NEO: The World Ends With You is ALMOST Good | PS5 (BC)/NSW | REVIEW

The World Ends With You was a fascinating, experimental game from the mind of Tetsuya Nomura. The sequel promised much of the same, and delivered in most places - but where did it fall short? Find out now!
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[@Itsa.Me-Megan]

An extremely well thought-out review. I very much appreciate that your opinions of the game aren't just all rainbows and butterflies, but actual detailed critique. Bravo!

[@Asai]

Thank you! I hope if you dive into NEO that you find more to enjoy than I did, because I do so absolutely love everything besides the gameplay. Despite my complaints, I still appreciate NEO - and any game that marches to the beat of its own drum, for that matter.

[@contidozack]

Man I love your reviews with comparison between switch and PS4 performances. I found your channel through the YS IX review. I subscribed. Btw I’m Vietnamese just like you!

[@Asai]

Thank you! I’m glad you liked the videos, and I hope I can continue making content that you enjoy! =]

[@maxg2335]

Always happy to see this game receive criticism because I think it really deserves it. I want to share the comment I made in another critical review. I can't stand the padding in the missions and how they push off character development until the third week (or in Nagi's case, just plain don't have any arc at all) While doing so little with the their time in the second week. No character bonding moments or anything. Weirdly Frets moment of “I’m gonna be more genuine” doesn’t even lead to anything. Normally the result of character growth is for the character to perform an action they wouldn’t otherwise which will push the plot forward but Fret never does anything majorly significant after that moment. Makes me wonder if the plot would be any different without him. It gets good in the third week but until then I'm supposed to be invested in a thin, snail paced plot with characters I don't know beyond the surface level thus don’t care about while spending way too long doing whatever chore that daily mission demands of me. Edit: Also Sasukichis motive for helping Shiba despite not agreeing with him is a cliche I always thought was really stupid. Maybe if they explored it more then it’d make more sense but as it is; I thought he was a really lame villain.

[@maxg2335]

@@thebigchungus4515 Maybe I just have good taste in characters and appreciate good writing. Unlike you 🤷‍♂️

[@sonicsenryaku6205]

​@@maxg2335 I certainly wouldn't call you an idiot; but I personally don't think your read on the characters and the story in general is an accurate one. For one, characters don't need arcs to feel as if they matter in a story. The point of character writing isn't necessarily growth; growth is just the easiest way for an audience to understand a character and their journey. What's most important when it comes to character writing is clarity in the depiction of the individuals cognitive, emotional, and behavioral psychology through the use of their actions, providing a cohesive and emphatic understanding of who they are as a person. As long as the writing achieves that, you don't need to rely on character arcs. It just so happens that character arcs help achieve those aforementioned factors. That being said, just like with you, I've notice some people's criticism of the game's character writing being, "Oh, the characters don't start to develop or have an arc until week 3" and for the life of me, I can't understand that criticism because it's absolutely false. I can't see how anyone who played the game and engaged themselves with the story would think most of the characters didn't start having an arc or development until week 3. It's just inherently untrue, but whatever. To be honest, Neo handles it's storytelling with more subtlety than the original, and in some ways shows better skill at fleshing out characters than the original game did. Mind you, I think TWEWY's has a better paced and more tightly-knit narrative, allowing the story to conclude without feeling as if there are extraneous loose ends unlike Neo (I feel like the developers really wanted to make a game between the original and Neo or didn't have enough time to flesh some the story ideas they had in mind). While the characters in the original had notable conflicts, the writing also went out of its way directly spell out to the audience what each cast members' struggle was and how it affected their personhood. It's an effective form of storytelling no doubt as it's able to create immediate emotional investment, especially if the characters are overcoming a conflict that feels generally important or personal or emotional extreme. If inner conflict is clear to the audience, then they will "clearly" be invested; simple enough, right? Neo takes a different approach by letting the character interactions illuminate what their inner conflicts are rather than just outright stating: "This is my character conflict and my arc." It's a more organic storytelling approach than the original, which I actually like more as it gives the characters time to interact with each other in a more relatable way, which then allows the audience to make inferences based on the outcomes of those interactions and build connections to the characters through those organic situations. Despite my praise for Neo, it's worth mentioning that the original Twewy was able to set up what can be argued as heavier emotional stakes that build gradually throughout it's 3 weeks through well-thought out tension, making the story feel compelling and emotionally gripping. In addition, Neku's character journey felt relatable and poignant, tying nicely to the themes of the game which are presented in such a straight-forward manner that it was easy to sew emotional investment in the hearts of audiences for years to come. As a package, I think Twewy's story presentation is better, but Neo doesn't fall too short. There are plenty of highs in its storytelling, not just from a lore standpoint but also a character one too. Rindo's character arc is actually handled more fluidly and organically than Neku's, and I find it surprising that people don't talk about that enough, or talk about how Beat's character growth is expanded on through his interactions with the wicked twisters; how Fret's indifference to being genuine is sprinkled throughout the 3 weeks before it culminates in Kanon's death and the mutual respect he and Nagi grow for each other by the end of it; or how Nagi is presented as a neurotic individual who makes strides to observe and understand people, whether she likes them or not, being a thoughtful individual and always doing her best to keep everyone happy despite she herself not knowing how to keep it together; or how Shoka has to betray her family of Shinjuku reapers to make a responsible decision to do what's right; how her character arc kind of parallels Rindo intentionally. Shoka is definitely the deuteragonist of Neo and it shows in her development, which is literally laid out throughout the entirety of the three weeks of the game. Again, I don't get the, "things don't start happening till week 3" criticisms, but it's cool I guess. There's so much more I could say but I'll leave that for when I drop my video essay on my channel eventually. Neo's narrative definitely has it's flaws (even the original twewy does), but I find that Neo offers a valuable narrative despite it all. And yes, I kind of agree with you about how the story handles Susukichi. It's complicated, and I'll get into it more when the video essay drops in however long it takes for me to get it done

