0:00

This episode of Retronauts is brought to

0:02

you by Squarespace, the all-purpose DIY

0:04

website platform for pros and beginners

0:06

alike. This

0:08

week in Retronauts, take that,

0:10

Hiroshi Yamauchi! Hi

0:34

everyone, welcome to Retronauts. If

0:37

you'll think back a long time ago, more

0:40

than 25 years ago, you'll remember

0:43

that time when Squaresoft and

0:45

Nintendo had a schism. They

0:47

didn't like each other for a while. Squaresoft

0:49

started to hit it really big on PlayStation

0:52

with some RPGs. People

0:54

asked Nintendo's president Hiroshi Yamauchi about

0:56

that. He said, you

0:58

know what, we don't care because people

1:00

who enjoy RPGs are depressed losers who

1:03

dye their hair brown and sit in

1:05

their room by themselves playing video games

1:07

alone. That's not our people.

1:10

Well, this week we're

1:12

talking about the video game where

1:14

Squaresoft said, you know what, that

1:17

is our people and we're going to make a

1:19

game about them. That game is The World Ends

1:21

With You, about a depressed loser who learns that

1:23

actually you have to not be alone. You have

1:26

to work with other people and that the world

1:28

is what you make it. It is

1:30

The World Ends With You. And I am Jeremy

1:32

Parrish. The world does not end with me because

1:34

I have my companions here for this

1:36

game. Two of them, it's breaking the rules. What

1:39

are the Reapers going to say? I don't know.

1:42

But calling in from the West Coast of

1:44

America, we have returning to the podcast for

1:46

the first time in a while, I think.

1:48

Or maybe it's just an episode that you've

1:50

been on that I haven't lately. Hello,

1:53

it's Kat Bailey and I promise that

1:55

this podcast will be so Zeta enjoyable.

1:59

Excellent. And

2:01

what about you Stuart? Oh my god, I

2:04

gave it away. Sorry. Please introduce yourself anyway.

2:06

Even though I

2:08

forgot the spoiler warning. How long have you been

2:11

doing this? Day

2:13

day maybe hours. Okay. Well,

2:16

obviously I'm sure Jeff and unfortunately the world

2:18

does end with me. So, you know Get

2:22

your things together. I suppose. Yeah

2:24

once you're gone, that's it for everyone I

2:27

didn't say anything about myself, but as

2:30

everyone knows I am so superficial dressed

2:32

up all official and

2:36

That's the great thing about the world ends with

2:38

you is that it's a little bit of everything to

2:40

everyone. It is one of the most Complicated

2:44

not necessarily complex Games

2:46

on Nintendo DS it is an action RPG

2:48

that tries to do about eight

2:51

or nine things at once with all these different systems

2:54

But when you stop and look at them, they

2:56

all make sense and they all work together and

2:58

they all reinforce the theme of the game it's

3:00

um, it's one of

3:02

those cases where this game should

3:05

be a Goddamn mess

3:07

and yet it all just

3:09

clicks it all works and it stands

3:11

out as one of the strongest games

3:14

From the Nintendo DS at an era where

3:17

Square Enix was pretty much, you know hitting it out of

3:19

the park left and right and

3:21

even even so this is You

3:24

know top form for them just

3:26

a really great video game and

3:29

you know It's been enduring enough that it's been

3:31

remade a couple of times There was a sequel

3:33

a few years ago that no one knows about

3:35

talked about or played including me, but

3:37

it was there It did happen I saw

3:39

it on the internet and you know, you can

3:41

believe everything you see on the internet these days

3:44

because everything online is very truthful So

3:47

I confirmed, you know, yes. Yes. No

3:49

Google chat told me that there were

3:51

five or six sequels And

3:54

the first of them was actually created by

3:56

President William McKinley in 1731 So,

4:00

you know, if Google AI says

4:02

it, it's gotta be true. Yeah.

4:06

Anyway, Kingdom Hearts. No,

4:08

I mean, the world ends with you. It kind of looks

4:10

like Kingdom Hearts, but it's not. Thank God. I'm

4:13

really excited then. Sorry

4:15

about that, Stuart. No, this is

4:17

like an honorary Kingdom Hearts game in

4:19

a way, because it is really messy,

4:22

over complicated, and it's made by almost all

4:24

the same people who made the Kingdom Hearts

4:26

games. It does not have, so far as

4:29

I know, any narrative or

4:31

mechanical or real

4:33

conceptual ties to Kingdom Hearts. It's

4:36

just got that vibe. The

4:38

Kingdom Hearts game. I think it's technically the

4:41

same canon now at this point. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah,

4:43

you're right. There's been a lot of talk about that. We

4:45

saw in Kingdom Hearts 4 that

4:48

the main character is now in sort

4:50

of real world Tokyo, and the

4:53

world ends with you figured into the end

4:55

of Kingdom Hearts 3 in places as

4:57

well. Please fact check me

4:59

fans and tell me how wrong I am on

5:02

social media. I love hearing about that. So,

5:05

when you say the Kingdom Hearts

5:07

4 shows the protagonist in

5:10

the real world, is it like video

5:13

footage, like actual film camera footage? No, it's sort

5:15

of- Like the ending of Chrono Cross? Not

5:18

quite, but it is very reminiscent of

5:20

that Simpsons Halloween special where Homer falls

5:22

from the sky into the real world,

5:25

into the trash can, and discovers- what

5:28

was it? Erotic cakes. Erotic

5:30

cakes. Thank you, Stuart. I appreciate you

5:33

for that. It's

5:35

definitely more realistic. I know that the

5:37

world ends with you showed up in

5:40

Kingdom Hearts dream drop distance. Yeah,

5:42

one of the worlds is dedicated to it. And

5:45

at the time, one of the bad- kind of one

5:47

of the badder ones. I know that

5:49

Kingdom Hearts fans don't like that one. So

5:52

and then that was a big deal at the

5:54

time because Nomura

5:57

seems to have Kingdom- the world ends with you

5:59

sort of- close to his heart and was wanting

6:01

to make a new game for

6:03

a long time. That was his way of sneaking it

6:05

in. It was like, here we go. Now they're in

6:08

Kingdom Hearts, I guess. Yeah,

6:12

they were these kind of drips

6:14

and drabs like the iPhone port ends with

6:16

like a really basically,

6:18

I don't know what the word is, superficial

6:20

kind of teaser as if to say this might be

6:22

more of this at some point, but nothing much more

6:24

than that. And then it was another what, 10 years

6:26

until anything happened? Pretty much, yeah.

6:29

Yeah. Yeah, I feel

6:31

like, you know, they finally

6:33

got to make their Kingdom Heart or World

6:35

Ends with You sequel, but Neo

6:37

didn't really go anywhere or do anything. And

6:39

I think that's really because the incubator

6:43

that made for a perfect existence for the

6:45

World Ends with You no longer existed. It

6:48

was very much a game

6:50

about a time and a place and

6:52

a platform. And when you take that

6:54

away, whatever you have, is it really

6:56

Kingdom Hearts? I'm going to

6:58

keep doing this all through the show. Okay, I

7:01

need to scroll the words Kingdom Hearts off of

7:03

my screen. Okay, there we go. Is

7:05

it really the World Ends with You once you take

7:07

away the time, the place and the platform? I don't

7:09

know. It's very much

7:11

a game that was built for the

7:13

Nintendo DS. It did a

7:16

lot of interesting and revolutionary things with

7:18

the hardware and with kind of game

7:20

design. One of the things that I

7:22

will keep going back to in this

7:24

episode is that in some ways,

7:26

the world ends with you out personas persona. That

7:29

will probably make some people angry. But

7:32

I'm sticking to my guns. I believe it

7:34

with the from the bottom of my heart.

