The World Ends With You Final Remix - Review

The World Ends With You's Nintendo Switch remaster matches the platform perfectly

The move to single-screen is masterful — if you've played before or haven't

By Oct 10, 2018, 9:00am EDT

Foursquare Enix/Nintendo

A cult classic from the DS is coming to Nintendo's modern handheld this week. The Earth Ends With You lot, this version dubbed the "terminal remix," is stylish, eccentric, and weird, but packed a lot of eye beneath its odd battle system and death-game atmosphere.

While the terminal remix might not exist the most platonic version of The World Ends With You, it's all the same that same odd journey at its core. If you lot're looking for a mode to feel it for the outset or thirtieth time, you could practice worse. In some ways, Final Remix is an fifty-fifty smoother entry indicate for newcomers, so if you don't have a DS lying around or simply want something new on your Switch, Final Remix is a solid replication of the original on a device with only half the screens.

The World Ends With You starts with an amnesiac teenager named Neku waking up in the centre of a fictional Scramble Crossing in Shibuya. Later on an ominous message on his cell phone appears, aslope a tattoo-like timer on his hand, Neku is beset past violent creatures called Noise. The only mode for him to complete missions, fight the Noise, and survive to discover what sort of game he's been dropped into is to bond with his spur-of-the-moment partner, Shiki. Seeing as Neku is a scrap of a headphones-clad, drown-out-the-noise introvert with a strong distaste for any level of intimacy or dependence, information technology takes a while to course that bond.

Foursquare Enix/Nintendo

Each in-game day brings a new mission, and along with it, a host of new Noise and challenges. While the primary quest tin can often be solved with dialogue and navigation (and after on the imprinting of memes into people'due south hearts), the hosts and actors within the "Reaper'south Game" will constitute walls. Clearing these can require answering trivia questions or holding a sure kind of pin, merely it e'er circles back to clearing away the Noise in boxing.

The battle system was a big part of what made The World Ends With You stand out in 2007, and 11 years later, it tin nonetheless seem complex at first blush. The original game had you manage both partners, one on each screen of the Nintendo DS. Neku was operated by the bottom bear upon screen, where you would load him out with pins that activated different "psychs." Some manipulate the battlefield, creating earthquakes or sending nearby cars and signs flying at the angry Noise. Others were simpler, like tapping to fire energy bullets or slashing to make Neku swing his arm like a sword. On the elevation screen, you would input commands using the directional pad to execute your partner'southward philharmonic strings. An orb of free energy called the puck would laissez passer back and forth throughout combat, and whoever had the puck would accept their abilities amplified. The more you lot passed the puck and the faster it went, the stronger you would get during boxing. Add together in an extra layer of memorizing certain bill of fare combinations to store up fusion stars for ultimate attacks, and yous had a boxing system that basically divide your brain in two.

Foursquare Enix/Nintendo

When I first played The World Ends With You in '07, that system was a huge stumbling block. Having both partners in play meant I was accountable for each; two potential sources of damage output, merely 2 sources of input for enemies to slash away at your unmarried shared health bar. Several of the early on boss fights push yous to master coordination between your two fighters. A tour with a bat in a darkened concert arena forces you to articulate away the Noise around the stage lights with your upper-screen partner, and then attack the illuminated bat with Neku on the bottom screen. Information technology was tough, just it grew on yous, and even by the stop of the beginning arc of the game, I felt I had reached some state of nirvana. Information technology was a system that fabricated full, bold use of the DS' two screens.

In the years since, The World Ends With You has been ported to mobile devices, systems without the signature dual screens. The iOS and Android versions of the game had to adopt a single-screen approach, and that is the aforementioned direction the Switch version skews, albeit with a few twists to liven things upwards a flake.

Your partner in Final Remix is, substantially, an actress pin. In the first arc with Shiki, this means tapping on an enemy to call her in, and watching her practise a few attacks in succession. They can't accept harm when called in, and there isn't a puck either; instead, yous build upwardly sync percent past alternating attacks between Neku and his partner, somewhen building up enough for a fusion attack.

Neku and his partner Shiki gear up for the fusion sequence.

Square Enix/Nintendo

That difference will be a sticking point for the diehard fans of this game, but honestly, it all pans out fine. Terminal Remix doesn't have that same impenetrable luster, but it still feels rewarding to chain together a series of swipes, taps and general finger-spasms into a cohesive combo, capping it off with ane big fusion set on. Some parts of the game can play out a little odd due to the shift to a single battlefield — the bat battle, for example, requires you to call in your partner and execute a combo that ends in an uppercut, which will whisk them away to the upper area where you can then clear out the lights — simply every memorable fight and boss is even so intact and truthful to its original form in some style.

In handheld style, y'all're forced to utilise touch controls, which still have a practiced response and detection of unlike styles of swiping. I was able to easily utilize "slash enemies" or "tap empty space" aslope "swipe object" and "slash beyond Neku" pins, and it could tell the departure. There is too a Joy-Con mode, where you tin can use a single Joy-Con similar to a Wiimote, moving a cursor effectually and inputting the attacks that way. While bear on controls are closer to my motor memory for this game, I was surprised by how quickly I could suit to using the Joy-Con.

Through those Joy-Con controls, the Switch version also offers a surprisingly refreshing and birthday more than interesting mode of playing through the game: co-op. Instead of your partner being relegated to pin duty, a second player with a second Joy-Con can command them, using a small assortment of base pins to do dissimilar moves. This way of playing is non simply intuitive and easy to pick upwards, only it adds a new layer to the game. At present, you have to coordinate your pivot assaults with your roommate, significant other, or random stranger on the aeroplane sitting next to y'all. Instead of splitting your encephalon in twain, you lot're at present coordinating with someone else, only getting a good cross philharmonic if you can figure out how to make your pin attacks work in unison. Information technology'due south a fun way to replay The World Ends With You, and even feels a bit more thematic to the game's message.

The World Ends With You: Concluding Remix's co-op mode.

Foursquare Enix/Nintendo

Though it would be squeamish to have some sort of "classic command scheme" mode, The World Ends With Y'all survives its leap to a single screen with all its charm intact. Neku'southward journey through the Reaper'southward Game still holds upwards, and the updated visuals and soundtrack give fifty-fifty more than life to the fictional version of Shibuya. Though it might seem a bit novel, the co-op manner is a fun manner to play an sometime favorite, and a great way to get some friends involved.

The DS version even so stands out for all its quirks and oddities, and I even went back to see how I felt most it later on playing the Switch version (it's all the same skillful). Only if you're looking for a style to play The World Ends With You, perhaps even for the showtime fourth dimension, or yous're aching for a new twist on your favorite gem, Final Remix is as good a port as you lot tin make without strapping a second screen to the Switch.

The Earth Ends With You lot: Terminal Remix was reviewed using a last "retail" Nintendo Switch download lawmaking provided by Nintendo. Yous can notice additional information about Polygon's ethics policy here .

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Source: https://www.polygon.com/reviews/2018/10/10/17957890/the-world-ends-with-you-final-remix-nintendo-switch-review

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