The World Ends With You: Final Remix: Title Screen & Prologue
For anyone that's been keeping track of my announcement, then yes! This was the "warmup" game that I kept talking about that I recorded a playthrough of before I worked on Xenoblade DE and Xenoblade 2.
Not only those games, but also my action with Brave Fencer Musashi, Musashi Samurai Legend, and Kingdom Hearts all also came together to motivate me to take this ZETTA-unique game from Square Enix, on as well. It's artstyle even looks like Samurai Legend, as it shares two of that game's character designers (and one of them has worked on Brave Fencer and Kingdom Hearts, too)! That's something I realized from its very first trailer of the original version.
Speaking of that, this game was originally for the Nintendo DS. It gained a Solo Remix for smartphones, then eventually got this Final Remix for the Nintendo Switch. Besides the much cleaner graphics and new songs and remixes, the game had to be modified to work with the Switch's motion controls compared to the touchscreen controls it originally had.
The Switch version has you rely on a pointer that attempts to imitate the touchscreen controls the game would've otherwise had, but this also means you have a dedicated button used to reset the pointer back to the center of the screen. I'm gonna be using that button A LOT, and not just for recalibrating, either.
These new controls aren't the greatest, but I try to get used to them over time. Besides that, though, Final Remix has new content that doesn't exist in any other prior version, including material that bridges it together to its own true sequel...
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Now for the start of this story...
One day, in the ultra-busy and ultra-eccentric shopping district of Shibuya in Tokyo, Japan, one teen wandered around with apathy and aggressive aloofness. He pushed everyone aside, and shut them down from entering into his own space... his own world...
Through the use of his branded headphones, this orange-haired, purple-clad teenager kept all to himself, all in an effort to make others keep to theirs...
His name... is Neku Sakuraba.
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One day, Neku suddenly found himself waking up from the ground, right in the middle of the biggest Scramble Crossing of Shibuya.
And... somehow... he could now read everyone's minds! He could now hear their thoughts, and he couldn't process how or why. Could it have been that mysterious skull pin that he also gained when he woke up?
Neku then got a mysterious message on his cell phone. It says:
"Reach 104. You have 60 minutes. Fail, and face erasure. - The Reapers"
After attempting and failing to delete that message, Neku gets another more literally-shocking discovery: Numbers on his hand! They seem to be counting down from the 60 minute time limit he was given.
And not only that, he was suddenly attacked by frogs! Frogs that appear to have different tattoos and symbols to form parts of their bodies! Neku wasn't able to fight against these hostile frogs, so he was forced to run away from them!
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And that's just what you have to do! You can drag the pointer around to make Neku run or dash with invincibility, but all you can do now is just pause and escape. Gotta bounce!
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Neku attempted to call out for help against the strange, violent frogs, but no one answered. He ran away to find help and avoid danger, but alas, it felt like he was all on his own in Shibuya now...
Or... was where he was actually still Shibuya?
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Have one Twister of an opening for this game, where it shows off all of its main characters, from protagonists to antagonists.
If you've already played and completed this game, then if you squint and focus hard enough, you may be able to make out several, if not ALL, of this game's biggest plot points and twists just from this very opening!
I will not mention what they are now, but if you don't know, then you will soon enough in this playthrough! You could even say that the game's title itself is one clue!
Now onwards through The World Ends With You!