7:36

It's absolutely true. I think

7:39

it's a game that really I mean, it says something

7:41

that the subsequent versions of the game,

7:43

the phone version and the switch version. I

7:46

mean, there are acceptable ways to play it, but they just

7:48

don't have that you just don't vibe with it the same

7:50

without the stylus without it in your hand. Even

7:53

with the more confusing stuff like the two

7:55

screens being used for your co-op partner, being

7:58

confused by that is part of the game. of the

8:00

experience. Like the fact that when

8:02

I played it, I was basically just mashing

8:04

the buttons and hoping something would happen on

8:06

the top screen while frantically scribbling. It's

8:09

so built for that platform, everything about it. So

8:12

the thing that you

8:15

eventually probably should learn

8:17

about The World Ends With You.

8:19

You needed it again. I almost did it again. I

8:21

caught myself though. The thing

8:23

you should you really need to come to realize

8:25

as you play that game is that you don't

8:27

need to do anything with the person on the

8:29

top screen. You can just leave them alone and

8:31

they'll be fine. There's like maybe two or three

8:33

battles in the game where you really have to

8:36

pay attention to both screens. But the rest of

8:38

the time, just let them do their

8:40

thing and focus on the touch screen. It's

8:43

one of those cases where they

8:45

made it super complicated and it

8:47

seems overwhelming. But I

8:50

think somewhere along the way they realized this isn't

8:52

realistic for people to control two

8:54

different characters using two different forms of input

8:57

against two different types of enemies

9:00

using two different sets of powers

9:02

all at the same time. So let's

9:05

just automate the top character. So that's a

9:07

good use of AI. And

9:10

I think that one of the things that

9:12

I really enjoyed about the top screen is

9:14

that each character that you get on a

9:16

week to week basis is a little bit

9:18

different from another and

9:21

you steadily unlock more abilities for

9:23

them to go. So

9:25

it really gamifies the sense of

9:28

when you get a new partner, you go, I

9:30

don't know how to make you be able to do

9:33

the most amount of damage that I can. I feel

9:35

a little out of sorts, what's going

9:37

on. And it kind of puts

9:39

you in the shoes of Neku as

9:42

that happens. And then as the week

9:44

progresses and your pairing becomes

9:47

stronger, slowly but surely

9:50

also you become much more comfortable controlling the person

9:52

on the top screen. And I

9:54

think the later mobile ports really lose that. And

9:58

that is why you should never play mobile games. Just

10:00

DS something was lost when they took

10:02

away the second screen I really I know it's not

10:04

gonna happen But switch to needs to be called switch

10:06

to because it has two screens. It should be called

10:09

switch to DS Well,

10:32

anyway, that's not about this what this episode is

10:34

about this episode is about the world ends with

10:37

you and I Have

10:40

to ask in the retronauts tradition.

10:43

What was your first experience with this game?

10:45

What was your first awareness and and you

10:47

know time playing it Stuart? I'll

10:49

start with you Thank You

10:51

Jeremy well, I mean I

10:53

first saw it in the official the UK official

10:55

Nintendo magazine when it was being previewed and Immediately

10:58

just from seeing the screenshots are kind of like

11:00

what is that like it looks so different from

11:02

anything else I still feel hyper stylized and

11:05

Contemporary, you know Unlike

11:07

most RPGs which are like, you know You've got

11:10

like a little wizards hat and a little stuff

11:12

and you're waving it like a bush and that's

11:14

boring I don't like RPGs as a rule. They're

11:16

nothing against them I just they don't play on

11:18

vibe with them, but this one I for some

11:21

reason I was compelled to buy it I think

11:23

probably advanced buzz, you know about how good

11:25

it was and I thought yeah, it looks cool I want

11:27

to see those graphics. I have got student grant burning all

11:29

in my pocket. I'm gonna buy this game Which

11:32

was a mere 30 English pounds at the time

11:35

unthinkable now so

11:37

I throw it on and You

11:39

know, I played through the whole thing. I just I

11:41

don't do that with RPGs I never finished them and

11:43

this one I made it all the way through despite

11:45

all these Complex systems, but I

11:48

never really fully understood anything. I fully understood

11:50

the food system until quite late in the

11:52

game I don't think I took full advantage

11:54

of the systems but one of the good things about it

11:56

is you don't have to as has been mentioned with the

11:58

co-op partner you can sort of leads into

12:00

their own devices if you want to. When

12:03

I was fighting with Sheikki, she's got those ESP

12:05

cards. They have a specific name, but I can't

12:07

remember what it is. But you have to draw

12:09

a certain pattern by right, right, up, right, right

12:11

to do an attack. So as I mentioned, all

12:14

I would end up doing is frantically scribbling with

12:16

my pens on the bottom screen while mashing the

12:18

d-pad. And every so often, something cool would happen.

12:21

So it really works on that level of almost layman.

12:24

I don't know what I'm doing, but I love

12:26

how cool this is. I love how interesting this story

12:29

is and how great everything has been drawn. But

12:31

it also works on that complex. I want to

12:34

get like teeth fully into this. I want to

12:36

learn all of its idiosyncrasies, all of

12:38

its secrets. I want to wring everything out of

12:40

it. I want to win pin-pin mode in the

12:42

post-game. I want to be the best. I want

12:44

all 300 pens. But

12:47

that's not for me. But if you want to do

12:49

that, it's there. I think for all

12:51

its complexity, I think it's extremely accessible, which

12:53

is rare. And

12:56

for someone who doesn't play the genre, I found myself,

12:59

I found it quite easy to understand the way that the tutorial

13:01

is sort of laced into the narrative

13:03

as well. And it's just immediately

13:06

compelling, the story of being able to read people's

13:08

thoughts by tapping the screen and then just tapping

13:10

through their thoughts. And all of it's just kind

13:12

of flavor. You don't need to do that all

13:15

the time, really. But if you feel like it,

13:17

you can just find out about all these weird

13:19

things people are thinking about. So

13:21

it appeals to me on that level as well. It's

13:24

not like a huge world. It's

13:26

quite compact. But you get so much

13:28

mileage out of it, just wringing everything out of

13:30

every little space. And there's only

13:32

a few characters that are all quite interesting and

13:34

fun. And the bosses are nice and over the

13:36

top and eccentric. And I just

13:38

liked everything about it. And I

13:41

finished it, which I never do. So that's like a

13:43

10 out of 10 right there. Yeah,

13:46

I feel like this is one of those games

13:48

where you really

13:50

have the option, the ability to

13:53

invest as much of yourself into

13:55

it as you want. And you can play through

13:57

it and pretty much finish the game without...

14:00

necessarily going deep into the systems. But if

14:02

you really get the systems, then

14:04

you have the option to, you know,

14:07

dig into the storyline. You also

14:09

have the option to challenge yourself

14:11

by the way you initiate battles.

14:14

So, you know, if you really

14:16

do get the battle system, and you really want

14:18

to get the most out of it, and just

14:20

test to see how well you can handle both

14:23

of the play styles, simultaneously,

14:25

you can chain together

14:27

enemy encounters, and they will become progressively

14:29

more difficult. And, you

14:31

know, that's that leads to greater rewards.

14:34

But it's not something you have to do. The

14:37

game does not force you to chain together

14:39

like super difficult battles, if that's

14:41

not how you want to play. So it kind

14:44

of lets you engage it on its own, on its

14:47

own terms or on your own terms,

14:49

really, and get as deep into

14:51

the systems as you want. So, you know, that's I

14:54

feel like that's a sign of not just a good

14:56

game, but also a confident like a self confident game.

