why did nobody play NEO: The World Ends With You?
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- čas přidán 8. 06. 2024
- If you like this video Square Enix will make a third TWEWY game, trust me.
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0:00 Intro
3:16 Welcome To The Game
6:33 Same Streets, Different Day
9:19 Silencing the Noise
26:23 The World Ends With Us
44:51 Forgotten (Conclusion)
49:51 Post Script
The World Ends With You is one of my favourite jrpg’s from recent memory. It took full advantage of the hardware it was released on to combine gameplay and story in a way that I haven’t seen done since. Combine this with a slick and stylish art direction, killer soundtrack, and a cast of down-to-earth characters, and you’ve got yourself one of the best games on the nintendo ds. Truly a one of a kind experience. While the world ends with you isn’t the most popular square enix game, it has a dedicated following. So much so that its spirit lived on through a couple of ports and a crossover with the kingdom hearts franchise. The game even received an anime adaptation last year, which was pretty well received as far as I could tell. But, it’s pretty clear that most of this stuff was done more so to buy time than anything since the series was lacking in new and original content. The closest we got was the extra scenario included in the 2018 final remix port titled “a new day”
A lot of people took notice that in my video discussing final remix I didn’t elaborate much on this extra content. This is because while it was nice to have some extra play time, there wasn’t a whole lot for me to talk about. this epilogue was more so focused on planting seeds for a potential sequel to expand upon rather than being a complete narrative in its own right.
We’re introduced to a new character, are shown some pretty abstract imagery, and the chapter ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. While there are things to talk about, a lot of it would’ve been more so leaning on the speculation side which isn’t exactly something that I like doing. A new day, when all is said and done, was more so a teaser for things to come and if I’m being honest, I was never one of the people pushing for this game to get a sequel.
As much as I enjoy The World Ends With You, I would’ve been satisfied if this game was just a one-and-done sort of deal. I often compare this game to another one I like called Catherine. Both of these games are standalone, experimental titles for their respective companies and making sequels would run the risk of worsening their impact. In the case of The World Ends With You, while there was room left open for expansion, it wasn’t something that we needed to see. The game felt very conclusive and the last thing I wanted was to see a potential sequel diminish what made the first game so special.
This is why the announcement of Neo The World Ends With You left me feeling rather worried. Don’t me wrong, I was excited to see this series get a bit more attention but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that some of those concerns were lingering in the back of my mind. Because of this, I ended up skipping out on the game when it launched, but eventually picked it up when it was on sale. However, by this point, people had seemingly forgotten about the game. It’s not like no one is talking about it anymore, but it’s as if people didn't even know that the game came out.
why did nobody play NEO: The World Ends With you. This NEO: The World Ends With You Critique and NEO: The World Ends With You Analysis is the first part of my: The World Ends With You Retrospective. NEO: TWEWY and the original TWEWY a regarded well, and I don't see many people talking about NEO: The World Ends With You in 2022. Perhaps we will see why in my NEO: The World Ends With You Review as I'll be comparing TWEWY VS NEO TWEWY and complete my The World Ends With You series retrospective with a The World Ends With You The Animation review. Hopefully, I can answer why did nobody play NEO: The World Ends With You and why did no one play NEO: The World Ends With You. Made by Nam's Compendium - Hry
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off topic but do a review on nier automata and nier replicant if you’ve played them
Well I got a recommendation
Because I'm broke
Same
As 17 year old who buys comics, same.
No excuse😜
How about because we don't have Switch.
@@zehern22 the game was release on multiple platforms, it's not only on switch
Being there for the pre-release hype was an absolutely agonizing experience. They had so many opportunities where they could've shown it off in a presentation but it felt like they were refusing to. Hell, they had THREE conferences at E3 where they could've shown it off but they just didn't???? It's one of the biggest marketing botches I've seen, with the few people who knew it was coming out that I brought the game up to not even knowing it was a sequel.
If I were one of the designers who worked on the game, I would be furious at Square for not pushing the marketing at this game.
Exactly. I picked up this game… along with TWEWY Final Remix because I just had no idea it existed until them, and that was about a week after it’s release, apparently.
I heard it's a prequel
i'm surprised it wasn't shown as neither square's or Nintendo's.
@@khalidabuqaddum4708 It's not. I'm not about to spoil anything about it, but trust me, it really isn't.
Interesting thing I noticed about this game, which is somewhat talked about in the secret reports. In the first game the reaper's game was designed with the hopes that players would succeed, since they wanted to recruit new reapers who could overcome their character flaws. In essence the way that game was set up, Neku could only win if he overcame his misanthropic arrogance. Sink or swim. In NEO, the reapers game is openly and blatently rigged and the reapers in charge have zero interest in the players. They need to keep up just *enough* of a facade to be able to slowly wipe out all the teams, but ultimately, the game isn't really designed to be won, and they couldn't care less for the player's character development.
In essence, Rindo not only has his indecisive flaw innately, but he also lives in a world that has no interest in helping him overcome it. Haz was really the first person who properly allowed Rindo to make a crucial choice, since none of his choices had mattered up to that point thanks to the way Shiba and Kubo had set things up. And even then, Haz only barely cared about Rindo or Shibuya as a whole, and only helped out in the first place due to heavenly bureaucracy reasons.
To me the game feels like it's about trying to grow as a person in a world that is utterly indifferent to your existence.
The theme of the games is basically to expand your horizons. Neku did that and in NEO he's a totally different person in both appearance and personality.
The thing there is, the only part of the first TWEWY that was really aimed at helping the players was Shiki's entry fee in the first week. Every other entry fee was actively malicious, and at BEST managed to produce a positive outcome entirely by accident. Likewise, the partner system was nothing that an ordinary person would have any issue accepting, and mainly served as a means to produce double kills. The Game wasn't set up to help Neku; Neku was the type of person who the Game's systems accidentally helped.
@@weaselprime2784 All of the entry fees were malicious, including Shiki's. This is because the entry fees were largely determined by how important that fee was to themselves. You can argue how helpful or not the fees really were, but still, providing motivation and perspective was their intended goal. There are no entry fees in NEO because Shiba does not care if the teams are motivated nor does he care if the teams develop as people.
The first game is designed around Neko a fair bit though from a meta perspective, to be sure. The partner system, the metaphor of Neku wearing headphones to cancel out the 'noise' that he is then forced to confront during the game, the idea of walking around Shibya, existing in the same physical space but still being separate from it and its populace, etc.
Even still, the purpose of the fees was explicitly stated in the first game. You can only really argue about how they work on a writing level rather than a lore level.
Exactly, this is why i feel this game kinda shit on the premise and set up of the first game.
The first game was a challenge but ultimatly serves to help people in a way
This one? Totally the oposite in several ways.
The game is just rigged, they dont tell you trough EVERYONE KNOWS IT, and not only for the game master as the whole Kubo influence and higher forces just gaming it out for the lols is pretty much a joke of what the first game was.
Hen there is several flops and one time events used to manipulate the player and narrative, very specially at the end.
How Rindo recovering from Matoi reveal takes SOOO LONG, heck, they could have made Matoi double down on his fakeness to show him as a true lider, not only a scamer which drops his character down the drain.
Then there is moments like when Bit try to make a sacrifice just for Neku to save him.
Having Kubo win and then he is just ERASE by the plot! W T F!?
And finally how during the game over at the end they make Shoka confess to add drama, really could manage this so much better as shorter, not make the player do thing AGIN AND AGAIN just for trying to guid the player mindset, but when you do so much its just sharring and plain bad.
