The World Ends With You - Liveplay?!

[sincere]

...I'm letting rainfall handle the app acceptances at Marina. :D

/blasts off to play TWEWY for no good reason fuck yeahhhh

Comments

[sincere]

I turn on my 3DS and it informs me that I have a gift.

Whaaaaat?

[sincere]

I have three gifts. They're programs for some reason! Like a 3D Pokedex! Oh okay. Well, it's nice to get gifts.

[sincere]

I'm turning up the music ALL THE WAY. Because I hate us.

This game has some godawful repetitive music.

[sincere]

Continuing my saved game, but starting from the beginning. Because, yeah, level 67.

[sincere]

We open on artistic cut-ins of Shibuya, and Neku is the only spot of color. He monologues:

Shut up.
Go the hell away.
I don't get people.
All the world needs is me.

Title card. Aww yeah we got some existential shit going on.

[sincere]

So Neku wakes up in the middle of the crowded Scramble Crossing and he is totally not sure why he was sleeping in the middle of an extremely busy pedestrian intersection in the heart of Shibuya.

He gets up and he finds a pin in his hand, and then he is able to hear people's thoughts ahhhh out of my head

[sincere]

Note: 4 minutes before rainfall physically grabbed the 3DS from me and turned off the volume rather than listen to the howling city theme anymore.

[sincere]

Neku is still puzzling out his new ability to read minds when his phone goes off.

Reach 104. You have 60 minutes. Fail, and face erasure. --The Reapers.

"Oh, that's cute. See ya, spam. Deleted."

[sincere]

But wait! The message is still there. "It's like the junk mail from hell," Neku concludes, puzzled. Then his hand is emblazoned with a digital countdown and these mysterious frog monsters come at him ahhhh!!

They're attacking him and I get to flail around on the battlefield and learn how to escape from fights because I can't fight them yet. Hooray for strategic cowardice!

[sincere]

"Gotta bounce!"

Neku shouts for help, but no one notices him, even though Scramble Crossing is still packed full of people. Frustrated, he makes a run for it.

Opening animation!

[sincere]

I love Joshua's look at the beginning when he runs past each of his partners. The way at first he's so dark and displeased, but as Neku dashes past him he turns around and smirks slowly.

I also love the style of the credits... The whole game has great styling. I just wish less anorexia were involved.

[sincere]

We introduce two Reapers who aren't yet named.

Male Reaper With The Lollipop is boreeeed and doesn't waaaaanna work. Female Reaper With The Pink Hair points out they haven't worked in weeks, so shut it. Day 1 is when you can rack up the most points, so let's go!

Frankly, Lollipop, I don't think I would object to having to work one week out of any given month.

Lollipop suggests a game, so it doesn't feel so much like work. "C'mon, you love it." Pinky agrees to play "Reaper Sport #3: Player Hunt". Who can bag the most Players during the mission today?

Pinky doesn't think this game sounds fun, because she's going to totally win. ♥ "Now I have to actually try," Lollipop bemoans.

Loser buys the winner a hot bowl of ramen.

[rainfall]

Fuck you game.

Now I want ramen. :(

[sincere]

The frogs follow Neku to the Statue of Hachiko, and then the frogs start plucking people out from the crowd and eating them while they scream. Cheerful game is cheerful.

Neku is really freaking out by now ("WHY AM I EVEN HERE? WHAT IS GOING ON") but the frogs are still trying to murder him. Not a lot of time to think.

[sincere]

Suddenly, a chick arrives!

Shiki: Forge a pact with me!
Neku: Uhh, I've kinda got my hands full...
Shiki: Forge a pact with me and we can kill the Noise!
Neku: Who cares about some noise?!
Shiki: Please.
Neku: Uh... fine. I accept?

Now for shoujo blue power-up sequence!

[sincere]

Our new partner gives us another pin! The original pin is black with a stylized skull on it; this one is red with a flame on it.

Now we can attack the frogssss. No explanations for Neku, who is still wide-eyed and reeling.

[sincere]

Shiki is impressed that Neku can use the pin. "You must be really good at psychs!" she says happily, "Guess I found the right partner!"

WHAT ARE PSYCHS. They're magical pin powers. But Neku gets the important part: now that he's made a pact, the Noise won't attack him.

[sincere]

So, tell me about the Noise, Shiki.

"Uh, they're the monsters we just fought. Duh."

Neku is skeptical, and has some internal monologuing about how ridiculous this all is.