14:59

And really, self confidence is a key mechanic in

15:01

this game. So it kind of works. Can I

15:03

mention real quick, sorry, just from what you said

15:05

about the customizable difficulty, I want to say that

15:08

not to mention this bidden words, I'm afraid I have to

15:10

but Kingdom Hearts recoded on

15:12

the DS a few years later, adopted

15:15

that sort of correct, like

15:17

a minuscule difficulty, like

15:19

setting sliders, all sorts of ways to

15:21

change things up, get more rewards. And

15:24

even 358

15:26

days over two had a similar mechanic

15:28

going on. So they did carry a

15:30

lot forward from this game. But

15:32

just not in exactly the same way, I suppose. Yeah,

15:35

I think the sliding difficulty is actually

15:37

one of the bigger contributions this game

15:40

has made because there have

15:42

been other modern games that have adopted

15:44

it, as well as

15:47

just the ability to set the difficulty level

15:49

and then you get really good rewards if

15:51

it's really high up. But

15:54

maybe it's just you don't want to deal

15:56

with this at a given moment and then you set

15:58

it way down at the bottom. Yeah,

16:01

and also, you know, the way

16:04

you collect trends, pins and shape

16:06

trends through fashion and things like

16:08

that affect the overall world. Two

16:11

years later, Demon's Souls would call

16:13

this world tendency, but it was

16:15

invented here, people. Dark

16:17

Souls would not exist without the world ends with you.

16:20

I like this narrative. This is a good narrative. Oh,

16:23

yeah. Where did you first experience

16:25

and encounter and play this game, Kat? Were

16:28

you living in Japan at the time? I was, in

16:30

fact, living in Japan at the time, and

16:32

I spent a lot of time in Shibuya,

16:34

actually. I was hanging out there on

16:37

the regular. This game came out in 2008, and

16:40

I was definitely paying attention to it because I

16:42

played the Nintendo DS kind of the most while

16:44

I was living in Japan. I

16:47

had a Wii, but I didn't really have the next-gen

16:49

consoles. And I think you'll

16:51

remember that this was a pretty bad time for

16:54

Japanese games in general. This may have

16:56

been the year that

16:58

the Mega Man developer

17:01

Inafune said that the Japanese

17:03

games industry was dead. And

17:06

we were a couple years into the HT

17:09

generation. Square had

17:11

had some fairly notable

17:13

failures on the PS3, and

17:16

everybody's kind of going, so what the heck is

17:18

going on? And the world

17:20

ends with you is this intriguing game

17:22

on the Nintendo DS. A lot of

17:24

Japanese developers are moving over to the

17:26

Nintendo DS at this time. I

17:29

think Dragon Quest might have been announced for

17:31

the Nintendo DS around this time. No,

17:33

it was before this, yeah. Ninja Gaiden

17:36

was coming to the Nintendo DS, and

17:38

so there was definitely

17:41

a sea change happening, and Square

17:43

is working on this sort

17:45

of beautiful-looking game

17:47

for the platform. And I picked

17:49

it up right away,

17:51

basically, and I

17:53

was so impressed by

17:55

it, because it really

17:58

packed in a lot of production values. value

18:00

for at that

18:02

time for that system. First of all,

18:05

things like the opening cut scene

18:07

where you see Neku

18:09

running through Shibuya and

18:12

it's playing the main theme

18:14

which is vocalized and

18:17

it's kind of fully animated. It

18:20

was really impressive

18:22

for the time and

18:24

just really stood out. So

18:27

in that sense, it immediately grabbed me. And

18:30

then because I spent so much time at Shibuya, I passed

18:32

through it every day on the way to work when I

18:34

was commuting and stuff. It gave

18:36

me a really strong sense of

18:38

place. I felt grounded and

18:40

I knew the area immediately and

18:43

the topography was roughly the same and

18:45

it really leans into the setting really

18:48

well. Things like

18:52

I have so my memory is

18:54

really bad right now. The dog

18:56

statue that's very famous. Thank you.

18:59

Stuff like Hachiko being included right from

19:01

the very start. The way that the

19:03

shops, you interact with the

19:06

shop owners. You were talking about the trends,

19:08

the way that fashion is a huge deal.

19:10

All of the recognizable locations

19:14

from the scramble crossing to the 104 building.

19:17

Get it? The 104 because 4 means death. But if you

19:23

move around the actual area, if you know

19:25

Shibuya, you'll be able to navigate it really

19:28

well. So I instantly recognized

19:30

and identified and really enjoyed this

19:32

particular space. And now when I

19:35

look back at it, it

19:37

really takes me back to

19:39

that very specific point in

19:41

time in Japan. Late

19:45

2000s, the fashion,

19:47

the music, Shibuya

19:50

itself and it gives me

19:53

really big nostalgia and it's

19:55

kind of funny. Nioh, the end world ends

19:57

with you actually leans into that pretty heavily.