And there is so manny missing opportunities of a good in game activity or event, for example, when the mirror noise apears i though "Hey! Maybe a mechanic like a light pin would expose them!"
NOP.
You have to progress trought the story until YOUR ARE ALLOW to attack them.
What a waste of a chance.
So basically real life
12:32 someone probably commented this already.
But the reason why pins evolve in Twewy 1, Was because of symbolism. Essentially the game is rewarding you for spending time outside, hanging out with friends and people and enjoying your everyday life with them.
Like Mr. Hanekoma said "The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, expand your world. You gotta push your horizons out as far as they'll go"
I didn't learn that lesson when I used the Switch's time and day exploit 😂
@@phantom-X2086 tbh same...
But it's still kind of a nice sentimet, that the creators really put effort to the features in the game.
@@marvin39195 Oh I'm not disagreeing, I think so too.
I wanted to say this!
Me: Playing 6hrs in a row.
The game: PLEASE. ENOUGH. We'll give you pins points so can you can PLEASE GO TOUCH GRASS & MAKE A FRIEND?
The problem with Shutdown PP is that you don't get enough for how little it is worth in the final calculation.
Not only that but it's subject to DIMINISHING RETURNS. That means each day beyond the first one is worth less and less, and after a whole week you get jackshit.
I liked Neo a lot. Just got shafted by advertising and admittedly you really need to know the originals plot as well as the side content to get the full experience.
Its a sequel, of course you need to know the plot of the original. Its like if you watched the final movie on a trilogy and complained that you need to know waht happened in the previous 2
I mean I was one of the few that bought and beat the first one on release. Back when the ds was brick size. I kinda remember bits and pieces but I didn't feel like I had to play the first. Idk what you're talking about
I didn't know the original's story at all and I still had an almost perfect understanding of everything in NEO, I think they actually explained everything really well.
@@bubalackgaming8892 still you missed the absolutely delightful fanservice ending
100/10 if you played the first game
@@ezelalia5739 Cheers captain obvious
Okay a few points:
1. I didn’t mind the way pins were divvied out per character since they have a scene justifying it early on. That being that the reapers made them easier to use for players with low imagination. This also has the added bonus of making Neku more of a badass, since he was able to use up to six of any pre-nerf pins with ease.
2. I really dug the the Social Network system in this game because how it flavors Shibuya as a world. From Rindo outward, you see how characters and shopkeeps relate to one another and even get short bios detailing their backstory and personalities. It really helps emphasize how diverse Shibuya is and subtly makes you care for it even more. Plus some SN bios can get really spicy.
3. Personally found the individual Psych abilities for the Twisters to be what tied the gameplay and story together more than the combat, since they are integral to the narrative, are used often, and come into play in crucial way by the end of the game.
4. To the Deep River Society’s credit, they actually got more going than one might think. Whether it was it stated in the secret report or exclaimed by Kanon and Motoi, the DRS’s main function was to essentially gang up on any new players entering the game so that they and the other teams can stay in the game for much longer. Even if they couldn’t achieve high, they would make sure the newest team doesn’t either. Unfortunately for the Fuya and the like, the Twisters upset that balance with the aid of the Rewind ability.
4. I’m still gonna hold out for this series, since it has a habit of just appearing out of the ether without much warning. Final Remix didn’t sell well either, and we got Neo anyway.
On the whole Neo is excellent and does what any good sequel should do, and the fact that I can say that unabashedly is a freakin miracle. Hope we get more, and even if we don’t, man did it end on a high note.
Pretty sure the IP is dead unofficially. SE will probably keep the IP alive with gacha games tho.
They tried 3 time, they failed every time.
@@alexandrebelair4360 As I said it left off on a high note so I’m not waiting in anticipation for another one, just not ruling it out entirely because of how often it’s blindsided me so far. I know how to temper my expectations like a healthy adult as to not let every set back effect how I navigate through life. Being open to possibilities is conscious choice I’ve made for myself, while fully aware that I live in a less than ideal world.
Speaking as someone who was hyped for the game, I didn’t know it had been released until a full MONTH after the fact. They announced it and I remember hearing absolutely nothing about it after the fact.
I always checked for years if this game has a sequel or not. I stopped eventually. I didn't even know this game was made and released.
The best game no one played. I love TWEWY
this is why developers are scared to take chances best to just stick to making the shiny movie games that play themselves
Based Tony4You, didnt expect to see a comment from you here
Id ask for a TWEWY mythology video as a joke but Black Jupiter already did that-
@@_BlackenedSunexactly, so sad.
Knowing what we know today about Square Enix's upper management, and how poorly they treat even the FFXIV team that's been keeping the company almost almost single handedly, I'm pretty sure the lack of marketing was because whoever was in charge of marketing *wanted* NEO to fail so they could justify doubling, tripling, and quadrupling down on triple-A titles with unrecoverably massive budgets.
ideal : let's make single player games fail to prove that live service is the future
reality : Babylon's fall is falling down falling down.... while Neo is super well received
Its infuriating that this game undersold, this is one of the best sequels story wise and gameplay wise I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. Definitely needed more marketing, this sequel didng come until 14 yrs after TWEWY, they needed to move mountains to get non fans to take notice.
As a sequel it was almost everything that I wanted. The pacing was a bit off at times, but it was really cool. Good story, great characters, amazing music, fun gameplay and a good ending for both new and old characters.
For real? I wish i felt thesame way. I forced myself to finish the game. It never clicked. The songs were nice and the combat was fresh though
@@zeprincelini I wasn't as invested as the first game, but I was never bored. I was motivated to continue and discover the secrets and how everything would end. And when the final week began I was hyped, I finished the game in less than a week because sometimes I just couldn't stop.
I wish the pacing could have been better, but overall it was incredibly fun and I liked the characters, especially the antagonists which were less memorable in the first game. I like the first game more but I don't have any big issue with NEO.
@@PokemonaMoni To each his/her own i guess. Maybe i just feel rindo and his relationship with his partners.. I mean remember, neku /shiki, Joshua and beat. It was so interesting. Neku's growth as a main character was so nice. Damn, that game was fire. Its all good in the end.
@@zeprincelini That I agree with. I prefer the first game because I liked Neku's development with his partners a lot, and NEO being a team game didn't feel the same in that department. But Rindo's own development was great even if it wasn't as powerful as Neku's. I really liked how in the last day he's all alone and scared but decides to go back for his friends, it was a great moment. Like I said, I prefer the first game in general, but I still enjoyed NEO a lot
@@PokemonaMoni True true. Say have you played any game similar to twewy. Something with as good a story?
It was a sequel to a 15 year old game that they barely marketed or advertised whatsoever. I didn't even know the game existed until I saw it one day at a Gamestop, by then it had been out for a year and was half off new because apparently nobody else knew it existed either. Square dropped fhe ball on that pretty badly
Yeah I didn't even know about this game until a couple weeks ago, because Steam recommended it to me. I'm glad, too, because otherwise I probably would have ENTIRELY missed it.
Funny thing about the Chameleon noise. You don't have to wait for it to attack in order to see it. You just have to get close enough to it and you should lock on.
Video creator clearly doesnt know how to play. The worst enemies are the wolves, not the easy target-able, stationary, and slow attacking Chameleon lmao.
@@JayceCH. video creatoR 😂😂😂
You don’t even need to lock on. Just chuck Grenades
NEO was my GOTY of 2022 and for sure one of the most underappreciated games I've played in years. I think the biggest thing going against the game is that it is a sequel to a beloved cult classic game. The way it plays, tells it story and presents it's characters are similar to the OG TWEWY but still very unique in it's own right.
