Game Journal: The World Ends With You (Session 2)

THIS POST CONSISTS ENTIRELY OF GAMEPLAY AND STORY SPOILERS FOR THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU

I know. You don't care. But someone else might.

I'm still getting a grip on the combat. There's a mechanic in the game called "the puck". When one character does a combo, a green light floats to the other character. When that character does a combo, it floats back. As it goes back and forth, it builds a multiplier which adds damage to the last strike of any combo. This can allow pretty devastating attacks, but waiting for the puck to move back and forth gives the bad guys an opening to attack. So I take the bonus when it's convenient, but I gave up on wasting my attention on it pretty quickly.

I guess that's the recurring theme in the game. It always gives me too much to absorb, so I'm always exploring the various mechanics to see which ones really matter. Of course, Super Spam Offense is still the best strategy. It's so good that I've turned down my hit points to what they were at level one to get more XP and money from enemies. I've also turned off automated partner attacks for a small XP bonus. I turned my hit points back up to level three to beat the Day 2 boss. But I'm back to level one hit points to clean out the Day 3 trash enemies. I primarily use XP to increase the rate at which I gain XP. It feels uncomfortably circular.

The story is starting to grate. Neku (the main character) is willing to kill his partner (Shiki) to escape the game. He's also told that he'll be killed if he doesn't do it. Even still, he doesn't hesitate much, and the game plays the same cliffhanger sequence three times before finally giving up that he doesn't (but only because someone intervenes). There was no suspense and no real surprise. This game desperately needs a skip cut scene feature. I'll go a dozen fights between saving because I don't mind repeating a dozen fights, but I'm starting to save after every cut scene for fear I might have to watch one twice. :P

The last cut scene I watched introduced the sync concept. The more in sync Neku and Shiki are, the better they'll perform in combat. (The exact benefit wasn't said.) This makes two game mechanics (sync and bravery) encouraging Neku to come out of his shell and be less of an %#&hole. So now on top of being so cold that he'd sacrifice his partner, he's going to pretend to be nice just to up his stats. I'm beginning to feel dirty for helping him succeed. Meh. Just ignore the story and play the game.