20:00

into the 2000s nostalgia and

20:02

whatnot but it hits much harder in

20:06

the original world ends with you not the least because

20:08

I like the character designs more which are

20:11

very exaggerated and I'm sure we'll be talking about that

20:13

and just at some point everyone

20:30

Jeremy here with another

20:40

old person story

20:42

the internet has

20:44

come a long

20:58

way since I put together my first

21:00

web page and Squarespace is a case-in-point

21:03

example of that progress I

21:05

built my first website back in 1996 by slowly teaching

21:09

myself HTML code from a book the size of

21:11

an Xbox not that we knew what an Xbox

21:13

was in 1996 Squarespace doesn't require

21:15

you to learn code you just need to

21:17

have a sense of what you want to

21:19

design and then use the drag and drop

21:21

convenience of their blueprint tool to make it

21:24

happen actually you don't even need to have a

21:26

sense of what you want to design because they

21:28

also have automated tools to help quickly draft potential

21:30

layout concepts to kick things off back

21:32

when I made my ancient first web

21:34

page it was hosted on a free

21:36

site that offered a whopping two megabytes

21:39

of storage space when you clicked on

21:41

the site it introduced itself with a

21:43

40 kilobyte animated gif that usually took

21:45

more than a minute to load because

21:47

the servers were so overloaded Squarespace on

21:49

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22:48

tell the other retronauts I said this, but not everything

22:50

was better in the past. Yeah,

22:55

I think choosing Shibuya as

22:57

the setting of this

22:59

game was a really smart

23:02

choice to make this game appealing

23:04

on an international level. Because

23:06

obviously, like if you're a kid in

23:09

Tokyo, you know

23:11

Shibuya. You go there because that's where the

23:14

record shops are and they use clothes

23:16

shops and the clubs and arcades. Maybe

23:19

not so much anymore, but it's

23:21

just like kind of one

23:23

of the main hotspots for cool

23:26

things to happen. But

23:28

back with the

23:30

movie Lost in Translation, that kind of

23:32

introduced I think the international world to

23:34

the scramble crossing. And just

23:36

that iconic image of so many

23:38

people converging and crossing paths, kind

23:42

of in time with each other and just

23:44

this press of bodies and masses. Starting

23:47

with that, I think there was just

23:49

more awareness of that as sort of one

23:51

of the iconic images of

23:53

Tokyo. So setting a game

23:56

in that location, even though most people

23:58

in the U.S. in

24:00

Europe playing this game had never been to Tokyo didn't

24:02

know the place personally they

24:05

could still identify with it and say oh yeah I've seen that

24:07

in the movie and you know for

24:09

people who had been to Tokyo oh go ahead

24:11

Stuart no I was just gonna sorry I just

24:13

was just gonna say that as well as the

24:15

lost in translation I think it was

24:17

introduced to me by a wee man getting into

24:19

a giant trifit cone and blocking all of the scramble

24:23

in the Jack Asta movie I just wanted to

24:25

bring the time down slightly while

24:27

also contributing yes

24:29

thank you for basically

24:32

bringing the Stewart to this episode no

24:34

problem anytime Stewart have you been to

24:36

Japan no I really want

24:38

to go though I think it would be cool I don't know why

24:40

I think it would be cool I guess I've played a lot of

24:42

video games that make it seem like it would be cool I

24:45

don't recommend putting a traffic cone or whatever in

24:47

the middle of the scramble crossing that okay might

24:50

not go over particularly well yeah I'll scratch that

24:52

off my list and thank you okay but

24:55

yeah I mean for myself you know when this came out

24:57

2007 in Japan 2008

24:59

here I

25:01

had been traveling a couple of times

25:03

a year to Japan for work and

25:06

when I was at one up calm we

25:08

always stayed at the Mark

25:11

City Hotel XL right

25:14

there right you know you like you taking a

25:16

glass elevator ride up to your room and you

25:18

look down at the scramble crossing so it's kind

25:20

of like centrally located very much

25:22

in the heart of things so

25:24

I knew that station fairly well maybe better

25:27

than anything else in Japan at that point having been

25:29

there half a dozen times so when

25:31

I picked up the game I was like oh wow

25:33

like oh it's the it's the moai head so I

25:35

yeah I know this this like shop I know this

25:38

intersection this area on the back side

25:40

of the station and so forth and it was

25:42

really fun to actually the next

25:44

time I went to Japan for a trip I

25:46

think it was maybe

25:48

it was the event that

25:51

Square Enix had whose name I cannot

25:53

remember it was just a bunch of letters strung together

25:55

I think Sigma was in there someplace that

25:58

was summer 2008 And

26:01

I just took a camera around and shot all the different

26:03

places that you could see in the game and put a

26:05

blog about it together for the site. And

26:09

I've written hundreds, thousands of blogs in my life and I

26:11

don't remember most of them, but that was one I do

26:13

remember because I was like, wow, this is, you know, a

26:16

rare chance for me to kind of like

26:18

navigate a video game in real life. So that

26:20

was, that was a, you know, it worked on

26:23

that level too. But even if you don't know

26:25

the actual physical locations

26:27

that the game is set in, it

26:29

still resonates just because, you

26:31

know, it's it ties in with kind of that

26:34

soft power pop culture image of itself

26:36

that Japan likes to sell. And

26:39

it is very much a snapshot

26:42

of a time and place because the

26:44

Shibuya that existed at the time of

26:46

this game is not the Shibuya that

26:48

exists now. They totally rebuilt

26:50

it in advance of the 2020 Olympics

26:53

that didn't actually happen. And

26:56

like there are still some familiar sites,

26:58

like the Moai heads are still there

27:01

on the flip side of the building

27:03

from Hachiko, but most

27:05

other parts of Shibuya have been

27:07

just like leveled and then

27:09

built into new high rise buildings. There's

27:11

so much there. Every time I

27:13

go there, I've been there maybe like four or five

27:16

times since it was rebuilt. And every

27:18

time I find something new and I

27:20

get lost in a new and different way that

27:22

I had never experienced before. So like

27:25

this game, it's nostalgic

27:27

in a few different ways, one of which is like,

27:30

not only does this platform, the DS no

27:32

longer really exist, but like

27:35

the place that it took place in

27:37

the setting, the environment doesn't actually exist

27:39

anymore. So it is very much like,

27:42

hey, here's a moment in time from 15, 20

27:44

years ago, and that's been kind of

27:46

preserved in this video game, which

27:48

is something you don't really see a lot

27:51

in video games. Honestly, you know, you

27:54

might have fictionalized New York or LA

27:56

or something in Grand Theft Auto, but

27:59

you don't get a lot of. like real

28:01

recreations of a

28:03

place of a popular

28:05

well-traveled place in video

28:07

games. And so I

28:09

think that kind of adds to the wistful

28:13

sunrise sunset, you know, life

28:17

is passing on kind of

28:19

the value of this game. Yeah,

28:22

Jeremy. And I think it really

28:24

ties into Nintendo DS nostalgia. I

28:27

think that when I think Nintendo DS, the world

28:29

ends with you is very much one

28:32

of the first games that comes to

28:34

mind. And it's not just because it

28:36

uses so many

28:38

of the sort of interesting

28:40

little quirky touch screen

28:42

and microphone and dual screens

28:44

and everything. It's that

28:47

it had a time and a place

28:49

where the Nintendo DS was sort of

28:51

ubiquitous in Japan.

28:53

It was pre-smartphone. And

28:56

if you went on the trains, every

28:59

other person would have a

29:01

Nintendo DS with them and would be playing

29:04

or PSP because they were starting to

29:06

really play a lot of Monster Hunter

29:09

at that time. But you just

29:11

don't see that as much anymore. If

29:13

you go on the train in

29:15

Japan, you're probably, you might see somebody

29:17

with a Switch, but probably you're

29:19

going to see a lot of people playing on smartphones because it's

29:21

the year 2024. And

29:24

I just have really fond memories

29:26

of sitting on the train and playing this

29:28

game with my headphones on if I could

29:30

get a seat or going to

29:32

a Dotor's and ordering a tuna

29:34

and cheese sando and playing some The World Ends

29:37

With You on my lunch break and that kind

29:39

of thing. So it really,

29:42

really is a big connection point for

29:44

me personally. Yeah,

29:46

actually, I just remembered when I

29:48

wrote that blog. I went on

29:50

vacation to Japan,

29:53

Tokyo, and Kyoto, and some of

29:55

the surrounding cities like Nara

29:58

in March 2018. So it

30:00

was before the game came out in the US, but after it

30:02

had been out for a while in Japan. And

30:05

I remember, now that you mentioned it, on that

30:07

trip I would be playing DS games on the

30:10

train. And anytime

30:12

I was playing something, like if there

30:14

was someone sitting next to me, I

30:17

could feel them sort of surreptitiously craning

30:19

to see what I was playing. Like,

30:22

so what's this tourist playing on

30:24

here? Huh, Bongayo, that's interesting. Yeah,

30:28

so it was really a ubiquitous part

30:30

of the culture there. And

30:33

one thing that I think is kind of

30:35

overlooked about this game, at least that I

30:37

don't hear anyone talking about, because who talks

30:39

about this game, really, is

30:41

the fact that in some ways

30:44

it kind of pioneered technologies and

30:46

concepts that would become integral to

30:48

the 3DS platform when it shipped.

30:51

This was maybe the first game

30:53

I can think of besides Nintendogs, which

30:56

had, you know, dark mode, to encourage

30:59

you to put your game system to sleep

31:01

with the game still running, and

31:04

allow passive communication to happen, but also

31:06

just to keep it going in the

31:08

background. Because the most

31:10

efficient way to level up your character

31:12

through the pins that they equipped was

31:15

just to put the game system into

31:17

sleep and let it sleep overnight. And

31:20

the time that passed would translate into

31:22

PP, I believe,

31:24

pinpoints, that

31:26

would upgrade the pins that you use for your

31:28

attacks and your buffs and things like that. So

31:32

that was really

31:34

kind of pushing you to make

31:37

this game your constant companion, to take your

31:39

3DS with you everywhere you went, and

31:42

just to never take the game out of the system, never

31:44

to turn off the system. And

31:46

Square Enix would build on that even more

31:48

with Dragon Quest IX. That

31:51

was a genuine phenomenon. Three

31:53

or four, two or three years before 3DS came

31:55

out? Two years,

31:57

I guess? When did 3DS come

31:59

out? come out was it 2011 or 2013? I

32:03

want to say it's the year that it came out. It's

32:06

all fuzzy now in my old brain. Okay, so

32:08

three years, four years before 3DS came

32:10

out, then two years later it was

32:13

Dragon Quest. So yeah, Dragon

32:15

Quest IX kind of did like StreetPass and

32:18

did it right before that

32:20

was a formal thing that existed

32:22

built into the hardware. So this

32:24

was a pretty critical step along

32:27

that path to the

32:30

greatest, coolest, most

32:32

important feature of the 3DS and one that has

32:34

been sadly lost by all video game systems of

32:36

the modern era and we can never

32:39

go back as a society and we

32:41

should probably just give it up now. So,

33:18

kingdom, no not Kingdom Hearts, let's try this again.