[@maxg2335]

@@sonicsenryaku6205 Thanks for giving such a well thought out response. I've been considering replaying the entire game for a while because I genuinely wanted to like it. Though people like the clown above keep putting me off the idea (This isn't the first comment thread where he tried picking a fight with me over this game) I hope in your essay you can address the games pacing. I was willing to accept that the first week is mainly just teaching all the new mechanics. While it was disappointing when you consider how much the first Twewy got done in just its one week I thought week 2 would bring it. What happens in week 2? most of the days feel like they're focused on the mission of the day and not the story. Beat joins the group on one day. We get some dialogue about how Shiba wants to destroy Shinjuku before going back to the mission. And the last 2 days of week 2 we get some real progress. It felt like it was moving at a snails pace. I think when you don't have much going on with your plot at the very least have great character moments to keep the engagement going and this is where I don't think the "subtly" angle was the best choice. This is why I think week 2 needed some of those character bonding moments, even if you don't spell out their arc at least have them learn more about each other. Nagi and Rindo's dynamic didn't feel like it changed much or at all until the endgame, they barely even seem to any personal talks. She felt a little ignored to be honest. I don't know what would push me to read deep into minor character interactions when I'm not feeling the stakes of their situation. I don't think asking for consistent plot progression is asking too much. Also if you know the twewy structure you already know week 2 will end with them failing so even their goal of "we can win this week" is completely lost on me since I already know they aren't gonna win. In general I prefer in stories for everything to be there for a reason and when a story could technically still work without a certain character it feels like big disservice to that character, even if they don't HAVE to have to an arc. Maybe I need to replay the game again but I don't think there's anything Nagi does in terms of affecting the plot that can't be easily passed on to another character. At least Fret has influence on Rindo as his friend, granted Shoka has even more influence by end when she turns out to be Swallow. Maybe it could work without Fret as well. I felt the same way about Rokurou in Tales of Berseria. Everything involving him felt like it could be easily written around. Granted the fact that I still like Rokurou goes against me but I don't dislike the characters in Neo despite everything I said. The only character i disliked is Sasukichi. I hope when I replay I'll actually reach the end again because those padded out time travel segments and the "can't let you though until you do x" made me groan constantly throughout my playthrough.