Shiki introduces herself and says "We've got a long week ahead of us!" The Reaper's Game lasts for seven days!

Now Neku is extra super skeptical and folds his arms and sulks. Reapers? This girl is a flake. How did he get here and where is he? Shibuya? What the hell is he doing in Shibuya? He decides to retrace his steps.

Right... in the middle of Shiki talking at him, which he's been thoroughly ignoring.

[canavasary]

I haven't touched TWEWY in so long, haven't been able to when I lost my DS, but haven't picked back up when I got the DSi though I remember loving Neku.

[sincere]

Back to Scramble Crossing, where Neku is really annoyed that Shiki is following him around, and Shiki is annoyed that Neku is being so difficult to follow. "Screw you, I go where I want," he tells her. Shiki is not impressed.

Neku is missing all the vocabulary so he's really just totally blase in the face of statements like "Don't you want to win the Game?!" Whatever. Play games on your own time. Shiki is like "sdlfkjslkjg they will kill us, what is wrong with you."

[sincere]

Shiki points out that he's a Player too; the stylized skull pin is a Player Pin. And he has a timer on his hand, just like she does--

Oh wait the timer that's right

[sincere]

We head to 104 but the way is blocked by an invisible barrier. Whaaaat.

Neku turns around. He has the odd feeling he's being watched, and notices a guy in a red hoodie staring at him. Neku is veeeeery suspicious...

Then Shiki goes, hey, the barrier is gone! She attributes this to a lucky break, but Neku notices that the conspicuous red hoodie dude is gone.

Hmm.

[sincere]

We made it to 104! Hooray. And the timer is gone! Mission complete.

But dun-dun-dun, someone off-camera says "Big deal! Only an idiot would screw up on Day 1. Help a girl out and earn me a few extra points, 'k?"

Pinky! You heartless bitch! /crash of lightning

We are attacked by more frogs! Time to learn how to use my partner in battle. Hint: It requires more brainpower than I usually possess.

[sincere]

And then more frogs! And then a big... super weird bear thing.

Neku lovingly addresses Shiki: "Hey! Stalker!"

He's a charmer.

[sincere]

So we defeated the monster and Pinky appears to be gone, but Shiki is fretful over the knowledge that there's six days left and it's only going to get harder. She checks her cell phone nervously.

Neku freaks out in his head. Why am I stuck here? What if I get erased? What kind of game is this?! This is all wrong, am I really stuck here in Shibuya--

[sincere]

End of Day 1.

Week 1, Day 2

[sincere]

Neku is still in the same freaking-out pose. My favorite part. I like the idea that he literally just opened his eyes ago and it was a totally different day.

[sincere]

He straightens out and goes, "Wait. Where am I now?!"

Shiki is still checking her phone, fretting. Neku comes up to her and goes "Hey" and she jumps through the roof.

Shiki: Don't scare me!
Neku: (Grow up. You're obnoxious.)

She is, of course, unfazed by their location change.

[sincere]

Cell phone says:

Set the cursed sculpture free. You have 60 minutes. Fail, and face erasure. --The Reapers

And there's the counter. Shiki is surprised that Neku is surprised by it. Look, honey, I don't think Neku got the same Powerpoint presentation you did.

[sincere]

Neku: Wait -- the date's changed on my phone.
Shiki: I guess a day must've gone by.
Neku: What?!
Shiki: I think we fell asleep after the mission. But it's okay! We need to focus on today's mission!
Neku: (Have you lost your MIND? This is not OKAY! We were in the middle of the street, in broad daylight! Why would we fall asleep?!)
Shiki: The cursed statue... I guess must be the statue of Hachiko.
Neku: (Maybe we passed out. And then... woke up here? Everything in between is a blank.)
Shiki: But then what's the curse? Neku?
Neku: (Did somebody drag us here? Or--)
Shiki: C'mon, Neku, pay attention!
Neku: ......
Shiki: Hey! What, now you're ignoring me?! If we don't work together we'll fail the mission!
Neku: ......
Shiki: You don't have to be like this...
[Silence]

I chose to write out all of this because I particularly enjoy the way that Neku wanders off on his own train of thought, totally spacing out everything that she says. I think it's a nice introvert detail and it's fun.

[sincere]

So we head out to investigate Hachiko, but there's another invisible wall! Coincidentally, there's another red hoodie guy nearby...

Shiki is upset and Neku is annoyed by her "whining", but he doesn't say anything -- because he's monologuing inside his head. Shiki starts getting annoyed and tells him not to just stand there, to think of something!