33:23

So the world is... So

33:25

leave this in, there will be more time. No,

33:29

no, so I wanted to say like let's

33:31

talk about the creative staff who

33:33

worked on the World Ends With You,

33:36

the sort of lead staff, almost all

33:38

of whom came from Kingdom Hearts. So

33:40

Kingdom Hearts is relevant again here. I

33:42

mean kind of the obvious person that

33:44

we associate with this game and Kingdom

33:47

Hearts, Kat's already mentioned him,

33:49

was Tetsuya Nomura, who is

33:51

he actually a Square Enix employee or is

33:54

he freelance? The way

33:56

I kind of understand it is that he sort of exists

33:59

independently. from Square Enix

34:01

yet also he is like their

34:03

wheels in their enormous amount of power it's

34:06

really weird I don't get it I mean Yuji

34:08

Horii is the same way but that's that arrangement

34:10

was you know kind of built that way from

34:12

the start with Enix back in the 80s Nomura

34:15

you know he was like hey I'm gonna

34:17

draw a cool ninja and a gambler with

34:19

scars for Final Fantasy 6 okay now I'm

34:22

a superstar everyone must wear

34:24

zippers anyway

34:27

he was the creative producer on this game

34:29

I don't know what that means that can

34:31

mean so many things but

34:33

he was also the character designer

34:35

for like the three or four

34:38

main characters so obviously you've

34:40

got the Nomura but the nuts

34:42

and bolts the nitty-gritty the people who really you

34:44

know had to spend time

34:46

working in the salt mines and not sleeping

34:48

for months on end they

34:51

also all came from the Kingdom Hearts

34:53

world so the people

34:55

I want to call out are Tatsuya Kondo

34:58

who worked as an animator and

35:01

animation director on all three PlayStation

35:04

1 Final Fantasy games and Paris

35:06

I'd Eve and then

35:08

basically from that he parlayed

35:10

that success into becoming

35:13

the animation lead on

35:15

pretty much anything that has ever

35:17

shipped under the name Kingdom Hearts

35:19

like if you love or hate

35:21

the way animation looks in Kingdom

35:23

Hearts Tatsuya Kondo is

35:25

your man you can blame or praise

35:27

him as is your want makes

35:29

a lot of sense that animation directors ended

35:32

up running this

35:34

game because the art

35:36

style and the animation very

35:38

centered in this game so I'm

35:42

not surprised to see that they have

35:45

that much history and that they personally

35:47

chose to in many ways push

35:50

the Nintendo DS as far as they really

35:52

could from a 2d standpoint yeah

35:55

and I feel like this game like

35:57

the concept the narrative the setting

36:00

characters, they all feel

36:02

more like manga than they do video game.

36:04

Like this is a role-playing game in a

36:06

lot of senses, but it doesn't

36:08

feel like it draws its narrative

36:11

and character inspiration from that genre.

36:13

It feels like it comes from

36:15

the kind of manga that would

36:17

have been popular around this time. Something like Death

36:19

Note, or it's even almost

36:21

a sort of proto-Isekai, in

36:24

that you die and you awaken, you

36:26

know, the main character awakens in a new world.

36:28

It's just that the new world is

36:30

the same world he lived in, but he's like

36:32

a ghost in it and he's kind of shifted

36:34

a little bit, but he still has to like,

36:37

you know, team up with people and fight his

36:39

way through battles and find plots

36:41

and things like that. So it kind

36:43

of touches on the sort of style

36:45

and trends that would become very popular

36:47

in manga a few years later, but

36:50

we're still just kind of budding into existence around

36:52

this time. So yeah, yeah,

36:54

like the connection there to animation makes

36:57

sense. The co-director

37:00

Tomohiro Hosegawa was

37:02

also the lead animator on Chain of Memories

37:05

and various other Kingdom Hearts that came after

37:07

that. That also makes sense coming from the

37:09

portable tradition. He didn't work on Kingdom

37:11

Hearts 1, but he did get

37:13

involved with the Game Boy Advance game and

37:16

kind of jumped into the series from

37:18

there. And of course, you know,

37:20

it makes sense to have the portable

37:22

Kingdom Hearts animator guy working on this

37:25

portable Kingdom Hearts adjacent game

37:27

that draws so heavily on

37:29

animation. It makes sense. I

37:31

mean, Chain of Memories, the GBA

37:34

version, the combat in that game

37:36

visually and the combat in The World Ends

37:38

With You are very, very similar fields. Obviously,

37:41

the execution is different, but I

37:43

can see that there is kind of a direct line between

37:45

those two games, which is good because Chain

37:47

of Memories kicked us and so does this. Let's

37:51

see, the planning director was Takeshi Arakawa, who

37:53

developed the UI for many Kingdom Hearts games.

37:55

I actually consider it to be a game

37:57

that's very similar to the game. I think

38:00

consider this man my mortal enemy because I

38:02

really hate the user interface of Kingdom Hearts.

38:04

It is my number one bugbear with that

38:06

series and why I do not like playing

38:08

those games. So, you know something against Comic

38:10

Sans, Jeremy? I'm not just talking about like

38:13

the visuals. I'm talking about the way the

38:15

interface actually works, the way you control stuff.

38:18

Like that stupid, you know, you're

38:20

navigating menus in real time while

38:22

also controlling your dudes. Like

38:24

that has to go away. Like they did that in

38:26

the Castlevania game too, Limit of Innocence. Like

38:29

no, that's not okay. You're

38:31

making my brain do different things and I

38:35

need to regiment things. I need to partition

38:37

things. This does not work for

38:39

me. Please stop. So yeah, he's my

38:41

nemesis. The

38:43

one person who did not come from Kingdom Hearts

38:45

before working on The World Ends With You but

38:47

instead went from The World Ends With You to

38:49

working on Kingdom Hearts was

38:52

Genkobayashi who basically

38:54

designed all the characters that Tetsuya

38:56

Nomura did not. So

38:58

I guess when the budget ran out to pay Nomura

39:00

his freelance stipend or whatever, I

39:03

don't know how it works. But

39:05

he stepped in and took care of all the rest of the

39:07

characters. And then finally,

39:10

the true hero of this game was Take

39:12

Haru Ishimoto, the lead

39:14

composer who had already worked on

39:16

Kingdom Hearts games, basically doing the stuff that Yoko

39:19

Shimomura did not and basically

39:22

said, what if I created one

39:24

of the greatest soundtracks ever made

39:26

for a video game and stuck

39:28

it in a DS cartridge? The

39:30

madman pulled it off. My God,

39:33

I don't know what crazy drugs

39:35

he was taking or magic spells

39:37

he was wielding, but he

39:39

pulled it off. The soundtrack in this

39:41

game is phenomenal. It's so good. And

39:44

it's on a DS card. Yeah. It's

39:46

pretty good. Yeah, it really elevated this

39:48

game. I think maybe it's

39:51

the main reason that anybody remembers

39:53

it is just how

39:56

great it was to put on headphones and

39:58

really enjoy it. believe

40:00

how much music they packed into

40:02

this game. It wasn't just a

40:05

handful of tracks that played over and over again.