[@sonicsenryaku6205]

@@maxg2335 Oh for sure. I plan on handling my essay in three parts: The video essay will be a dissecting of the pros and cons of Neo and how it stacks up to the original by comparing how they handle each of their weeks story and gameplay-wise. While we like to look at the original with rose-tinted lenses, we have to remember that most of the first game's mission structure was also, "Do X thing to get past this wall," or "Fight these noise to progress......oh and then fight more noise again." But yea man, if you want to test the merits of your opiinion on Neo, I'd more than encourage you play through the game again to pick up on anything you may have missed the first time; perhaps you might have a change of heart....or maybe you won't; either way, it'd be interesting to see how you end up feeling. Maybe you could even choose to pick it up again after watching my video on it, whenever that drops. I find it interesting that you found week 2 to be lacking in interesting character interactions, when that's the week we see a good deal of character tension and fleshing within the cast. We get to see more of Rindo's indecisiveness leading to growing conflict within the team, we see Shoka loosing her cool more and more as the days go on, Fret and Rindo's cordiality gets tested, Kanon starts to show more dimensions to her personality. Uzuki returns and we get glimpses of how much more she's matured, etc. While I do think Week 2 can drag a bit, which honestly, is the fault of the scramble slams, there's quite a bit that happens in this week as well that I find engaging to the overall narrative. On a quick side note, when I mentioned that characters don't have to have arcs, I wasn't trying to say it's okay to excuse certain characters for not having anything interesting going on with them so as long as it doesn't affect the whole story too much. I was trying to explain that character arcs aren't necessary to make a character interesting or compelling. It's more important that a story works on making you understand a character and relate to their psychology; that's what's really happening when we as an audience experience a character arc. It just so happens that making your characters go through a growth arc is one of the easiest ways to make characters feel relatable and compelling

[@maxg2335]

@@sonicsenryaku6205 Yeah, I’ll keep an eye out for your video essay when it comes out. I plan to replay the game after finishing Shin Megami Tensei V which is out next month. I thought from the start that a lot of those character moments you listed would feel more significant in hindsight but during the first the play-through (which personally I think is the most important) I didn’t get much from them. The conflict between between Rindo and Fret got resolved really quick and I really wanted the game to mix the group dynamic up a bit by that point. Kanon I never particularly found interesting to begin and my initial thought on Rindo’s flaw being “he’s indecisive” I just thought “that’s it?” There we’re also characters like Ayano and guy who can’t speak who even by endgame I had no opinion of. I will say Shoka and Motoi were my favourite new characters in the game. Week 2 day 6 is when I finally started enjoying the game because I felt things (or I guess big things) we’re finally happening and they were happening consistently. The moments you mentioned in week 2 felt like they were spread thin over missions that felt too long and their significance became more clear after I had already decided week 2 was a drag. I think the stem of my annoyances comes from thinking the missions are way too padded.

[@nachocabo4221]

Great review! I am playing the game and finding my self liking it at times but not always so I came to see what other people feel about it

[@Asai]

Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed my review, and as a fan of TWEWY, I sincerely hope you find more to enjoy about the game as well!

[@nachocabo4221]

@@Asai yeah, I loved the first one to pieces and immediately jumped into this one. But something about this one made feel the first one was more tightly builted (storywise too) but I didn't even finished the first week so idk. I am liking the characters so far tho

[@Asai]

@@nachocabo4221 I would say keep going. There’s a lot that’s going to unfold over the next few days in-game. Even though I didn’t love it, I like a lot of the stuff in there; it’s just the gameplay that I dislike.

[@muckideen-swarray7487]

I mean the only thing I'll disagree with is the final scoring whilst the gameplay difficulty depends on how you restrict yourself. I just fight on the hardest difficulty with a lower level and when the bosses hit, they HIT.

[@michaellane4054]

Yes.

[@TheGuerrbear]

Wow! Great vid. Can’t imagine leaving a dislike on something with this stature of high quality content….

[@sojannedos]

Good review! I'm tired of people praising this game and making it sound better than it actually is. As a fan of the original, I agree with you 100%. There are too many times I get bored with the game, but I'm still trucking through it, 40+ hours in.

[@Asai]

Thank you! I appreciate the kind words. Despite my qualms with NEO, I think it has a lot to offer on an artistic front, so I hope you find something to enjoy during your time with the game!

[@jethiliusavalar6449]

I DID enjoy the gameplay more than u :)

[@Asai]

Great! I’m happy to hear that. And I hope you also enjoyed this game overall, not just the gameplay. Thank you for watching, in any case! =]

[@JonathanReichel]

Ohhhh. Ahhh ..