“The World Ends with You: Final Remix” is planned for release on Oct. 12, 2018, worldwide (Japan will have the game out on Sept. 27 of this year). The port of the DS game to the Switch will involve a reworked combat system allowing for the Joy-Con to be used in addition to the touch screen.
Along with this, an entirely new scenario is to be added in order to change the experience further and provide a fresh breath into an older game.
The original installment of the game was released by Square Enix and developed in conjunction with Jupiter on July 27, 2007 in Japan and April 22, 2008 in North America. To add, the title in Japan was “It’s a Wonderful World,” which was not used internationally due to copyright issues, resulting in the current title known throughout the rest of the world.
The game took heavy advantage of its status as a game for the Nintendo DS and utilized all the components it could. The combat was active on both screens with the protagonist, Neku, being controlled on the bottom screen while the partner character was on the top and had to be used through the d-pad as opposed to the touch screen.
Along with this, the game was built around a real place with a few changes, that being Shibuya in Japan. Certain landmarks were renamed in order to make the environment unique to the game in some ways, such as renaming the 109 building to 104, a large department store located next to the Scramble Crossing (which kept its name).
“The World Ends with You” revolved around Neku, an anti-social boy that woke up in Scramble Crossing with no memory of how or why he was there.
Soon enough, after being attacked by creatures called Noise, he learns what is going on: he had died and was now entered into a game called the Reaper’s Game in the Underground (UG). The UG is invisible to the Realground (RG) where the rest of the world exists, ensuring there would be no outside interference in the game.
Neku goes through three weeks of the Reaper’s Game, having a different partner for each week. The gameplay gives them different movesets, such as the first partner, Shiki, having an ESP-esque set where you have to match symbols up with the cards.
Each week allows Neku to grow more as a character as the mystery of his death becomes unearthed and his bonds with the other players and NPCs that assist his journey begin to play bigger roles.
However, the Switch port isn’t the first remastering of “The World Ends with You.” Another version known as the “Solo Remix” was released to iOS on Aug. 27, 2012 and on to Android devices on June 26, 2014.
In the end, the game has reached critical acclaim and has been extremely successful commercially. The awards to its name include best role playing game for the Nintendo DS, best story for Nintendo DS game, as well as the best DS game of the year. It even was the tenth best game of 2000’s released by Nintendo according to Nintendo Power.
With the Switch being popular, there is no doubt that the game will be successful and go above and beyond once more.
Erika Brandenburg
Arts and Entertainment Editor