For example Rindo, much like Neku, has a character flaw he must overcome to beat the game but Neku's issue was right in your face via Neku's beginning monologue, constant thoughts about how annoying people were and how other characters call him out on his behavior multiple times. On the flip side RIndo's character flaw isn't put in your face right away. And aside from a few cases, you really just have to watch how he interacts with others and also take note of how the failure of other team's leader (Fuya, Motoi, Kanon and even Shiba) shows the importance of Rindo stepping up and taking responsibility.
The thing is, I got this game at full price when it came out. Why did I? Because a game like this needed all the love it can get. Too bad Square-Enix doesn't give a shit about a franchise like this since they seem more focused towards Marvel's Avengers. Not to mention that this is Square-Enix, the same company that would limit Pixel Remasters of the first six Final Fantasy games to PC and mobile. The same company that would have unrealistic expectations for games that they didn't develop and publish. Hell, they sold off all their western developers for $300 million just so they can invest in NFTs and Crypto. And they are also the same company that would go after creators who covered the 2022 Live-a-Live game. I was affected.
But what I can say is simple: thank you. Thank you for making this video because this game needs ALL the exposure it can get.
Square Enix: The company that make stellar games, but make extremely poor marketing decisions
I got it at launch because I loved what I played of the demo. I had my doubts, but after playing that, I was convinced I was in for a quality experience, if not necessarily better than the original. Plus it helped that I could carry my save over to the full game. That's always enticing!
Though I must say, I knew about the Pixel remaster fiasco, but I had NO idea about the NFT or Live-a-Live incidents. That's pretty scummy, and it sucks that you were affected by that. I thought Square were more tuned-in than that.
I got this game on PC and it has a really bad memory leak problem on PC. It's really bad. Loading in between fights can take up to a minute.
"It's not often you see a game take a 10+ year hiatus only to come up with something that lives up to the standard set by its predecessor"
Dmc 5: "Hold my beer"
Eh... Not REALLY
It was big commercially at least
Very popular to a general audience
That's a good thing
But I've heard enough dissention about 5, it's more mixed apparently for people who've played the series for years
I have my personal gripes with it (have some actual color, please? I'm not playing CoD) but people vehemently despise V's gameplay (1/3 of the game), and feel nero is way too limited, and needed a better/more diverse kit (the second third of the game), so basically, dmc5 is Dante at his best, lol
Then eventually Vergil with a dlc
It needs work
Here's hoping for a better dmc7
(They're gonna mess up dmc6 somehow, it's tradition, my bet is that since the "sons of sparda" arc is over, Dante and Vergil are both either gonna be dlc or special edition exclusives, anyway to nickel and dime people)
@@DeitySkullKid ...Nero's skill set is very different and diverse after you beat the story though.
@@DeitySkullKid Nero literally has more moves than before and he even gains more moves when you finish the game what are you talking about
It wasn't a 10 years hiatus. You forget DMC. There was 7 years between DMC and 5
@@alexandrebelair4360 DmC wasn't even made by Capcom, that was Ninja Theory
Love this game. Huge shame Square Enix doesn't.
The real reason why it's forgotten is because there was almost 0 marketing. It was mentioned like the nintendo direct before it was released, and then it was basically released.
It got a second chance on steam at least.
It had absolutely no marketing yet again, it was announced literally the same day that it stealth-dropped, and it came out less than 48 hours before the steam release of Persona 5 Royal
Thankfully it popped up recommended to me, because otherwise I wouldn't even know this game existed, and I LOVE the first game.
Personally speaking, I prefer the character writing in NEO compared to the original, as much as I love it. I think a weakness in the partner structure of the original is that while it led to quicker pacing and showed off the stakes of the plot quite nicely, certain character arcs/relationships felt rushed to me. Shiki is pretty much sidelined after her arc and is only relevant as Neku’s motivation and Entry Fee, and her relationship with Neku feels rushed as hell, which is kind of a problem considering how he started off trying to kill her, not to mention how she only gets one day to fully resolve her issues, and Joshua’s supposed friendship with Neku isn’t really as fleshed out as I would like. The majority of their week together just has Joshua purposely pissing off Neku just to see if he actually changed and Neku rebuking him because of Shiki’s and Mr. H’s influence on him. Then Joshua “sacrifices” himself for Neku’s sake and the game plays on Neku’s survivor’s guilt to have you feel something for Josh, but it didn’t really work for me, especially with how many red flags Joshua was showing, which kind of hurts the ending since it relies so heavily on Neku’s and Joshua’s relationship for Neku’s choice to have any impact.
If I had the ability to rewrite week 2, I would add subtle moments interspersed throughout it to show a side of Joshua that the audience could pick up on that shows that he values people growing into better selves then I'd add more scenes showing Neku and Joshua being more like-minded to provide a subtle but palpable sense of closeness forming between the two of them. A bit more back and forth between the two would have definitely made their dynamic feel more balanced and on a whole, sell the fact that their relationship was growing into something one could see as a meaningful partnership, like when they started playing Tin Pin at the beginning of one day to settle on what they should do for the day and Joshua actually gets annoyed, which was genuinely great to see.
Neku and Beat have the best relationship progression throughout the game because of how they’re both around for the the entirety of the three weeks and get to see how the other changes. The other characters feel more like they’re mostly there to support Neku’s growth rather than have fully fleshed out character arcs of their own, which isn’t really a bad thing because the entirety of OG TWEWY is a character study of Neku but I just prefer how NEO bounces its development between its main cast.
The thing about NEO is that it does this thing where they show you the ramifications of and RESULTS of a character arc, with the actual buildup to it being shown, not told, through character interactions and minor changes in behaviour that you're probably not gonna catch unless you pay attention, or you're playing it through a second time and therefore have more context to do so. Every single time I replay a day, I notice something new which completely changes, or supports the way I think about the story and the characters. I like this because it’s such a natural progression of "The world ends with your horizons" as a theme, because you SEE it happening in NEO. The way characters interact, bounce off each other, and the information that can be gleaned through the wider berth of character interactions is HOW you get to learn about characters and their world. You don't NEED anyone to tell you that Beat changed, because you can see from his interactions with the Twisters that he's not an immature 15 year old anymore. His brotherly instincts are still there, and he's still kinda reckless, but he tones it down and it only ever really flares up when he's protecting them.
It's incredibly- almost maddeningly- subtle because of this, which makes it SEEM like the characters are not as deeply written when that is very much not the case. It's especially more prominent when you replay the game and go through conversations knowing what happens. Stuff like Nagi blowing off and arguing with Motoi as soon as she meets him because she can tell he's disingenuous from the beginning, or how Kanon immediately doubts Fret when he says that Motoi was helping them, or how Motoi casually brings up how Kanon's plans always fails to try and dissuade the Wicked Twisters from working with her, to everything about Shoka in week 1/2, and Shiba and Hishima's relationship and how both of their mistakes led to a feedback loop of Shiba getting worse and worse.
Shoka is one of the best examples of this aspect of the game’s subtle characterization in action, because what you see in the game after she joins you is actually after her character arc. Her moments of personal conflict and deciding what to do is actually primarily in week 2, and you will never notice or really realize the significance of things like Shoka being so upset over Motoi on Rindo's behalf, because she's Swallow and knows how much he cares about him until you experience it a second time around. Not to mention the hints towards her fairly depressive home life and state of mind, as well as lack of regard for her own life except for when it concerns the people she cares about. She’s one of the best written characters across both games in my opinion.
I think you pretty much nailed it. I love the original but the way NEO handled it’s story and character is what pushes it beyond the original TWEWY to me.
