Neo: The World Ends with You (PS4)

NEO: The World Ends with You had big shoes to fill. The first game's ending was fulfilling and wrapped up its self-contained story, so I'm sure plenty of us were cautious when its re-release, Final Remix, hints at a sequel taking place afterwards. My caution turned to cautious optimism when I saw the first few trailers, and after having played the demo, I was sold.Having finished the game, I'm pleased to say NEO: The World Ends with You delivered on a worthy sequel to the first game, with returning characters and pay-offs for long-time fans, a fun premise for newcomers, and a revamped combat system designed with consoles in mind.What I loved about the first game's story was its succinct, easy-to-follow and engaging plot, with characters that were both unidealistic and prone to change over the course of the story. It didn't fall to the same trappings as other self-indulgent, convoluted Square Enix games. NEO is every much in the same vein, while also finding new ways to surprise the player and keep them on their toes, whether you're a newcomer or returning fan. Rindo and the party's fight for survival starts off fairly tame, but before long you'll be confronted with the severity of their situation, and just how high the odds are stacked against them. While I didn't find the character arcs as dynamic as the original game, there is still some growth and development found throughout NEO's story.The gameplay is taken straight from the first game, and revamped from the ground-up in full 3D. While the touch-screen controls of the original had their own artistry that will never be replecated, NEO makes good use of its new platform on home consoles. You fight against relentless creatures called noise, and with the exception of mandatory battles, how many of them you fight and when is up to you. The pin system returns, only this time you'll be mapping different pin attacks to different buttons, depending on how many characters you have in your party. When completing an attack with one pin, executing another attack soon after will increase your Groove meter, allowing you to perform special attacks when full. This encourages some fun as hell combos, where players will be chaining different attacks together and experimenting with pins to juggle and-or overwhelm them. It's a very rewarding combat system, and stands proudly alongside the first game's. The early-game might feel too easy and spam-to-win at first, but once the extra difficulty is unlocked, you'll be awarded more freedom for your preferred style, and at times the difficulty can ramp up to an intense degree if you're playing Hard mode.The sound design has some noteworthy features, aside from sound effects and a killer soundtrack (the latter of which the original had in spades). Now, there is more voice acting than ever before, and the VA's turn in a great performance. Returning characters have their roles reprised by their original VA's, which is a greatly appreciated attention to detail that sells their comeback all the more. There's also a new mechanic you learn halfway through; a dash system to help you navigate the city of Shibuya faster than normal. To dash effectively though, you have to press the circle button (or the equivalent on Switch) in time with the rhythm of the music. This both increases your speed when going from place to place, and adds some extra Groove before battle, and is an excellent way of incorporating gameplay with the soundtrack.The art direction is faithful to the first game, with its cell-shaded anime style and wild enemy design. The developers opted for strong art direction over graphical-fidelity, and will age much better in the long run as a result. The framerate on PS4 is 60FPS for the most part, though frame drops will occur when a lot is happening on-screen, even on PS4 Pro. I suspect this is due to the engine the game was built on, Unity, but regardless I wish this was a higher priority considering I chose the PS4 version (C-MOS DRM and all) over the Switch version for its framerate. Still, I'm glad they didn't choose to clutter the game with unnecessary visual fidelity at the cost of the gameplay.All in all, NEO: The World Ends with You is a stellar action-RPG, and one of my favourite games of the year so far. I recommend it to anyone owning a PS4 or Switch, especially if you're a fan of the first game. As someone who's always weary of continuations to good stand-alone games, I'm satisfied with the way they handled this. The pacing might drag at times, but the pay-off is always right around the corner, and worth it. This game reminds me why I love this series so much, but in new and exciting ways.

Being a fan of games like persona 5, tales of arise and scarlet nexus, I was looking forward to trying this after reading so many great reviews. However after the first night of playing I wasn't the least bit interested in any of the annoying characters or lame storyline and was finding the combat repetitive, dull and irritating. I stuck with it hoping the game would improve; it didn't. I made it almost to the end till I just couldn't take it any more. Took the game to cex in the end.

fantastic game

Great game enjoying playing it abit different to what I'm use to but I'm enjoying it

Not as good as the original.

Great game good story will keep you entertained