"(I AM thinking. Maybe if for just one minute you could stop your bi-- ...The guy in red...)"

It's so natural. Neku is just standing there not communicating, so of course Shiki, who is upset, gets frustrated. If he used his words, she would know he really was working it out. And they'd probably stand more of a chance of getting a solution. (Although Neku is also smarter than Shiki, not going to lie.) And then it's natural for him to get annoyed at her, and... It's just very real.

[sincere]

Neku can't read the red hoodie dude's thoughts. Suspicious!! Shiki flails out loud while Neku ignores her in favor of thinking the answers privately, because he's helpful that way.

The guy approaches them and tells them to exterminate all the Noise in this area in order to move on.

[sincere]

Shiki suggests Neku try some more pins. "They" should've given him a lot! And Neku does find them in his pocket, and is surprised. Shiki explains that some people are good with some psychs and others are good with others, so he should try them all out. But Neku is super awesome, and he can use all the pins that ever existed.

There's a second Player Pin mixed in among them, but Shiki and Neku don't notice that quite yet.

[sincere]

Hoodie explain some game mechanic: Noise exist simultaneously in two "zones" and the only way to defeat them is to purge them from both. So during combat you can't see your partner and they can't see you, because you're fighting on different planes. The wall is down now, so we can proceed.

But wait! First, admiration! Holy crap Neku you used all of those pins. You're a psych genius.

...And why do you have two Player Pins? ("Why do I have any of them," Neku thinks privately.)

[sincere]

Well, Shiki is full of flattery and praise about her psych genius partner and how lucky she is etc. Neku turns away, thinking about what a huge liar she is.

Shiki is annoyed by his silence and they start yelling at each other, culminating when she tells him to take off his headphones because it's rude, and he tells her to shut up because he just met her and he doesn't like her and he doesn't care if she thinks it's rude. Shiki deflates.

("Now she's checking her phone? Forget this.") And off he goes! Shiki scrambles to follow.

[sincere]

As we leave the underpass, we run into a tall aggressive boy and his tiny companion in oversized clothes.

Beat is very annoyed that "our friends" ruined his day yesterday. Neku and Shiki not having any clue what he's talking about is obviously a trick! "I can't scan you. You gotta be widdem!" he enunciates clearly.

Rhyme, the most exasperated, tells Beat to sit down and shut up. Only with more adorable. She has observed that we have Player Pins, so we, like them, must be Players, and Players cannot scan each other.

Beat says, "Oh." Eloquently.

[slayerofgod]

Oh, Beat and Rhyme. Such a wonderful brother and sister pair.

[sincere]

Beat and Rhyme never made it to 104 yesterday after Pinky messed with them, but they're still in the Game. So you don't necessarily have to achieve the mission objective to survive? We are all confused about this! Their mission timer vanished early.

Rhyme ponders if maybe when Neku and Shiki made it to 104, everyone's timers vanished. She and Neku are the smart ones.

Unfortunately, Neku doesn't want to play with the other children! He turns down their offer to work as a quartet. He doesn't trust you bitches. Take that.

Beat is angry, and Rhyme is sad and sorry, which makes Beat angry some more! They head off, leaving Shiki and Neku to their new impending argument.

[sincere]

Shiki is angry and Neku does his damnedest not to talk to her, either.

Shiki: I don't get you!
Neku: Then why don't you scan me.
Shiki: You know I can't do that! And why shouldn't we just talk about--
Neku: And say what? I'm not opening up. To anyone. Ever. Other people will hold me back. I'll do things my own way.

He stalks off. Shiki asks her cell phone for help, but receives none.

[sincere]

There's a man talking to a random moai headstone in the corner of this screen. Neku is curious about him, and how he seems to be talking to a rock, and Shiki is like "Neku... Can we leave the crazy man alone.."

So off we go.

[sincere]

Neku notices the Red Hoodie dude and clues in and comes to a stop, letting Shiki walk into the wall, because he's a scholar and a gentleman.

She says, "A wall... so I guess we have to defeat some Noise, right? 8D "

Neku thinks, "(She is so slow)" and goes up to ask the Wall Reaper how they can get through. The Reaper reiterates the mission, which is odd, because Hachiko is past the wall...

[sincere]

Shiki comes up and gives Neku a dressing-down that he ignores, pointing out that the Moai ("Moai? Like on Easter Island?" he asks, and she says, "No, Moyai! I don't know where it came from, though.") Moyai is a statue, too. So maybe it's not Hachiko they have to do something about.