Especially the little details that can go over your head. Like when you’re in battle, Fret will say “Did you see that!?” and Shoka will respond with “Nope, wasn’t watching”. But when Rindo says the same thing she says “I did, and?”
It’s such a small thing but it shows she pays more attention to Rindo than she would openly admit.
It’s little details and interactions like that, that NEO constantly builds on through out the game.
Your issues with Neku and Joshua's relationship are similar to my issues with Devilman Crybaby's romanticisation of Ryo Asuka and Akira Fudo's relationship (in particular Ryo's Abusive Gaslighting of Akira).
Agreed
I disagree with the sentiment that Neku and Joshua should have been more like minded as that's a bad thing in the narrative. Joshua was always a test for Neku to see if Joshua can justify his erasure of all of Shibuya. He is a reflection of a more cynical version of Neku's initial mindset when he started the game and the fact that Neku wants to cut through his bullshit and give his all to the game for Shiki's sake is already meant to show how much he's trying to move past it. Especially since Joshua keeps trying to feed into that negative aspect of Neku thinking they're a kindred spirit by saying people are impossible to understand and that they're all in their own "garden" as he puts it in a reflection to Neku's misinterpretation of Hanekoma's philosophy. Plus Joshua is as we find out of a race that's above morality to wager all of Shibuya in a game as most of his ilk tend to do with the reaper games so in way this is Neku resisting the temptation to give into hedonism if we're going to be all biblical which is ironic as Hanekoma is the one that's fallen. So him not only growing closer to Neku but also becoming more human carries a lot of weight. Which makes the end where Neku puts aside the confusion and anger he's feeling in the moment to trust the Joshua he saw buried beneath his almighty jerkass persona mean all the more, especially with the line Neku says where he doesn't forgive him but he does trust him.
@@luminoseflame7120 I get the intent but the execution leaves a bit to be desired. I don’t think Neku and Joshua should’ve been more like-minded as the week progressed (hell, Neku rejecting Joshua’s cynicism due to Shiki’s influence on him is a good sign of development) but that they should’ve had more moments where they genuinely connected over their worldviews and see different sides to one another to make the ending hit harder.
Also one thing I will say about post hype is that while most of the internet was silent, 4chan’s video game board had active threads on the game for about a month after. The game was highly celebrated there and people were making fan content, sharing personal stories, and generally being everything modern /v/ isn’t. While I wish that the game was more celebrated overall, I do like that it broke /v/‘s usual rule of “hating everything.”
My favorite part about the threads was Fretposter also
For me, it was Stoner Tsugumi.
Oh I was there for those. Those threads went daily I wanna say for like 2 months. Never forget 'it's always sunny in shinjuku'
@@PervertedNovaxc3 Working on something for that, actually. The asset pack helped a lot ,)
@@RedheadedReaper Oh I look forward to that
@@RedheadedReaper Holy shit please keep us updated on that
Twewy DS is one of my favorite games of all time. And so, I go NEO on release. It didn't dissapoint, one of the best experiences I've had with a game in years, they absolutely recaptured the spirit of the original, and even went beyond in some aspects like the combat which I loved. That's so difficult to accomplish in such a late sequel but it's clear the team that made it were passionate about the series. It's a shame NEO wasn't more comercially successful and more people didn't give it a chance, because the game deserves SO much more.
They also released the game the same day as the great ace attorney chronicles, which at least for me was why I didn’t get it at launch, that and at the time I wanted to finish devil survivor 2, still when I finally played neo I was honestly shocked that it was able to be just as good as the original game which was already one of my favorite games ever, I also didn’t pick up on all of the subtle details for the characters that you mentioned, granted it has been awhile since I played it, still I adore this game and I’m happy you finally got to it
Ive been playing this lately and i love it just as much as the original, the music and characters are my favorite things especially our main trio who just feel super well realized to me
pretty late to say this but happy to see how you have improved over the 2 or so years since that p3 video, that's when I found you through that video like most others, I enjoy watching your videos whenever you upload them, personal favorite is the p4 video just because I relate to how you feel about it as well, coming at a time where I needed it, during the middle of covid and my life was pretty much kinda bad at the time, but I'm much better now. Nothing else to say but I just like your videos lol. Hope you have a good day.
I think it's worth mentioning that the first and prior to this only time I saw any discussion of this game was regarding the localization, so in the absence of any real marketing thats what probably took the anchoring effect in many potential customer's minds.
It kinda sucks that the duology hasn't gotten a lot of attention from Square despite being a pair of S tier JRPGs. The stories, characters, environments, gameplay, all stellar yet they don't get the attention they so rightfully deserve. I finished up NEO recently and it was a great experience. As much as I'd want some kind of sequel or maybe a Shinjuku story, it probably won't ever happen. Amazing video on the game btw😄
I haven't beaten this game yet but man playing the sequel to one of my favorite jrpgs all time is always amazing. The game leaks with all the style and flair of the original and I really like it.
Really good video.. It felt like there weren't enough videos on NTWEWY covering the intricacies of the combat system, or the subtleties of the writing. Seen so many people say Rindo is a boring character, but it feels like they never tried to read into things beyond the surface level. You covered everything I wanted to say and more. Bravo!
-It's because no entry fee, so no real motivator besides survival, but survival already is the thing about UG's Reaper Game.
-No Pacts between Players, they just team up with anyone, posibly encouraging betrayal or spying networks, instead of building up trust in others.
-No real stakes since if anyone important gets erased, Replay will take care of that.
Well, there is the fact that those who had participated in the game were there in order to become prisoners in a rigged match where the Ruinbringers would make them fight until they're dead. And the replay ability couldn't go further back in the past, limiting from changing things since day 0.
I actually liked the first game more than the second one because of so many quality of life changes like seeing what enemies are weak to the introduction to different elements Food and more stats on all your characters it truly felt like an actuals sequel to the original game.
The original game is among my absolute favorites so I was worried about the sequel but the demo did get me hyped. Of course I did get NEO as soon as it came out and it became one of the few games in years I couldn't put down. Not perfect by any stretch but a worthy follow up. The only real complaint I can really think of is how entangled with the original it became at the end, which is great for long term fans like myself but can see it turning off a lot of newcomers.
Man, I cannot wait for your Soul Hackers 2 video. I'm 45 ish hours into it and I have some thoughts of my own, I'm looking forward to hearing yours.
Great video, as always!
I really liked the real-time mechanics in the first TWEWY. It fits so perfectly into the game's urban fantasy by grounding its mechanics in our world. The more rabidly you play, the less efficient your battles become; you get more stats-per-battle by getting in about 24 fights a day and putting the game down. Like in real life, you can reach an upper-limit on the dogged pursuit of self improvement. That is FASCINATING.
Meanwhile, NEO's fullness mechanic is fun and accommodating to all platystyles, but is it as interesting? No. The combat is great and does involve multi-tasking, but like you said, it doesn't have the same theme relevance. I enjoyed my time with NEO... I got it on launch... but I've been picking it back up every few MONTHS and am only a little into week 3. The game's streamlining doesn't stick in my craw like TWEWY's experimentation.
Even the limited availability of certain districts in TWEWY, while frustrating, isn't an outright 'flaw' because it's something that haunts you and makes you play different going into weeks 2 and 3, and that adds texture to the experience. NEO is like over-mixed pancake batter; you need the lumps!
