The World Ends with You , released in Japan as It's a Wonderful World (??????????, Subarashiki Kono Sekai ?, literally "This Wonderful World " ), is an action role-playing game developed by Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts team and Jupiter for the Nintendo DS handheld console. Set in the modern-day Shibuya shopping district of Tokyo, The World Ends with You features a distinctive art style inspired by Shibuya and its youth culture. Development was inspired by elements of Jupiter's previous game, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories . It was released in Japan in July 2007, and in PAL regions and North America in April 2008. In the game, Neku Sakuraba and his allies are forced to participate in a game that will determine their fate. The battle system uses many of the unique features of the Nintendo DS, including combat that takes place on both screens, and attacks performed by certain motions on the touchscreen or by shouting into the microphone. Elements of Japanese youth culture, such as fashion, food, and cell phones, are key aspects of the missions. The World Ends with You received positive reviews, which praised the graphics, soundtrack, and integration of gameplay into the Shibuya setting. The few common complaints were related to the steep learning curve of the battle system as well as the imprecise touch-screen controls. In the week of its release, the game was the second best-selling DS title in Japan, and the top selling DS title in the US.

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Plot

Setting

The game takes place in a fictional version of the Shibuya shopping district in Tokyo, Japan. While everyday life goes on in the Realground (RG), the chosen dead are brought to an alternate plane of existence called the Underground (UG). The UG is also the venue for the Reapers' Game. ^[1] By offering their most treasured possession to enter the Game, the dead (Players) gain the chance to contest for the prize: to be brought back to life or to transcend to a higher form of spiritual existence. Most of those who choose to transcend become Reapers, the opponents of Players in future Games. ^[2] Lasting a week, each Game is a contest to judge the worth of humanity. Players set out to accomplish objectives under the rules created by the Composer, who is a god-like entity who maintains Shibuya. Another Reaper, the Conductor, tasks other Reapers to obstruct the Players' efforts. Failure to complete a mission will disperse the mind and spirit of the Player or Reaper, thus erasing his or her existence. ^[3]

A Player in the UG is invisible to the living in the RG, though one can sometimes read and influence their thoughts. The UG is frequented by creatures called "Noise", which are attracted by the negative feelings of the living. To progress in the Reapers' Game, Players are often required to defeat Noise by killing or "erasing" them. However, each Noise exists in two "zones" simultaneously, and can only be defeated by two Players fighting the Noise from separate zones; Players are therefore required to form a pact with another Player to survive the Noise. ^[4] Players receive assignments via text messages sent to their cell phones, and their right hands are imprinted with a countdown indicating the time left in the mission. After a day's mission is complete, the remaining Players find themselves at the start of the next day's mission, appearing as if they have skipped ahead in time.

Characters

The player assumes the role of Neku Sakuraba, an anti-social teenage boy that claims he doesn't "get" people, and rarely interacts with others. Computer-controlled characters make up the rest of the cast, which includes Players who are paired with Neku. In the first Game, Neku is paired with Shiki Misaki, a teenage girl who takes on the form of her best friend; her physical appearance was her price of entry for the Game. ^[5] Subsequently, Neku's partner is an intelligent and sly teenage boy, Yoshiya Kiryu, who prefers to be called Joshua. Neku's final partner is Daisukenojo Bito, a Reaper who calls himself "Beat". ^[6] Beat became a Reaper to find a way to bring his younger sister, Raimu Bito (nicknamed "Rhyme"), back to life. Rhyme had sacrificed herself to save her brother from a Noise attack. ^[7] Sanae Hanekoma, the Producer, bound her soul to a pin from which her Noise could be summoned, and gave it to Beat. The final Game Master, Mitsuki Konishi, crushes her Noise form and transformed it back into a pin.

