I am ridiculously excited for NEO: The World Ends With You, and I even started playing The World Ends With You: Final Remix alongside watching the anime to refresh my memory ahead of the sequel’s launch.
Playing Final Remix reminded me of a lot of small things that made the game fun that I’d like to see return in NEO… and it looks like I’m in luck!
New details about NEO: The World Ends With You were recently revealed, so let’s look at some of the highlights!
First, I want to talk about Threads. In The World Ends With You, the clothes you were not only functioned as equipment, but also had additional bonuses depending on how popular its brand was in a particular area. Fighting battles with a particular brand equipped would also increase that brand’s popularity there.
It’s not clear if that aspect is returning in NEO or not (although the different brands certainly are), but clothes now have special abilities and bonuses that are activated if your Style stat is high enough.
Then there’s food! In The World Ends With You, eating food and then fighting a certain number of battles to digest it rewarded you with permanent stat boosts. A similar system is returning in NEO, and since the screenshot shows that each food item has a certain number of calories listed, that’s probably the successor to the “bytes” system that determined how long food would take to digest and how much food you could eat each real-world day.
Square Enix also revealed Fret’s unique psych, an ability called “Remind.” This lets you play a short mini-game to reassemble the pieces of a memory someone has forgotten.
The World Ends With You didn’t have something like that specifically, but it makes me think about imprinting memes and playing Reaper Creeper, both of which let you interact with characters to guide them toward a specific goal. We also know Rindo can rewind time, and since the word “Remind” appears behind Fret in the recently-revealed opening movie, there’s a good chance that “Dive” appearing behind Nagi means she has a unique power as well.
Meanwhile, Square Enix also revealed several new characters on the various teams in NEO: The World Ends With You, because teams of players face off against each other in “Turf Wars” and other missions to see which team will come out on top at the end of the week and get their wish granted, while the team in last place will be erased.
I find it very interesting that the Reaper’s Game seems to be following new rules in NEO, and I can’t wait to see how the story plays out.
What are your thoughts on NEO: The World Ends With You so far? Are there any specific systems from the original game that you’d like to see return?
