This game, originally titled It's a Wonderful World in it's native Japan, is one of the most innovative, original, and brilliant games to appear for a very long time. Even though Square Enix has some of the most popular franchises of all time, in Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, each one having over 8 instalments, it is great to see that their creativity hasn't yet ran dry.

Most of their games involve a fantasy world, with magic and swords, but in The World Ends With You, the game takes place in modern day Tokyo, in the district of Shibuya. The game itself actually recreates this district, with some of its notable landmarks. This realism doesn't mean the game is based in reality though, because it has a very complex, engaging story too.

Neku wakes up in Shibuya with a mysterious phone call. He becomes part of the Reapers game, he has to win within seven days or he will be erased forever. The Reapers try to erase players on the journey, which is basically a euphemism for killing them. They collect an entry fee from all of the players, which is the thing that they cherish most, if they succeed in winning the game this is given back to them. Neku is a very angry teenager, with an absolute hatred of everyone else. When he woke up there was a Pin in his hand, and using this he can see into peoples thoughts. He hates people, so you can imagine he didn't enjoy receiving this. People cannot see him, unless they are players themselves, and when he meets Shiki, she makes a pact with him to become his partner. She is a happy upbeat girl, with a love of fashion, and aspirations of one day becoming a famous fashion designer. There is a lot of friction between the two characters, as each one has different opinions and polar opposite personalities.
There are lots of other genuinely interesting characters too, but to even reveal anything about them would spoil the story for you.
The story is genuinely amazing, with lots of plot twists, and as is normal with these sorts of characters, Neku overcomes his angst, and loathing, and there are some really moving moments in this game. It isn't only console RPGs with fantastic stories, this game more than lives up to the SE name and the story is fit to be among the Final Fantasies and the Kingdom Hearts.

The world of Shibuya is explored entirely with the touch screen, with the stylus being used to move Neku through the fashion obsessed area of Japan. The battling is also an innovative mixture of touch screen and button presses. It is a dual screen system, as you have to concentrate on controlling both your partner on the top screen, and Neku on the touch screen. Neku has pins which can be used to battle, some activate when you slash across an enemy on the touch screen, and neku slashes them for damage. Some fire projectiles if you touch empty space, some heal the characters, and others can move objects into enemies. There are over 400 pins, so there is a massive amount of combination, and potential for lots of different ways of battling. On the top screen arrows appear and by pressing the direction of these buttons with the D pad or even the letters if you are left handed you can activate combos. When combos on each screen or completed, a puck is passed between the characters, meaning that your attack gets a temporary boost. Controlling both at the same time would be confusing, but the aim is to launch a combo on the bottom screen, and then quickly shift attention to the top screen to activate a combo, and pass the puck. If you want to though, you can set it so that the AI will take over the top screen after a certain amount of time.
The enemies appear on each screen, each screen is a different zone. Each enemy must be defeated in BOTH zones before they are defeated entirely. However if you deplete all their HP in one zone, and there is still some left in the other, the character on the first screen starts depleting the HP in the other zone. Same goes for your own characters, both of them must be defeated for you to lose.

Fashion plays a big part in Shibuya, with pins and clothes having different brands. In each area of Shibuya different brands are popular, and by wearing the fashionable items you get attack boosts when you engage in battle. If you wear unfashionable items then your attack is lowered.

Characters can eat food to permanently increase their stats. Each item of food has a certain amount of bytes. When you have fought enough battles equal to the amount of bytes you have eaten, you get the powerup. However, you can only eat 24 bytes a day.

The characters level up in this game, but this doesn't necessarily make them more powerful. You can choose your level depending on which one you have gotten up to. If you pick a low level you have less HP in battle, but you get better items at the end, and vice versa for a high level, so playing ruthlessly is rewarding. You can also change the difficulty setting, and by playing on a harder difficulty setting you can get better items.

The battles in this game are not random like some RPGs, you can choose when you want to engage in battle. To battle, you have to scan by tapping your pin (the one Neku woke up with) and you can see enemies called Noise. You can then battle them by tapping on their symbols. If you tap more than one symbol then you activate a chain of battles meaning that you can get better items at the end.

The graphics are amazing, it is an anime style graphics, and everything is in 2D, which may sound like a bad thing, but its better to have gorgeous 2D characters, than less great 3D ones right? And the areas you explore outside of battle are more 3D, it is just the characters who are 2 dimensional. The game looks a lot like Kingdom Hearts, having had the same character Designer Tetsuya Nomura, with Neku looking very much like Sora. However his hair is a different colour and he always has headphones glued to his ears. The other characters designs do not look recycled though and shiki e.c.t all look great. The area designs, as mentioned previously, are based on real locations, and it is apparently a very good representation of the area (I wouldn't know myself, having never been to Japan).

The music is a pop/hip-hop/punk based, like popular urban music would be. The songs are all different, and this is a good thing, and I think the music is good, but as I don't listen to pop I wouldn't know, some of the songs annoy me, but the majority of the soundtrack is excellent, especially the ending song. The game also features Voice Actors for some of the main characters parts, and they did pick good ones, it does add to the realism of the characters.

When the game is finished the ending is slightly confusing, but you have the option of going back through all the levels again to find secret reports written by one of the characters, and these explain some of the background to the mysteries, also adding to the not too shabby 30 hour main story.

Pros: Best game on DS, most innovative battle system for years, fantastic story, great soundtrack, good graphics, long lifespan.
Cons: Neku looks similar to Sora from Kingdom hearts

Graphics: 10/10
Story:10/10
Music and sound: 10/10
Characters: 10/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Lifespan – 30 hours main quest, with 20 hours extra optional content.