Besides the Composer and the Conductor, there are other high-ranking Reapers. ^[8] For each week of the Game, Game Masters are assigned by the Conductor to lead the opposition to the Players. Of the Game Masters opposing Neku, Sho Minamimoto is the most dangerous. He willingly circumvents the rules in an attempt to supplant the Composer. ^[9] Participating in the Games with the aim of earning promotions for their performance, the Reapers' goal is to ascend to the highest form of spiritual existence, the Angels. ^[10] Angels supervise the Games and if the stakes of a Game are particularly high, they send down one of their own to serve as the Producer. ^[11] For the three weeks of the game's story, Sanae Hanekoma is the Producer. Disguised as a Shibuya cafe owner, he guides new Players and narrates the "Secret Reports" that are obtained by completing additional missions after beating the game.

Story

The game's story follows Neku over the course of the three weeks that he plays the Game, paired with partners Shiki, Joshua, and Beat for each week, respectively. Neku is confused at first, lacking knowledge of how he died or how he arrived at the UG. As he develops friendships with his partners and starts to understand the rules of the Game, he recalls small details of his death; eventually, he recognizes that he was shot at by Sho Minamimoto, one of the Reapers he faced during the Game. After the first week, only Shiki is allowed to return to the living, and she promises to meet Neku at the statue of Hachiko. ^{[12] [13]} However, Shiki has become what Neku values most, and she is used as his entry fee for the second week. At the end of the second week, Joshua seemingly sacrifices himself to save Neku from a bomb created by Minamimoto.

Due to Neku and Joshua bending the rules for the game, the game is ruled null and Neku is forced to replay the game a third time. His entry fee this time is all of the other players, meaning Neku cannot form any pacts and stands no chance against the Noise. However, Beat immediately defects from the Reapers and rejoins Neku. Neku and Beat find that the Reapers and the entire population of Shibuya are wearing special red pins that cause them to think the same harmonious thoughts. Without any missions to complete, the two venture to the fabled "Shibuya River", which Joshua was looking for during the second week. At the river, they find Megumi Kitaniji, the Game's Conductor. Kitaniji explains that he created the red pins in an attempt to remake Shibuya, which the Composer challenged him to do; if he fails, Shibuya will be erased. ^{[14] [15]}

At that moment, Joshua reappears and reveals himself to be the Composer. Joshua returns the missing part of Neku's memory of death: Joshua himself shot Neku, choosing him to be his proxy in his challenge with Kitaniji. Minamimoto, who had been trying to usurp the position of Composer, was trying to kill Joshua in his weakened state as a human. After failing to defeat Neku by using his friends against him, Joshua gives Neku one last challenge: To fire upon Joshua to determine the fate of Shibuya. Neku is too conflicted to make a choice, and is shot down by Joshua. ^[16] Neku finds himself once again at the scramble crossing, confused by events.

The game's credits show scenes seven days later. Neku meets Beat, Rhyme, and Shiki (in her real body) by the statue of Hachiko, indicating that Neku and his friends have finally been returned to the RG. ^[17] Secret reports that can be obtained by completing additional missions after beating the game reveal that Joshua, after seeing the change in personality of Neku over the weeks of playing the game, decides to spare Shibuya, now believing the city to be ideal. ^[18]

Gameplay

The World Ends with You is an action role-playing game, arranged into three chapters following the three weeks that Neku is involved in the Reaper's Game, with each chapter further divided by each day of the week. The player controls Neku and his partner as they explore Shibuya to complete each day's mission. Although most missions require completion within a certain time for Neku and his partner, this timer is not correlated to the passage of time for the player.

Shibuya is divided into several districts, some of which may be inaccessible on certain days or blocked by a wall that can only be removed by satisfying the request of a nearby Reaper, such as erasing Noise symbols, putting on a certain brand of clothing, or bringing an item. Neku can scan the area by activating a special pin. This scan reveals the thoughts of the non-player characters in the Realground and memes, which may help to progress the plot. The scan also reveals random Noise symbols that drift about the area, or in some cases, float around a specific character. The player initiates a battle by touching Noise symbols; each symbol constitutes one round of battle. Selecting more than one Noise symbol at a time results in a multi-round battle that gradually increases in difficulty with each round, but conversely leads to greater rewards upon success. Altering the difficulty of the Noise and the amount of health for Neku and his partner also alter the benefits conferred.