40:07

The soundtrack evolves as you go.

40:10

There are more songs that appear

40:12

as you get into the next week and the

40:14

week after that and their

40:16

remixes of the battle themes in there.

40:20

A stunning number of really

40:24

strong kind of high-resolution tracks for

40:26

a Nintendo DS game. It's a

40:29

quite impressive how much they were able to get

40:31

on this cartridge. I mean what

40:33

amazes me is there's not even one of the largest

40:35

DS cartridges. It's like half the size of some of

40:37

the bigger Pokemon games and things like that and

40:40

I mean there's a lot crammed into them but the

40:43

music in the... Sorry, go on. It

40:45

doesn't even sound compressed either. No,

40:47

well I would say where

40:49

it does it almost

40:52

works in the kind of as in the

40:54

kind of fadey kind of dreamy kind of

40:56

feel you know these vocals that are just

40:58

kind of behind all the

41:00

sound effects when you were raising the noise and stuff. I

41:03

think it works so well and everything

41:05

just sort of... I hate using this

41:07

word but everything just synergizes perfectly. It's

41:09

such a like

41:12

bowl of lightning this game. Just this one little cartridge

41:14

with all this stuff on it that we've never saw

41:16

the likes of again ever even on

41:18

the PS4 a few years ago. We never saw the likes

41:20

of it again. It's

41:55

just a little bit of a mix where the technology wasn't quite

41:57

there to do everything they wanted to do. creates

42:00

a sort of liminal

42:02

feel almost like the visuals in Metal

42:04

Gear Solid where no one actually has

42:06

a face. Or you

42:08

think back to PlayStation games that have

42:11

this sort of empty soundtrack, like there's

42:13

this kind of sparseness to the audio.

42:16

I'm thinking like Mega Man Legends where there's

42:18

like a little bit of ambient hum or

42:21

something and then you hear like

42:23

the reaver bots activating and

42:25

stomping around in the darkness. But

42:27

that's really all the sound there is and it just like

42:30

there's this sort of sparseness to it. And

42:33

this, you know, I think the DS was really

42:35

the last platform that could really

42:37

capture that that had, you know,

42:39

the limitations necessary. Maybe

42:43

capture it's the wrong way. Maybe it's just, you

42:45

know, it unavoidably suffered from

42:47

that. But I would argue that the

42:49

word suffer is not correct because it

42:52

just it adds something to

42:54

it, something evocative to the

42:56

experience that you can't capture

42:58

with higher fidelity. I

43:02

don't know. Like I don't know if everyone

43:04

who is, you know, kind of cut their teeth

43:06

on higher definition, higher

43:08

fidelity experiences can necessarily

43:11

appreciate that. But

43:15

I feel like if you were there and this was

43:17

kind of the cutting edge of what you could experience

43:20

in a certain space at

43:22

the time, like it kind

43:24

of imprints on you and it like

43:26

it still feels sophisticated

43:28

and advanced, even though it's

43:31

obviously, you know, barely

43:33

holding together at the seams and could be

43:35

done so much more easily and so

43:38

much more effectively now. But I feel

43:40

like that perfection and effectiveness takes something

43:42

away. So yeah, I'm right there with

43:45

you, Stuart. I think that like there's

43:47

a reason that indie developers are creating

43:49

games like Fragon or Lunastest or Crow

43:51

Country that consciously emulate those

43:53

low poly games. Like

43:56

When a PS1 game like Mega Man Legends,

43:58

for example, would lean into. It's limitations and

44:00

create an atmosphere from them that was

44:03

something else and the D having it's

44:05

a rudimentary three D capability gives it

44:07

a look of a outlook and angular

44:09

look that says the Cts abide so

44:11

of up in middle of the and

44:13

trying to be more like the way

44:15

you have the Way and I kind

44:17

of last I mean looking at like

44:19

the original news of Mario Brothers or

44:21

Sisters and My Brothers to where the

44:24

original was kind of heavily leaning on

44:26

Sprite still to create this odd in

44:28

between kind of atmosphere I'm I'm. I'm

44:30

just gonna understand where you're saying so I'll

44:32

I'll end it now with no real less

44:34

through line. But yes I'm I mean I

44:37

think this game I becomes that by being

44:39

so stylized in every respect that having so

44:41

much them as excellency as that word again

44:44

that you don't really notice the limitations and

44:46

is why when you plan on a Mormons

44:48

as my the switch in don't feel right

44:50

because they've oppressed everything like even the font.

44:53

So everything and it just doesn't look reminisce,

44:55

not pixelated, Yeah as the

44:57

same with Neo the world and says

45:00

he'll it's tries to recapture allows the

45:02

style and the luck with some cel

45:04

shading and such but at the same

45:06

time it's at a fully treaty. And.

45:10

Maybe it doesn't hit in the same

45:12

way. I think that that's also because

45:14

I like to mind here on rent

45:16

or not attacking that them and in

45:18

here they are there is. There's something

45:20

to be said for the to the

45:22

in this game like the sprite work

45:24

and the graphics are so nicely designed.

45:27

And there's so much happening on screen

45:29

industry a single time. There's all kinds

45:32

of effects and things flying around, so

45:34

it it's like very active, almost hyperactive.

45:36

but it never feels busy or confusing

45:38

because everything is drawn so clearly and

45:41

so cleanly. It really hits that sweet

45:43

spot of like we're not tied by

45:45

the limitations of how many sprites we

45:47

can place, but we are tied into

45:50

had hands are tied by the resolution

45:52

of the sprites. So let's just make

45:54

a lot of great looking sprites and

45:57

just throw. Everything on the screen. Also.

45:59

the story moments are very

46:02

active. It's not a basic text

46:04

box. It does a

46:06

lot of kind of manga with lots

46:08

of like panels sliding in and sliding

46:10

over and up and down.

46:12

So there's so much movement happening at

46:14

any given time. Characters are moving

46:17

across the screen so you feel like you're

46:19

watching an actual cutscene instead of

46:21

having a little head in a

46:23

box or something to that effect. And I

46:26

think it's very effective.

46:28

And then when you're actually in

46:31

the battles, the sprites are quite

46:33

large and detailed, especially

46:35

when you get into some

46:37

of the end boss battles. Like when you get

46:39

to the end of a week and you're fighting

46:41

someone particularly big. I remember the first

46:44

boss is quite large

46:46

and I think takes up both

46:48

screens. So

46:50

it really stands out

46:52

on the Nintendo DS for sure. I'm

46:55

just going to go play a bunch of DS games. We

46:58

kind of touched on this, but I

47:00

really think it's admirable. This game basically

47:03

does everything that the DS can do,

47:05

except maybe put out a lot of

47:07

3D graphics. But it was

47:09

designed around dual screens. It

47:12

was designed around both physical

47:14

controls and touch controls. It

47:17

makes use of multiplayer. It

47:19

makes use of the microphone inputs. It makes use

47:22

of a Proto Street Pass

47:24

wireless feature. If the DS

47:26

could do it, the world ends

47:28

with you does it. And it

47:30

still doesn't feel overstuffed. The mini games, you

47:33

don't have to play those, but you can

47:36

and it will give you benefits that translate

47:38

into the actual single

47:40

player experience. The

47:43

multiplayer also does that, which kind of puts it

47:45

ahead of all the little mini games and

47:47

the Mario 64 DS and

47:49

that sort of thing, where it's just

47:51

like, here's some stuff you can do

47:53

multiplayer. That's not part of the game, but go ahead

47:55

and do it because it's just a

47:57

thing that we could do. Like it actually feels...

