pics I snapped.

Spoiler

I'm happy to see the gameplay is pretty much the same as the original game but what impresses me most is just how well they've managed to translate a 2D, dual screen game into a 3D game that uses a single screen. The battles work perfectly and I actually think it's less cumbersome than the original game. Ideally I have a set up of pins where I can hold one of the triggers down and spam square and triangle to unleash other attacks that way. This leaves one of the other buttons ready for when the other moves are in cooldown. It's been working out quite well.

What i've been doing is grinding exp to level up any new pins I get before I move on. I also pop into the cafe to get an attack stat boost for each of the characters, do more battles until the characters are hungry and then repeat a few times. I've also been hanging around areas to collect pins from the enemies via the difficulty selection option. With me being a very high level, this has allowed me to lower my level a fair few times to boost the drop rates from the enemies. This nets me more pins to sell, which in turn makes it so I can buy more food items to boost my stats. The gameplay loop is stupidly satisfying, so much so that I am VERY overpowered. I done a mission this morning where the recommended level was 12 and yet my team is level 32.  One of the trophies is to get to level 100 and so i'm well on my way to that.

Yup, really impressed with what i've played and look forward to seeing how the story plays out. There have been a few references to the original game already, as well as a returning character, and so I wouldn't be surprised to see a few more cameo appearances before the game has ended.

[Glen-i]

I'm aiming for 100% on this and am at 95% at the moment.

Pretty much agree with everything you said, @Hero-of-Time. Stylish and less confusing then the DS game.

I wouldn't say the battles are 1:1 with the DS game though. We already know what happens when you try and cram that into a single screen concept. It sucks. So I'm very thankful NEO tweaks it for the jump to 3D and the lack of a touch screen. Because while I did enjoy the DS game, the battles were too hard for me to keep up with.

I know this was in the original, but I love all the different ways you can tweak the drop rate in this game. Lowering your level (appreciate that level only affects your HP, so fights don't get spongey), chaining fights, wearing certain threads, boosting your base drop rate with tasty bonuses. It makes all but the hardest of fights fairly reasonable to get the corresponding pin.

That said, I am starting to hit a bit of a wall with fighting the last few post-credits bosses on Ultimate Difficulty to grab those pins. They are no joke. Getting one shotted is very possible. I'm still wearing sub-optimal threads though to get those Metabo Boosts and I'm ignoring some threads that improve drop rates because they stop you getting EXP/PP. But when I get everyone's stats maxed out and reach level 100, we'll see if it's more manageable.

It's wack this game didn't do well.

Edited May 17, 2022 by Glen-i

[Hero-of-Time]

Done some grinding before finishing off the first week. I ended up getting to level 40 and had everyone's attack stats on 250 or above. I haven't bothered boosting my defence stat that much. I figure if I kill them quick then I shouldn't need to worry about taking damage.  Gotta say, feels satisfying bringing those shark enemies down in a matter of seconds. I hated them in the original and they still cause bother early on in this game.

Spoiler

After beating the boss of the first week, I had some dude show up to help me. Pretty sure it aint Neku though, despite what characters were saying on screen. This kid had different colour hair to him.

 

[Glen-i]

16 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Done some grinding before finishing off the first week. I ended up getting to level 40 and had everyone's attack stats on 250 or above. I haven't bothered boosting my defence stat that much. I figure if I kill them quick then I shouldn't need to worry about taking damage.

Sound reasoning, but the base attack and defense only goes up to 500. Don't be like me and find yourself with maxed out defense on one character and having to spend an abnormal amount of time getting attack up to scratch when everyone else is done.

You'd be better off in the long run choosing food that your party members like, because if you're lucky, you'll get a drop rate boost. Not to mention the random stat boosts you get from them as well. It's just more efficient when none of your stats are maxed out.

Edited May 17, 2022 by Glen-i

[Hero-of-Time]

9 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Sound reasoning, but the base attack and defense only goes up to 500. Don't be like me and find yourself with maxed out defense on one character and having to spend an abnormal amount of time getting attack up to scratch when everyone else is done.

Everyone is drinking the same thing and so there there isn't much difference between them in terms of stats. I'll be doing the same for the other stats as well, just picking one item that everyone eats/drinks.

[darksnowman]

I haven't got far enough to need to worry about min-maxing. I just ordered whatever food and drink I fancied having and if the characters shot beams of light out of their mouths all the better.  

[Hero-of-Time]

Week 2 Day 2 was a bit of a dip in quality. The constant back and forth between areas and endless running around looking for someone really dragged on. It also didn't help that you're a man down during this whole thing, which meant the battles took a little longer. Still, I managed to get through it and the payoff was well worth it. The boss battle was hilarious and the story beats that followed...

Spoiler

Beat is back, baby! Loved his introduction and I went all Thor when he was revealed. 

What made this perfect was Calling from the original game started playing after his reveal. Amazing stuff. 

The next day has me with a full squad again. The main 3 characters now have their attack levels in the 350 area and with a 4th member now added to the team, I should be able to wreck the battles again.

[Glen-i]

Spoiler

Yeah, Beat was a very welcome return! I always liked him in the DS game, and the larger voice acting focus in NEO only made it better.

Also helps that he has the best dodge animation, it's more fluid then the others, so he's left open for a shorter time. Very useful for later fights.

His threads are great too! You can get him to do more then double the damage by the endgame. Keep an eye out for Attack Boost threads that only he can use. Character specific skills have a stronger effect then the generic, all-character ones. (Provided you have the style for it)