As someone who adored basically everything about TWEWY (I even defend Final Remix w touch controls), I was proud to buy Neo the week it came out, and even then…I didn’t love it? It’s not bad, it’s very good, but I found the writing and personality to be lesser than the original even though I loved what the combat does. That said, I’m glad people are still covering this game, because even if I hated Neo, I would have been happy to support this franchise and show the uncaring maw of Square Enix that at least some people enjoy these titles.
Never played either games, but I gotta say I enjoy the thick lines of the characters art, it definitely made an impact on me. And you know what, after watching this video, I might give the game a go if I have the opportunity, it does look and sound fun!
You're more than welcome my friend.
Remember, the world ends with you.
Excellent review, good reasoning, entertaining delivery, quality video!
Thanks for you work
This is a series I was always super interested in. I bought NEO the day it came out with a preorder at gamestop. I got to the first time the time travel came into play and got worried the game was going to be all about that as a mechanic. Glad to know it's only a sometimes thing.
I'd argue that the game play does work narratively with the story. The fact that you're giving commands to your party means 2 things.
1: You're making decisions for your team. One of Rindo's big struggles is that he doesn't try to be an active participant in things. He always tried to fall into the background so he can make as few decisions as possible. It's like how he relied on "An0ther's" advice to make it through his day or how "Rewind" is directly related to the fact that he doesn't commit to decision-making so he does things over.
2: He's communicating. His second struggle is speaking his mind. Fret is constantly asking him to speak up. As you progress, you sync up better with your team & create a groove because you communicate with the team. This is exercised when the active switch up of new partners occurs. Once a new party member comes in, you have to start from scratch, reset the pins/clothes that work/work best with the new member, communicate & direct. The fact that not all the clothes or pins work for the same character means you have to switch up new pins & armor.
Rindo's whole thing is "Speak no evil". It's natural that the theme line up with the idea of him speaking his mind. Saying what's on your mind and sharing that information with others is all about his theme & parallel to the fighting system. Neku's theme is "Hear no evil" everyone's thoughts, feelings or "values" never reaches him because he doesn't listen. His fighting style involved listening and paying careful attention to what the other person is doing to sync. It's made clear in TWEWY that Neku doesn't "see" his partner. He goes by his vibes to sync.
I hope they continue this and work with a New Protag with a "See no evil" motif. Maybe a protag to see injustices in front of their eyes but does nothing to help. Or a Protag who does everything to not get involved with people reaching out for help.
Id definitely say that the implementation of the gameplay to story correlation was the best they could have tried to do. Teammates getting hit by stray attacks is still a big whoopsies.
I found this in the clearance aisle at Walmart for 25 bucks. I had to grab it cause twewy is still one of my cult classic favorites. Honestly it reminds me of the launch of the original, no one knew it was coming because there wasn’t any advertising. So far I’m enjoying the game.
Love your videos, hope you are feeling well.
Loved the first TWEWY, loved NEO even more! I have a lot of their songs on my playlists to this day. Your Ocean is my top favorite and constant replay for me.
I like how both games are similar in the way that they’re both 10/10 games (for me at least) but only reached a small fraction of people.
Very good review! I am a huge fan of the first game but I also was very skeptical of the sequel. I think it's safe to say you convinced me to finally give it a shot. At least its price has come down a lot .
I’d say it was a worthy sequel to the original as a huge fan of the original. It also had a lot of payoff for characters in the original which was great.
I liked how NEO didnt push itself back and featured a lot of sacrifice, I didn't expect for kano to die or susukichi for instance, but the overall structure of how the reaper's game is made and the fact that I loved the gameplay of the stylus make it so that I preferred the first game by a noticable chunk, in fact NEO is the first ARPG I ever completed that wasnt tied to a nintendo gimmick.
I bought this game full price and boy does it feel like it. Already feel like its gonna be in my Top 10 games list. Post-game is looking great, had me tear up in a few parts, got me excited AF on last week's Day 5 and I've been closer to the series like never before. I'm really feeling the main cast and feel the series grew with me. I just wish this did well sale wise cuz there's a ton of quality here that's missing in most modern games
It just shadow-dropped on Steam out of nowhere. No email, no ad on main store page. It wasn't even on the popular upcoming or anything at all really. 0 marketing skills. No wonder nobody knows about this game. Moreover, it's TWO days before Persona 5 Royal release on Steam. Square Enix really does everything to bury this game so nobody will play it.
I really love this game, but every time I return to or think back to it, I constantly find myself thinking "this was better handled in the original" or "the original managed to get more out of its concepts thematically". This might have something to do with the fact that some people around me were using NEO as a way to take shitty potshots at the original which really got on my nerves, but I still think it does slightly fall short of truly being on par with the OG.
Personally speaking, I view them as equal with one game doing one thing better than the other. I think the character writing and relationship in NEO are more fully realized while OG TWEWY has tighter storytelling and pacing.
@Snow I felt the opposite, personally. Take Rindo for example. It’s not that he's just insecure and nervous and just needs to break out of his shell, even though that does play into his arc a bit, he's also indecisive, overthinking, in his head a lot, and untrusting as hell apart from people he feels he can trust at first like Motoi before that pedestal is toppled down. He’s anxious as fuck and it’s surprisingly refreshing to see in action. On top of that, he can be a real passive-aggressive asshole internally to boot. He is a genuinely good kid but he's got human flaws that contrast with but make sense when paired with his strengths. Characters aren't interesting simply by switching between 2 different character traits. They're interesting when all those traits are being expressed at the same time for reasons that are consistent within their internal logic. You gotta be a good writer to pull that off and you gotta know when to show off these dimensions during your story to achieve proper dramatic effect when the time calls for it.
In a lot of ways, his character writing feels more fluid compared to Neku as he’s capable of in-the-moment internal reflection and responds to those reflections with awareness, as shown when he apologizes to Fret for his indecisiveness and is shown to be constantly going back and forth between improving himself as a person and falling back into his old habits, which felt more realistic to me until it culminated in his final decision. I also felt that his chemistry with Shoka was better written compared to Neku’s own with Shiki and Joshua.
@Snow Thing is, Rindo didn’t know that he and Shoka were friends until the very last day of the game and even beyond that, I still felt that their chemistry was more built up and natural. This is exemplified pretty well with Week 3 Day 2 where Rindo has to comfort Shoka over the possibility of having to confront Ayano. You know nothing about Ayano or her relationship with Shoka in some ways, that mirrors real life quite a bit. You're not going to know everything about what your friends went through, because you're not them. The most you can do to understand is listen to them when they tell you how it affected them and that HAS to be enough, which is just what it feels like to help a friend. All you can do as Shoka’s friend is listen to what she says about her and Ayano’s relationship, and use that information to figure out what the best thing to say to help her move on.
@Snow I didn’t feel that way. It felt more like Rindo trying to help her learn how to deal with the upcoming tragedy and he’s shown to be a pretty empathetic guy throughout the game, like in the sidequests and what not.
You can always attack and lock onto the chameleon noise if you get close to them, they're never invulnerable at close range. It's still really irritating when they break your lock-on constantly though because you moved slightly too far away...especially since they have that electricity burst attack that hits quite hard and you'll want to move away to avoid it, breaking your lock-on and ruining your charge build-up. Plus the fact that they start battles invisible means you won't actually know they're there until they attack you or you've done enough battles to just KNOW when they're probably in the group.
The thing that got me to play the first twewy was Spotify recomending break free to me, and then when I saw the first game on the switch I gave it a chance, Spotify did a better job marketing the game then square for me.
"I know! Let's put it on Epic Games Store where nobody knows it exists!"
This game was my 2021 game of the year and I'm so upset that Square Enix marketed Balan Wonderworld, the game that was one of the worst games of 2021, significantly more.