Each district has fashion trends that affect gameplay. By wearing pins or clothing from the more popular brands in that district, items' effects will be improved; wearing the least fashionable items will do the opposite, and items from brands in between are not affected. However, the player can increase a brand's popularity in one district by repeatedly fighting battles in that district while wearing items of that brand. The player can enter shops to buy new pins, clothes, and food items that are gradually consumed during battles to improve the characters' basic attributes.

After completing the game, the player can return to any day in the story and play those events again, keeping the characters' current statistics and inventory. "Secret Reports", written segments that reveal background elements of the story, can be unlocked through this mode by completing specific missions during each day. ^[19] Completing the game allows the player to access "Another Day" from the game's menus, an additional day of missions that explains certain events related to the main storyline. The World Ends with You has one minigame called Tin Pin Slammer (or Marble Slash ) that can be played against computer opponents or with up to 3 others via a wireless connection. Tin Pin Slammer is similar to the marble game ringer in that each player attempts to use their pins one at a time to knock the other players' pins off the gameboard.

Pins

The World Ends with You features "psych pins", decorative pins that possess powers that only Neku can activate while wearing them. Psych pins are used for combat, for "Tin Pin Slammer/Marble Slash", or as trade value for money or equipment. Most pins, particularly those used in combat, can become more powerful as the player accumulates "Pin Points" (PP) which can also lead to evolution of the pins into more potent versions. Pin Points are commonly earned through battle, but can also be earned through a period of inactivity with the game, or by interacting with other DS players or random wireless sources. Each of these methods influences the growth of pins within the game.

Combat

The game's combat system is called the Stride Cross Battle System . The combat takes place across both screens on the DS, with Neku on the touchscreen and his partner on the top screen, representing the different "zones" of the same local area; the two characters battle the same enemies that exist in both "zones" simultaneously. Neku and his partner are synchronized during battle; they share the same health bar so that even if one character does not take any damage, the pair can fail in battle if the other takes too much. A green "light puck" will pass between the characters during battle; when the character has this puck, the damage they inflict is increased. The movement of the light puck is determined by the "sync ratio" between Neku and his partner; the puck stays longer with the character with higher ratios. The player can equip Neku and his partner with clothing that can alter the light puck's speed.

The player controls Neku by performing touchscreen actions based on the currently equipped pins. These actions may include slashing across an enemy, tapping the screen rapidly to fire bullets, or holding down on an enemy to inflict damage. Other pins need to be touched to activate them, such as for health restoration. Each pin has a limited number of uses before it must recharge for a certain time. Other pins may only be used a fixed number of times during a series of battles, and do not recharge until the battle sequence is over. Neku can only be equipped with a maximum of two pins at the game's start; this can eventually be upgraded to a maximum of six.

Neku's partner on the top screen can be controlled by the player or the game itself. Each of Neku's partners has a card game-based mechanic; for example, Shiki's card game requires the player to match face-down Zener cards. The partner can make a basic attack after the player navigates through a pathway of arrows to select one of several shown cards using the directional pad or face buttons. By navigating to a card that fits within the card game rules, the player earns a star. Once enough stars are collected, the player can launch a powerful "Fusion" attack using both Neku and his partner through the "Harmonizer Pin" that appears on the upper right of the touchscreen(assuming you haven't rearranged where it's to be displayed). The player can also help the partner character dodge attacks.