47:59

feels like this stuff is integrated into

48:01

the game loop. And

48:04

it's not compulsory, but

48:06

there are advantages to making use of it,

48:09

which is nice. I think

48:11

for a game that's got an overhanging time

48:13

pressure in the storyline, which actually isn't a

48:15

real time pressure, and it's funny, sorry for

48:17

the spoiler, there's only

48:20

quite meditative about it sometimes. Just walking around

48:22

listening to what people are thinking. If you

48:24

want to grind some levels, you have to

48:26

manually go into that. I don't remember

48:28

if it's cool, but when that is listening to everyone, you'll

48:30

see the noise appear if you want to fight one, you'll

48:33

tap one. If you want to fight three, you'll tap three.

48:35

But if you don't want to do that, if you just want to

48:37

go and buy some records or buy, look at some clothes, that's some

48:39

food. It's just kind of chill,

48:41

you know, for a game that's meant to

48:44

be so intense. It's just kind of chill and meditative,

48:46

and I like that about it. I

48:48

also love the overall

48:50

music, specifically calling. Oh,

48:52

it's amazing. First

48:55

of all, it has a chance to be

48:57

repetitive, but it's not. It's just the

48:59

kind of music that you want to listen to. It

49:03

has a really nice bridge to

49:05

it, and it's

49:08

vocalized, but it also feels

49:11

like it's in the background. And

49:14

when we start talking about The World Ends With You, that's

49:16

one of the first songs that just

49:19

kind of materializes in my mind, and

49:21

it feels so perfectly Shibuya. Yeah,

49:25

I agree. I was going

49:27

to say it's the kind of music

49:29

that you hear playing on those big

49:31

jumbotrons over the scramble crossing, but actually

49:34

it's much better than those because those

49:36

are usually like annoying, overproduced,

49:39

super group music

49:41

by like 20 or 30

49:44

girls all singing in unison. Don't

49:47

love that so much, but the soundtrack to The

49:49

World Ends With You, yeah, there's calling

49:51

especially. That's the first song that pops into my

49:53

head too, and it's got such a

49:56

great hook. So you hear it constantly,

49:58

but just that riff. with

50:00

the bass guitar and

50:02

the drums. It's

50:04

perfect. It's really, really great. And you could

50:07

just hear that over and over again. And

50:09

it has different layers and different arrangements. Sometimes

50:13

it's a vocal track, sometimes it's not.

50:15

Sometimes you just hear the

50:17

vocalist singing the chorus, but

50:20

sometimes you get the full song with the verses.

50:22

And yeah, it's

50:25

used in lots of different ways, and it

50:27

becomes part of the texture of the game.

50:30

But it really doesn't

50:32

get tiring. It's so

50:35

catchy and so hooky that

50:37

you never stop enjoying it. I think this is

50:39

one of Square Enix's

50:41

first cult soundtracks. Obviously

50:44

with the Final Fantasy

50:46

games, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, these

50:48

big games, they put out soundtracks

50:50

and arrangements and orchestrations. And they're

50:52

like, hey, Mitsudo, why don't you

50:54

do acid jazz versions of Chrono

50:56

Trigger? You get

50:59

some of the weird stuff like that. But this

51:01

one, the soundtrack seemed to take

51:03

on a life of its own. And there

51:05

was a CD that they put out that

51:08

they randomly sent to me in

51:10

2011 or 12 called

51:12

the Death March 5th anniversary. So I guess it was

51:15

2012, where it was a live

51:17

performance recorded at a club of some

51:19

of this music. And apparently

51:21

they did another performance a

51:23

few years later. And yeah,

51:26

it's just this small soundtrack,

51:31

but it's just lived on. And

51:34

they give the same love to the near

51:37

soundtrack these days, where it's arrangements

51:39

and live performances and stuff, even though it's

51:41

not the biggest hit ever. It's

51:44

just the music is such a part of

51:46

that game experience that it's lived on and

51:48

took on a life of its own. What?

52:03

What? What?

52:09

What? What?

52:15

What? What?

52:21

unrem They've

52:27

got kiss was

52:44

I'm

52:49

thinking about how individual this game actually is.

52:51

It sort of occurred to me. I wonder

52:53

if there was some Jet Set Radio influence

52:55

here, you know, with Shibuya Cho and the

52:58

same kind of graffiti sort of aesthetic.

53:00

I just wonder if there was any, you know, if they

53:02

looked at that and they went, let's do that except RPG.

53:05

I mean, I could definitely see it just

53:07

because at this point when

53:09

this game was being made, it would have been

53:12

only a few years removed from Jet Set Radio

53:14

and it was also sort

53:16

of a similar vibe, right? But

53:19

that Jet Set, I don't know Jet Set

53:21

Radio all that well, but that's

53:24

sort of the similar urban Tokyo

53:26

kind of feel to it, I think. So it makes

53:28

sense that you would be like drawing those kinds of

53:31

connections there. Yeah,

53:34

I think Jet Set Radio is

53:36

more about like the sort of kids who would

53:38

go dance at gas panic and

53:40

the world into you is more about I feel

53:45

like it's the kids who kind of hang out but

53:47

don't necessarily have a place to go and are

53:49

sort of trying to figure out where they fit

53:51

into the world. There's definitely more of a sense

53:54

of self determination and purpose

53:57

in Jet Set Radio. Like

53:59

you are out there. you are, you know, it's

54:01

counterculture, you are taking a stand against the

54:03

man. And the whole point of Neku

54:05

and his friends is that they're all a

54:07

little bit lost and they're trying to find

54:09

themselves. And they're they're questioning like,

54:12

how do I fit into normal society? And, you

54:14

know, the game is really like

54:16

their story arcs, not to spoil too much. But

54:18

it's really about them finding that place. And

54:21

again, it kind of just comes down to

54:23

self confidence. And that is a, like I

54:25

said before, self confidence is a game mechanic.

54:28

Like I've never seen that in any other

54:30

game. But like,

54:32

just if you're really self confident, you

54:34

can wear a dress. Exactly.

54:37

No, let's talk about

54:39

that. Now, like there is a stat called brave.

54:42

And your characters don't have level ups in

54:44

the traditional sense, like you gain cash, and

54:46

you get experience for your pins and that

54:49

sort of thing. You do like

54:51

have some stat gains based on what you

54:53

eat. But a lot of your

54:56

combat abilities, just your you know, your

54:58

stats and hit points and things

55:00

like that, your defense attack power are based

55:02

on your clothing. And you

55:04

know, it's you go into shops to

55:07

buy clothing. And it's your typical Shibuya

55:09

streetwear. It's like shirts and

55:11

shorts and jackets and things like that. And

55:13

there's boys clothing and girls clothing. And at

55:16

the beginning of the game,

55:19

it's a really great mechanic, because

55:21

Shiki, the girl who teams up with

55:23

Neku, the main character in the first week of the

55:25

game, she can wear pretty

55:27

much anything because she has a high brave

55:29

stat. So that means something that requires a

55:32

high brave, like a bikini top, or you

55:34

know, like a skirt or something, she can

55:36

put that on no problem. But

55:38

Neku can't equip those, which gives him a

55:40

disadvantage in combat. But as you play the

55:43

game, and you build up his brave, he

55:45

can start to branch out and wear things

55:47

that are a little, you know, different

55:50

than you would associate with

55:52

your typical kid, your

55:54

typical boy. And so you're kind

55:56

of breaking these boundaries. And it's

56:00

totally fits with, you know, if you've

56:02

seen like Harajuku or Shibuya street

56:04

blogs of photography and style,

56:07

like it totally is in

56:09

in tune in keeping with

56:11

the sort of fashion culture

56:14

of that kind of social circle.