I can't say I can agree with you on the points you make about difficulty. I've cruised through the entire game on Hard at Lv. 1, only for the final day did I get some resistance.
Legitimately thanks for making this video and reminding me to make more time to play the game, I've been letting myself get too busy to play at my leisure and I owe myself this game
Neo: The world ends with you is such an amazing game that deserves way more recognition.
I simply didn’t like how long the game was, I felt like it had poor pacing and dragged on for way too long.
One of the things I love about the original is how short and too the point I felt everything was, only lasting about 20 Hours and having a lot of replay-ability for me.
I definitely have to give NEO a another playthrough one day too see how I feel second time around for sure
Because it had less space. The original game also failed to expand on the characters.
I finished the game this week and I loved the interactions between characters, specially the voice acting, specially Nagi, she was the apex of this game for me. Story was nice, liked seeing some old faces, Pinky, Lollipop and Pi-Face particularly. Combat did not click with me, don't know why.
Anyways, great video!
I remember seeing the trailer of this game and being hyped, just to never hear about it again until, well, until literally right now.
I think a major issue with the game that broke its hype was the whole issue of the localizers adding becoming a major issue. This happened especially during a time when that was a massive issue, still is to be honest. That alone made me utterly stop caring that the game existed, same for many that I talk.
As a big fan of the first game and thinking Neo was really good, just lacking in some places; I’m heading back into the game after the first play through on release and I never really noticed those points about the characters. I think playing the game again with hindsight has really helped me appreciate what this story does really well.
Yeah I think that was the point. You play the game through the first time and with the knowledge you now have about everything, you see all the subtle little hints about things. Case in point: Shoka
I love both Neo and the original TWEWY to death, the first being my favorite game period. With a lot of game series lately coming out and being disappointments I was very happy with this one and consider it one of my favorite games. Both Rindo and Fret hit me and my friend hard since they remind us of ourselves down to even our own relationship so I can feel affection for the game from that in addition to everything else. I hope that the team gets to make another one but with how Enix is I doubt it. For me, this game and the original are absolute bliss and even over a year later I'm still listening to their OST.
I preordered this (got some pretty cool pin magnets!) and played through this. I count myself as one of the fans of the OG game (i even played back through the original right before Neo's release as a refresher) and genuinely looked forward to this one. I liked it for what it was. And i agree, i wasn't clamoring for a sequel, but was pretty stoked when they announced it. Will i replay it? Maybe. It was a fun ride. I think the 1st one hit so hard for me was because of how different of an...RPG(?) it was from Final Fantasy, the characters and the premise. I liked the mechanics of it (my favorite pin being the one where you had to "shout" into the DS's mic!). I wouldn't mind if they did another one, as long as they don't lose the heart of the game.
I loved Neo Twewy.
Spoiler Warning…
Kinda felt like it couldve benefited of trying to distance itself from Neku and crew like Joshua implied in A New Day. Maybe have the main party be Rindo, Fret, Nagi, Tsugumi, Shoka, and Minamimoto rather than including Beat and Neku as playable characters. My sister played NEO without playing the first one while I was at college last semester and she voiced the complaint that she felt like she didnt get all the nostalgia pandering.
And personally, I feel like if they were going to include Neku, have him be this super powerful player that only shows up on the final day to help the crew indirectly (doesnt join). Maybe even have him as the post game superboss? Idk, I just felt like NEO could’ve been handled differently
I absolutely love NEO as a whole, but this was my main complaint as well.
Also spoiler
It just felt like the closer it got to the end, the more of the original's characters showed up just because. The worst case was Joshua practically out of nowhere being like "I'm here too!". It felt like it was more a requirement they all be there than not. I like how Neku shows up, and his part in the story, but he could have accomplished all that without being a playable member.
I played NEO when it first came out, but I just didn't like this game as much as the original... while I don't think it's a bad game, I just couldn't vibe with the pacing and story and some other minor aspects of the game. I missed having more immediate threats like Neku not having a partner at times, or not knowing who you're stuck with as a partner, the mystery of how the reaper game works or the occasional cryptic challenge for the day, which depended on the game master that week... I think this game would really benefit from having a reaper game with more different rules or or different objective, or maybe even happen in a different city altogether to further expand the world of TWEWY so it doesn't feel like an expansion pack of the first game... I was never super invested in the interactions between the team members in NEO (tho I did like the interactions with Kanae and Motoi), many days really dragged out for me (especially the territory battle ones), rewinding time with Rindo was a real pace killer, some enemies are very annoying, and the hype when you get a new team member isn't as great as all your team members are are extra slots for pin and they don't really have unique attributes... I'm glad I've played it cause it's a sequel for one of my fav DS games, but I don't see myself touching it again anytime soon, if ever (but I still recommend playing it if you liked the first game or likes jrpgs with modern settings)
I'd like to weigh in a bit as someone who's first experience with TWEWY was with the Final Mix edition on Switch!
For context, my friend had been begging me to play it for years. I didn't have a DS system at the time and my computer was too weak to run emulators, plus emulating a game like TWEWY would be awkward at best. So when I got my switch, the Final Mix was the first thing I picked up alongside BoTW and Mario Odyssey.
Having now gotten a 3DS and played the original, I can say that I enjoyed the experience on Switch way more, but also think it was more unique and interesting on the DS. I think both have their strengths and weaknesses. I would rather play the Switch port simply for the ease of doing so and lack of gimmicks, but I also do agree with the video saying that it was more relevant story wise when playing it on the DS. I lost my mind at Another Day (which my friend got to hear through my live reactions) and after that, I was set, thinking it was that.
Then a few weeks later, NEO TWEWY was announced.
Of all the serendipity that I could think of, that was probably the most I've actually felt. I couldn't afford it at the time so I ended up having to get it with Metroid Dread when the latter came out, and once I managed that, I was all over the game. I 100%'d the game, all pins maxed out, all the side content, everything. I have the OST on my phone and I love the characters in this game so, so much. I loved it so much that I wished i'd bought it sooner, but I unfortunately didn't get a chance. I eventually got said friend a switch so they could play it and we both agreed that it was better than the original in almost every way, aside from some of its story.
I agree with everything you've mentioned here. The shibuya Slam days are so annoying first time through, since to do them legit you have to farm beatdrops with low level pins just to get the points. I think some of the returning story elements were odd, and I wish that they'd included an easy way to catch up with Another Day for people who didn't get a chance to pick up Final Mix. As much as I love the combat, it is very visually noisy and it's easy to miss getting hit when you're already dealing with so many flashing lights and prompts. The whole shopkeeper thing was odd too, and I agree that perhaps those should have been left off the network so you could avoid having to farm every single FP to max it out.
But I think the game succeeded in so many ways and I'm so upset that it didn't sell well. The OST is now one of my favorites across all gaming, up there with Persona 5 Strikers and Undertale. The style, the character, the world all feels so well detailed and I love the characters. Shoka by the end of the game had my heart and Rindo went from annoying at best to amazing at worst. So many things with this game speak to me and I just wish it'd gotten the recognition it deserved.
So glad to find this video and I'll be looking into your other content now, thank you so much for all this, Nam!
I loved this game, I got it day one because the first game in the series really was formative for me when I was a teenager. Glad to see you give it a good analytical review, and if this is the last game, I'm glad it went out on a game I really enjoyed as well.
When you Advertise one of your "Fan favorites" sequels almost not at all..
AND when you do, not in the Places where the Biggest Parts of the Fanbase are?
I kinda get why this situation happened in the first Place.