Development

The World Ends with You was developed by the same team that created the Kingdom Hearts series, with input from Jupiter, the company that developed Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories . The development of the game started two and a half years before its Japanese release, during the development of Kingdom Hearts II and the end of development of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories . At that time, Nintendo had announced the DS, but it was not yet on the market; Square Enix asked the team to make a game specifically for the handheld system. ^[20] The creative team—consisting of Tatsuya Kando (director), Tomohiro Hasegawa (co-director), Takeshi Arakawa (planning director), and Tetsuya Nomura (character design)—was able to experience the DS during the "Touch DS" event in November 2004. ^[21] From this demonstration, they had envisioned a version of Chain of Memories in which the card game aspects would be present on the bottom screen and an action role-playing game on the top. As they continued to work on the game, the developers realized that they wanted to use the touchscreen more, to make "a game that can only be played on the DS". However, they also encountered the problem that by focusing heavily on the touchscreen, the top screen would be ignored. From this, the idea of the dual screen battle system arose. Several other options were explored for the top-screen game, including command-based battles or a music game, but once they reviewed the game from the eyes of the player, they ultimately settled on the card-game approach with the player having the option to control the game if they wanted to. Even with the completion of the Japanese version of the game, the team felt the dual screen system was too much for overseas audiences, and attempted to change the card-game mechanic into a special meter that would fill up with normal attacks from Neku, but this was not completed in time for release. However, the team was able to alter the "information overload" of the numerous tutorials at the start of the game in the North American release, reducing the amount of text presented as well as allowing the tutorials to be skipped. The "Active Encounter" system, the ability for the player to select when and how to go into battle, was developed specifically to avoid the issues of "grinding" that are common with most standard RPG systems. While they included the mechanics of being able to scan non-playable characters to see their thoughts, the team was not able to integrate this mechanic more into the game.



In addition to creating unique gameplay, the designers wanted to build the game around a real location. Initially, they had planned to use a large number of locations across the entire world as the setting. They narrowed down the settings to specific cities due to practicality issues. Ultimately, Kando selected Shibuya as the main setting within the first year of development, despite concerns that overseas players would find the setting unfamiliar. ^[22] The team wanted to make sure the city was represented accurately within the game, and went on "location hunts" onto building rooftops without permission to get photographs. The layout of Shibuya was duplicated for the game, retaining the real-world landmarks while rebranding the names of stores and buildings for copyright reasons; for example, the 109 Building was renamed to be the "104 Building", while one of the busiest Starbucks, adjacent to the scramble crossing, was renamed "Outback Cafe". ^{[23] [24]} The success of the game has led to fans going on tours of the district to match physical locations in Shibuya with those in the game. The selection of Shibuya led to the incorporation of much of the game's other features, including food, clothing, and cell phone usage. ^[25] The team initially thought of the idea of using graffiti around Shibuya as the source of the player's power in the game but had difficulty representing it; this led to the creation of the psych pins used in the game.

The team decided to stay with two-dimensional graphics instead of three-dimensional graphics, believing it would help differentiate themselves from other Square Enix titles as well as better represent their vision for the game. When first approached with the task of creating the art for the game, background art director Takayuki Ohdachi thought the modern-day setting would be too boring, and opted to use highly skewed and angular images of Shibuya to avoid this; the rest of the creative team found this approach to fit the game quite well. ^[26] For combat, the background of the top screen was selected for visual interest, while the bottom touchscreen background was designed to emphasize the gameplay. ^[27] Ohdachi was also responsible for the artwork for the psych pins, and used a mix of pop art and tribal designs for the various graphics. Character designs were handled by Tetsuya Nomura and Gen Kobayashi. Character designs were made to match with the real-world Tokyo setting, after which their outfits were designed based on the character's personality. ^[28] Kobayashi was also in charge of designing the game's non-player characters and noted how most designs made it to the final product. ^[29] Hasegawa was responsible for creating the designs for the Noise creatures, and wanted to have them recognizable as creatures before they decay into skeletons. In keeping with the theme of human emotion in the game, Hasegawa selected creatures that conveyed such feelings, such as wolves and crows. Representation of the Noise in the game required drawing the 2D sprites from several angles to match the action on screen as well as using rotoscoping on pre-rendered sprites, and took several iterations between Square Enix and Jupiter to make sure that the sprites' art matched the style of game, with Kando making the two-hour trip between Tokyo and Kyoto weekly to check on the progress.

