Often, games pack so many characters, storylines, and mechanics into the experience that the end result ends up being a bloated mess. Occasionally, there are games that strip everything back and stick to a strict minimalist style and set the world on fire. Rarer still is a game that has just enough bloat, just enough restraint, and just enough special something and delivers an experience that delights, entertains, and sticks in your mind. NEO: The World Ends with You is, in my opinion, a game that shouldn’t work: a console sequel to a 13-year-old Nintendo DS handheld title, made for modern consoles while adhering to its ageing roots, packed to the brim with Tetsuya Nomura’s (Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy) wackiness, and caught between action RPG and visual novel. Somehow, Square Enix have pulled it off; I bloody love this game, and I am excited to share with you why.

NEO: The World Ends with You is a game about a group of teens competing in a contest called ‘The Reaper’s Game’: a literal life and death competition where players are aiming to be freed from the afterlife and released back into the living world. I’ll keep things spoiler free, as the game does a great job of dropping twists and turns throughout which greatly increase the mystique of the world of NEO: The World Ends with You. Indeed, throughout the 25+ hour experience, the story ducks and weaves around all expectations and is truly a rollercoaster, amplified considerably if you have played the original The World Ends with You or watched the anime adaptation.

At a glance, NEO: The World Ends with You looks much like the 2007 DS original of a similar name. Character designs are straight out of the Square Enix/Tesuya Nomura playbook, with the game’s heroes sporting over-the-top style outfits and accessories, and enemy monster designs falling into the Pixar-meets-Final Fantasy flavour.

The game straddles the line between action RPG and visual novel, with the interactive aspects of the game playing out similar to something like Ni No Kuni 2, and the story elements play out in a graphic novel-esque panel style, with about 50% of the interactions voiced and 50% just text-based with the occasional grunt and groan.

This brings me to one of my few critiques of the game: its overindulgence. These story and plot-pushing moments are often long-winded and overstay their welcome, to the point where after about 10 hours of gameplay I was mashing the X button to get through the more casual moments. Luckily, you can often tell which of the story sections are crucial and which are less crucial by the mere fact that only about half have voice acting. These voice-acted sections are the plot moments you need to pay attention to, as they often include clues or direct instructions required to move the game forward.

There really is a plethora of game mechanics and features present in NEO: The World Ends with You, that at times, and certainly to gamers not experienced with JRPGs, can be overwhelming. Throughout the game, you will experiment with time travel, thought control, diving into memories, peering through different layers of existence, and you’ll solve a wide range of puzzles and challenges. This doesn’t even cover the completionist aspect of the game – there are 4 different categories of collectibles to gather during the game, including pins, books, CDs, and clothing, as well as a checklist of foods to eat, monsters to fight, and NPCs to assist.

Finally, you can purchase CDs in-game to change the game music playing at the time. And can I just say that the music in NEO: The World Ends with You is FIRE. Similar to Persona 5, which also boasts a pumping soundtrack oozing with style, NEO: The World Ends with You has a huge variety of styles and genres present in its OST, and pretty much all of it rocks. From thumping grunge to slick hip hop vibes, the soundtrack does a great job to complement the action and style of the gameplay.

The trade-off to all these systems and gameplay options is that there are simply too many menus to navigate. Triangle will open your classic RPG menu where you can equip your character’s loadouts and clothing, and explore the various glossaries, maps, collectibles, and quests. The touchpad opens the difficulty and level options, where you can adjust the values and see how it will affect your drops and combat, and the Options button will open up the system menu to save, load, and adjust other game options. Too often I opened the wrong menu and got lost among all the options presented. A minor inconvenience, but one that occurred often enough to warrant a mention.