I know at least four People who were affected through this, 2 didn't even know there was a Sequel, 1 thought it was cancelled and one missed the Release by nearly 2 Months.
(And mind you, all 4 were giant OG TWEWY Fans)
I swear to the Lord, Square had it with us wanting a sequel and just decided to do everything in their greedy little Hands to massacre the Franchise.
And don't come at me with "They wouldn't" They did the same Thing and sabotaged Balan Wonderland. (And any other Franchises they wanted to Bite the Bullet).
Or just let them be stuck in developement limbo.
Im waiting for them to come out and sabotage the next, remember my words.
I had mixed feelings on the first game, personally, but have picked NEO up after working on this video, since it looked a fair bit better to me, and just to give the game and the series more love to keep going. Hopefully my opinions will change after playing it.
Explains your name...Bad opinions.
@@JayceCH. …..I didn’t even say what my opinions were on the game. Jumping the gun a bit, aren’t ya?
I remember playing the original Twewy more than a decade ago when I borrowed the game from a friend at school. It made me happier, I bought Neo as soon as it was released. I guess it doesn't touch fans today as it did fans back then.
I think one thing not enough people talk about regarding NEO's release is that it came out on the same day as The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles in North America, and since I pre-ordered both, trying to juggle between the two games was quite the challenge. In the end, while I still adored NEO, and put it as my #2 Game of 2021, I think I could have liked it more if its release date wasn't overshadowed by another legendary game.
For that reason, I really appreciate this video, as it gave me a chance to listen to your takes on the story and gameplay and give me motivation to try reliving the narrative again without worrying about another game taking up its time!
Pretty sure Ace athorney didn't affect the sales that much.
I enjoyed the world ends with you neo, but I started to get burnt out as a game progressed. The weird percentage gauge always made me feel like I had a hundred more hours to play, and the story, although good, didn't capture me to want to play through to the end. I enjoyed the fighting mechanics, but I'm more of a turn-based guy so I found myself smashing buttons more than I preferred to
I actually remember encouraging you to pick up NEO on stream at one point, happy you enjoyed it! I’m one of the people that prefers NEO to the original, I think NEO is my favorite game of all time with the OG in second place.
Happy you liked it, hopefully we can get a sequel in 5 years and not 10 again, lol
Nice video ill keep an eye on the game
What? I totally love this game. It was a worthy successor (I have hundreds of hours on the first one on DS, phone and Switch) and just barely edged out for JRPG of the year by SMT V.
One word: advertising.
I honestly think the localization may had an impact on the success of the game, not as big as other people seem to think but considerable nonetheless. While the translation in general was good enough, as someone starting to understand japanese by selfstudy, some dialogues felt really cringy and akward in comparison with what it was really being said, from little details, to big changes in character, especially shoka, who is comically rude in the translation while in reality she's just being sarcastic (or pretending to be)
Yeah, back when this game was first announced I was really hesitant on it since video game sequels have been pretty big busts for me lately. Heck, I had almost completely forgotten it came out over the summer last year since it practically released with no fanfare. Couple of months later I tried out the demo, bought the game from a used game store for a pretty good price and it became my favorite game of 2021 lol. I'll probably buy it again new just to support the release since I think it really deserves the world.
Honestly, my only real issue with it is that some of the later enemies are kinda crap to fight against and the AI ends up taking damage from some of them regardless of if you've left them alone or not, leading to a lot of situations where you might just die through no real fault of your own. The chameleon enemy I didn't really mind too much since actually dodging its attacks aren't too hard so the invisibility only comes as a minor annoyance.
Man I love this game, I platinumed it on PS4. It’s a shame that’s it’s kinda been forgotten. I think the OST is godly and I LOVE it’s cast.
OH, TAKE A LOOK AT ME
I KNOW I'M NOT THE PERFECT BOY YOU WANT ME TO BEEEEEEEE
ALL I REALLY NEED
IS ROOM TO BREATHE BECAUSE THIS PRESSURE'S KILLING MEEEEEE
I like your take on Nagi’s character. My issue with her interactions with Fret was that she always came off rude to him with no explanation. She should have had dialogue saying Fret is fake, because at a glance Fret just seemed like he was being an optimist for being forced into a death game
I like that, not everyone has the best social skills, a college nerd shouldnt voice her opinion that would attract attention, specially when she herself doesnt know why he is faking it
@@aokyoutsuki7744 And once she knew she immediately flipped and went to be one of his best supporters. She's empathic, but that doesn't mean she's articulate.
Definitely one of the best games ive played in a long time, maybe even ever. I actually liked this game more than the first. Sucks that its sales didnt represent the quality of the game. I too hope the series doesnt end here but even if it does, im glad i got to be part of the experience.
i loved the first twewy but i had no idea this existed until like a year after it’s released! ☹️
And now Square Enix release NEO: TWEWY on Steam one day before Persona 5 Royal .... Someone in Square Enix really hate this franchose.
I was hyped. Then I found out that the localization team didn’t stick to the script putting stuff that wasn’t in the original version and even changed how characters interacted with each other.
And I thought……I’m not gonna pay for someone else’s game instead of the original creators work.
I’m still a bit distraught about this. I pre-ordered the game because I was so excited to play the sequel. This defined my summer of 2021, I played this EVERY single day during my summer break until I finished it. It was a really satisfying experience, music was excellent, story was pretty solid and characters were also fun. Loved exploring all the areas. In fact, I’m waiting to give it a replay at some point when I’ve got the time. A damn shame it didn’t sell better, because it deserved it.
30:12 this is espicially surprising since Neku had the same thing with a character in his game
I'll be honest. I ended up dropping Neo very early in Week 2 when I first picked it up, because it really did feel to me like an unnecessary sequel. The characters didn't even start to get my attention, but what made me really realise I was mad at it was being introduced to Gatto Nero and realising that this was what I wanted the sequel to be, if anything; neat little references to the living characters of the previous game and where they ended up, without involving them directly (I did want the Reapers back though; I was over the moon when I saw Kariya again lmao). A New Day, and how that ended... it just hurt, and it felt weirdly gratuitous because Neku has been through far more than enough already.
But now that I came back to this video, and I know the ending, I think I'm going to try to give it another shot sometime. Maybe I just didn't get to the bit where the story really starts.
Same here Neo felt more like a AMV fever dream than an actual game with content.
That's the thing! Week 1 didn't make me bore to death but Week 2? I fell asleep watching youtuber's playing it but I managed to understand it while I'm closing my eyes on my bed like I'm dead 💀
The end of Week 2 is when the ball starts rolling but I can perfectly understand because the middle of Week 2 is a lull point especially after dealing with the difficulty spike of the start of Week 2.
In a lot of ways, I actually prefer NEO’s battle system over the original.
You know about those combo MADs that people typically watch for action games and praise? They’re mostly these fast attacking, multi-hit bread and butter combos. NEO doesn't possess this kind of multi-input, multi-hitting hack-n-slash aesthetic like that of a DMC or Bayo, or even a Tales game. NEO’s form of offense are effect-based attacks that when performed in a controlled sequence of combinations, register as combos; there are no bread and butter actions in the traditional sense of combat. In essence, DMC5 V’s gameplay is kind of the same. His moveset are just a bunch of disjointed attacks that, if paired in a sensible sequence, start to take shape as combos. And yet NEO’s engine is so fast-paced, that linking these attacks together doesn’t feel sluggish or labored. It's one of the few games of it's kind to make disjointed attack actions still feel speedy and combo-intensive all at the same time.