The developers knew that for the story, they wanted to "throw the player right in the action, with things he had to do without explanation", in addition to creating a sense of urgency and mystery for the player. They developed an initial draft of the game's plot and gave it to script writer Sachie Hirano and scenario event Planer Yukari Ishida to expand on. The returned version was very close to the initial vision for the game's story. However, there were still difficulties in filling out the story, only achieving some smooth development about halfway through the process, and even then, there were still changes made just prior to creating the master image for the game. Several inconsistencies with the game's story were found in the final quality checks that had to be resolved. The Square Enix localization team, while translating most of the dialog and interface items into English and other European languages, preserved many Japanese elements to avoid losing the culture of the game. ^[30] The team was also limited by the size of the dialog balloons used within game, and took several steps to avoid losing the meaning of the story within the game.

The Japanese title, literally translated as It's a Wonderful World , was not used internationally due to copyright issues. ^[31] Instead, the game was released in North America and Europe under the name The World Ends with You . The game was officially announced on September 13, 2006 by Square Enix, ^[32] and premiered at the 2006 Tokyo Game Show two weeks later. ^[33] On December 5, 2007, Square Enix announced that the game would be released for Europe and Australia in April 2008, ^[34] while a similar announcement was made for a North American release on December 17, 2007. ^[35]

A special "Wonderful World" edition of the "Gloss Silver" Nintendo DS Lite was created and sold as a bundle with the game as part of its Japanese release. ^[36] The game's early plot was adapted into a two-chapter one-shot manga by Shiro Amano, published over two issues of Monthly Shonen Gangan . In North America, the manga has been released online via the Square Enix Members website. ^[37] Tatsuya Kando stated that he hoped they would be given the opportunity to create a sequel to the game. ^[38]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack to The World Ends with You was composed and produced by Takeharu Ishimoto. The game's music encompasses many genres, combining rock, hip hop, and electronica, designed to fit the various moods of Shibuya. The song appearing during the credits of the game is "Lullaby for You" by Japanese pop artist, Jyongri. Vocal artists featured in the game include Sawa, Makiko Noda, Leah, Ayuko Tanaka, Mai Matsuda, Wakako, Hanaeryca, Cameron Strother, Andy Kinlay, Nulie Nurly, and Londell "Taz" Hicks. The developers used CRI Middleware's Kyuseishu Sound Streamer, a compression algorithm normally used for voice-overs, to compress the soundtrack and fit more songs on the game media, while replacing full motion video cutscenes with Flash-style animations to save more space. The soundtrack on the final version of the game takes up approximately one-fourth of the game media.

The official soundtrack of the game, The World Ends with You Original Soundtrack (?????????? ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK, Subarashiki Kono Sekai Original Soundtrack ^?, meaning "It's a Wonderful World Original Soundtrack" ) was released in Japan on August 22, 2007 ^[39] and is on sale in most English-language iTunes Stores. ^[40] This release, however, does not include the four tracks unique to localizations outside Japan and is simply a digital version of the Japanese soundtrack.

Square Enix, however, released the digital 6-track EP Subarashiki Konosekai + The World Ends with You (?????????? + The World Ends with You, Subarashiki Kono Sekai + The World Ends with You ^?, meaning "It's a Wonderful World + The World Ends with You" ) on June 25, 2008 through the Japanese iTunes Store. This release contains the four songs unique to the international version of the game, along with the English version of "Owari-Hajimari" and a remix of "Twister". A 19-track version of the album was given a physical CD and iTunes release on July 30, 2008. ^[41]

Reception

Reception

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