I haven’t bought a game for the Nintendo DS since I purchased it around the time it first came out. I have the chunky gray hand held that allows Gameboy Advance games to load into the bottom while the DS games load into the top.

I had the first Yu-gi-oh game and never bought another game in general until recently.

In 2008 Square-Enix released a modern role-playing game that puts the player in Shibuya Japan where the goal is to survive 7 days and complete missions handed out by “Reapers.” You, the player are Neku, a teenage boy who isn’t very social or trusting of others. He is teamed up with Shiki, a happy hottie with so many secrets governments of the world are like open books.

As the story progresses you not only learn about each of the characters, but in usual role-play fashion; you make the characters stronger. Some of the great features are the fact that armor is just regular clothing bought in shops, pins (buttons) are your weapons, and the characters can eat to raise their stats.

The pins act as psychic weapons such as a sword and gun; elemental attacks such as lightning and fire; there are also healing and power-up pins. The pins are able to be leveled up to make them stronger and some evolve to become even better weapons.

The battle system works between the top and bottom screens. the main character (you) fights on the lower screen with the use of the stylus and touch screen where you activate the power of the pins as per their instructions.
The top screen is where your partner fights and their attacks are either set to auto or you can use the directional pad or buttons to perform the attack steps.

Gaining money (Yen) or equipment is based upon settings that the player chooses. By changing the level, hit points and the difficulty you can gain either more or less of the “booty” at the end of a battle.

The graphic’s are great for a small screen game and offer some cut scenes that are lightly animated, there is also voice over which is used the most during the long ending after you win.

The music is top notch with a mixture of dance, rock and hip-hop sounds which are all real songs, not just synthesized video game music.

As the game progresses, you play a total of 21 days featuring a new partner every 7, the different styling of the game and the great story make for one of the best role-playing games in a while–especially for the Nintendo DS. After completion, you can return to the game with everything that you have already acquired and finish side quests and do just about anything that you wanted to do before during the first round of play which makes “TWEWY” have a high replay value.

I highly recommend The World Ends With You and if you can find them, there is a soundtrack, collectible pins from the game and a few statue/trading figures.

GRADE: A

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