In the sea of action games out there, NEO’s combat is incredibly freeform as fuck and that freeform-ness ultimately comes from how cohesive all its mechanics are. The fact that in combat, a skilled player can consider Groove Mashups and which character is activating them, pin behavior, meter management, status elements, Beatdrops, positioning, enemy ricochet, and more when entering combat; the fact that all these elements interact and play off of each other without interrupting the flow of combat; that they speak the same language with the same goal of keeping combat fast-paced and engaging; the fact that all this is done so seamlessly that you barely notice how well all these different mechanics are complimenting each other is what makes NEO so impressively conceived.
NEO’s mechanics are built specifically in a way that actively encourages experimentation; but in addition to that, said mechanics actively reward the player for understanding how to combo. The beatdrop circles are designed in a way that compliment the type of pin and attack you're using. If it's a pin that launches upwards, the beatdrop sweetspot is in the middle to encourage players to time the ascent of an enemy. If it's a pin that sends enemies flying, the beatdrop sweetspot is at the beginning of the circle because the combat design wants you to go for an aggressive follow-up right after to keep offense going.
Mashups are also much more mechanically interesting and varied compared to Fusions. The fact that Mashups are auxillary techniques as opposed to cutscene attacks already makes them better, but the fact that each one also does something different and changes the way you approach a combo is so invaluable.
Playing optimally in NEO blends far more mechanical layers and makes more prompt use of your decision-making skills in combat situations than the OG. While OG TWEWY has mechanical layers such as the smart use of the puck system in conjunction with some interesting pin combinations, the mechanics the player is juggling is fewer and not as flexible when placed next to NEO.
In some ways, it feels more cohesive compared to the original game which had some rather superfluous elements such as the trend system. It’s kind of like Shotlocks in BBS but to a less egregious effect. It more so just stacks additional or less damage on your pins in a way that doesn’t really have an effect on your playstyle and doesn’t add much to your decision making and it isn’t even relevant in the endgame outside of Pork City (which you can circumvent by just using brandless pins anyway). That’s why I like how NEO just cuts out that fluff and said: “fuck it; let's focus the fuck up and laser in on things that would matter to the combat.” Similar to the Light Puck from the OG, beatdrops are the game's tacit method of teaching you both how to play the game and how to really have fun with it, but it does so in a far more open and better way to embrace them.
That said, I think what the original has over NEO is the use of field geography in combos and gameplay in general.
Take Pyrokinesis and Entanglement for example: you can basically drag along a line and draw a path of flame that can be used for spread damage, hitstunning Noise, or even stopping attacks from coming at you, like the drill attack of the moles. And in Entanglement’s case, you can basically draw a line of wire whenever, which can create a lot of interesting interactions: it can stunlock enemies, gives you plenty of breathing room to set up other Psychs, has great area coverage, can rack up combos like there’s no tomorrow, can cancel enemy attacks on both sides, act as a barrier of sorts, and even drag Noise along the line for extra positioning shenanigans. Whether it's using objects littered on the field as defense when using kinesis psyches, taking cover behind objects, using Entanglement to lock enemies into a corner (the 2D nature of the game helps here) then trapping and bouncing them around with attacks into the wires for major disrespect. This is possible because the layout and geography aspects of the 2D design lent themselves to being manipulated with other pins and fostered ingenuity with environmental tactics.
I also think what OG TWEWY has over NEO is not needing a targeting indicator to activate pins. While there are some Psychs that do require it in the OG (Thunderbolt, Shockwave, Freeze, Ignition, Holy Light, Grave Marker, Rock Bind, Twister, etc), you can still activate a lot of your pins on your own to set up some creative shenanigans. There’s nothing quite like using a Piercing Pillar just as a Kangaroo Noise is about to come down on its targeting marker so that you can send it up with a launcher. While there are some Psychs that don’t need a targeting feature in NEO (Whirlwind, Psychokinesis, Drift Tackle, Guardian Glaives, Minefield/Time Bomb) these are a lot less in comparison.
That said, NEO boasts more positional options being that 3D grants you another axis to work with, so you're able to create dynamic offense now that you can attack around enemies and knock them AROUND an arena and as well as having more robust systems to take advantage of its pin interactions.
I think it’s really neat how both games are able to create distinct yet similar combat systems with their own individual strengths.
Yeah me too
bro at this point just make a video yourself
Glad to see more content about the game I agree with almost everything in the video to really good watch.
Still is disapointing that no much fuss was made about It,people clearly liked it from what I know but you really don't hear it that much sadly.
The Day of release playstation Store leaked the Game acidentally and it isn't on steam only on epic that also might explain why the fandom for it isn't that present but man I hope more people give it a chance it is a really fun game
I wanted to, but EGS exclusivity pushed me away and later I just forgot.
This game was the last nail in the coffin for me to learn japanese. I quite dislike the English translation and now knowing japanese i cannot describe how much more i enjoyed this game in it's original language. perhaps it's me just being quite whiny about localization, but i find myself unable to go back to reading translations over the original material in almost every case now. I truly feel something was lost when they localized this, regardless of if the changes were necessary or not.
Played the game recently. It really does come off that the localisation is at least over-editorialised. You know how Shoka is made to say losers, bozos etc? She doesn’t quite say that in JP although you can tell why they chose that direction because of her cheeky mannerisms. And honestly her over-editorialisation is incredibly minor compared to what they did to Nagi and Motoi. Like holy hell, both of these characters were annoying af to read. And I definitely feel making Motoi an annoying piece of trash diminished Rindo’s arc for me cause I couldn’t relate to why he’d look up to this pretentious guy that constantly mixes random Spanish all the time. Not to mention his quotes that Rindo liked so much sounded outright stupid in English.
Overall I’m glad I waited so long to buy this game second hand. Shallow characters, overzealous rude localisers, generic enemies, genericfied powers and over-reliance on the OGs made a meh story out of an average one.
Really the only saving grace this game had was the gameplay that translates the feeling of the DS one well enough.
to be very honest, I did play the original TWEWY back on the DS and it was amazing, but then there was radio silence for many many years.
then they had this big timer on their website, having everyone speculate if it was a sequel, just to have it be a final mix…
and now, after even more time, they quietly released a sequel 2 console generations after the first game
feels to me like it was too little too late
07:32
These walls are anything but invisible...
Thanks for the amazing video I might even purchase it on my own time
i feel like the title of this video is really clickbaity. it leads to believe that this would be more an analysis about the staying power of the game (or lack thereof) instead of just a review of the game with a small "they didnt advertise it enough" at the end. maybe you should change it to reflect this instead?
I'm not a fan that Kubo get's killed by a character that is introduced in the final hour without any build up, thus resulting in the final boss being a non-character. Why couldn't the devs have Kubo BE the final boss?
Because Angels are supposed to be an insanely higher tier than Players. If the next game has our players promoted to reapers and eventually Officers, that would make a bit more sense.
Yeah that almost ruined the ending for me.
I played NEO and I loved it so so much, sucks it didn't sell well, it really sucks that we'll never get to play another sequel in that world
NEO was a fantastic sequel. It fell slightly short of the first game for me due to pacing issues mostly related to the gameplay, but that’s still an insane achievement for a sequel this long down the road. It sucks it got shafted hard in marketing. As glad as I am it got released on more platforms, part of me believes timed console exclusivity could have helped it get a bigger push like the team Asano games or Nier.
i really think they originally wanted a shinjuku game but due too taking 13 years inbetween titles they thought it would be way to risky to do so went with the more standard plot instead. so much of the plot really feels like its centered around a game that didnt happen. also nekus inclusions feels pretty sloppy. Fun overall but feels like a lot of missed potential due to outside circumstances saddly