56:16

Like boys wearing girls clothing, girls wearing boys clothing,

56:19

people just saying, you know, this looks cool and

56:21

it looks good on me so I'm gonna wear

56:23

it. And you have to work up

56:25

to that point for Neku to get there. And I

56:27

think that's such a great way

56:30

to turn real world

56:33

social and culture mores and

56:36

trends into an RPG

56:38

mechanic in a way that benefits

56:40

gameplay and also speaks

56:42

to the characters growth as a

56:45

person and his self-confidence. It's

56:48

it's yeah like to me that

56:50

is the standout feature of this game. It's so

56:53

thoughtful and so brilliant and

56:55

I just it's one of the things that really

56:57

makes me love this game. If

57:00

they had really wanted to go for it, they

57:02

would have actually had the clothes reflect on the

57:04

characters but sadly the

57:06

characters remain the same despite, you know,

57:09

putting on a dress or a bikini

57:11

top or whatever. And I

57:14

if I'm not mistaken, it's been a while since

57:16

I played but the character you team up with

57:18

on week two Joshua is a

57:20

boy but he comes with a really high break stat

57:23

from the start so he can pretty much wear whatever

57:25

while Neku is still kind of limited

57:27

in what he's able to equip by

57:29

that point. So yeah you

57:32

know it almost I kind of feel like

57:34

there's a lot of Neon Genesis

57:37

Evangelion influence in this era

57:39

of Squaresoft games starting with like Final

57:42

Fantasy 7 and the

57:44

relationship between Neku and Joshua

57:47

is very much like Shinji

57:49

and Kaworu from from

57:51

Evangelion. So there's kind of like

57:54

I kind of feel like Joshua at least initially

57:56

before you learn what his deal is. It's

57:58

a very sort of Inspirational character

58:00

for neku like someone he looks up to

58:02

and says like this guy has it together.

58:04

I want to be more like him Funny

58:07

that you mentioned a van gellian because this was

58:09

actually the year that the first rebuild movie came

58:11

out So we were in

58:14

peak a van gellian Nostalgia

58:16

by this time because it had been in

58:19

like 12 years or something like that So

58:21

and as we all know once that 10

58:23

years have passed some things officially retro So

58:25

a van gellian was officially retro by that

58:28

point sold

58:31

anyway the one kind

58:35

of creative lead or creative Entity

58:38

that we haven't talked about with the creation of

58:40

this game is Jupiter the co-developer

58:42

on it I mean, this is a Square Enix game,

58:45

but a lot of the the sort of No

58:47

boots on the groundwork and programming and coding was

58:50

handled by Jupiter Who are

58:52

the people who invented picross and they

58:54

also? Created most of the

58:57

games on the Pokemon mini they

58:59

developed games like Pokemon pinball and You

59:03

know, I think they also worked on some

59:05

of the Kingdom Hearts portable games But they

59:07

basically knew their stuff when it

59:09

came to portable games and they're cool and I

59:11

liked them And eventually they went

59:13

on to work on ghosts of Tsushima, which is

59:15

not a portable game or

59:17

a Pokemon game It's very you know,

59:19

like how'd that happen? But just one

59:21

of those interesting sidebars I

59:27

Don't I

59:50

So we should talk about the

59:52

actual premise and plot of

59:55

the world ends with you We've we've kind of touched

59:57

on it a bit in that there is

59:59

a game it takes place over weeks. And

1:00:02

also there's an Isekai element

1:00:04

where you wake up after

1:00:06

dying. But what's all that

1:00:09

about? Kat, do you want to walk us through this? I

1:00:11

feel like of all of us, you

1:00:13

can probably describe what's happening best here. Maybe I'm

1:00:15

wrong. Well, when the

1:00:17

game first starts, it's

1:00:19

sort of a mystery to you and Neku.

1:00:21

You really don't know what's

1:00:23

going on. All you really know is that you've

1:00:25

been put into a game

1:00:28

and you're having to have challenges

1:00:31

and you have a partner.

1:00:33

The main hero, Neku, is

1:00:36

sort of Squall Leonhart. He

1:00:39

is a jerk. He hates everybody. He

1:00:41

has his headphones on all the time.

1:00:44

He's really extremely abusive

1:00:46

to Shiki, who is

1:00:48

his nominal partner early

1:00:50

on. And

1:00:52

pretty quickly it's revealed that

1:00:55

in the world ends with

1:00:57

you, you're dead and you're playing

1:00:59

a game to survive with

1:01:01

your partner. And everybody,

1:01:04

except maybe like one

1:01:06

or two people, get erased. And

1:01:10

being erased is you're gone.

1:01:12

You're dead forever. And

1:01:15

you're running around with some other characters

1:01:17

who are also playing the game, such

1:01:19

as Beat and Rhyme, who

1:01:21

are kind of, I don't know, like

1:01:23

punk. Rhyme is fun.

1:01:26

She's a

1:01:28

little non-binary energy going on in

1:01:30

there. So you're

1:01:33

initially going through the week

1:01:35

and trying to survive,

1:01:37

beating the games. And

1:01:39

then over time, the game

1:01:42

is increasingly rigged against you and

1:01:46

you're getting different partners and

1:01:48

you're slowly but surely unraveling

1:01:50

the nature of the game

1:01:53

and the different forces

1:01:55

behind it, of

1:01:57

which there are many. And actually the

1:02:00

game does not overtly

1:02:02

tell you a lot of what's going on, you

1:02:04

sort of have to discover it. And

1:02:07

the way you do that is by discovering

1:02:10

these secret documents and everything and

1:02:13

learning that especially Joshua is

1:02:16

a really significant part of what

1:02:18

is actually happening behind

1:02:20

the scenes. So there's a we were

1:02:22

talking about Kingdom Hearts. There's a big

1:02:24

Kingdom Hearts energy in discovering

1:02:26

unraveling all the secrets of actually

1:02:28

a pretty complicated plot but it was really

1:02:30

the mystery was really

1:02:33

compelling to me at the time

1:02:35

and the tension was really compelling because the

1:02:37

game keeps turning the screws on

1:02:40

Neku specifically as a

1:02:42

character and you're often going oh geez how

1:02:44

is he gonna get out of this one

1:02:46

I don't know but yeah

1:02:49

the the reaver or reapers is

1:02:52

it reapers yes the reapers who are the ones who control

1:02:54

the game of the game

1:02:56

the ones controlling is kind of like

1:02:59

organization 13 if organization 13 just

1:03:02

like to toy with and abuse

1:03:04

dead children so it's

1:03:06

kind of dark but

1:03:08

wings yeah there's that

1:03:11

and there's a game master and

1:03:14

they the game masters at the

1:03:16

end of each week are sort

1:03:19

of your bosses one of the more

1:03:21

memorable ones is Minami modo who loves

1:03:24

math he just loves math so much

1:03:26

and so that's why he's always saying

1:03:28

things like cannot stop talking about it

1:03:31

he just he wants to quote pi to the

1:03:33

nth degree so so

1:03:36

yeah the the game is supposed to

1:03:38

take place over the course of a week and

1:03:41

each week is like the gameplay

1:03:44

is divided into seven days so

1:03:47

there's not a real-time element to

1:03:49

this it's not like Valkyrie profile sorry cat

1:03:52

it is much more yeah sorry

1:03:55

it's much more plot

1:03:57

advances based on your action

1:04:00

and time advances based on the plot. So

1:04:02

you don't actually have to rush around and finish

1:04:04

things in a set amount of time. It's

1:04:07

just that there is kind of this structure

1:04:09

to it. I

1:04:11

wonder, I don't know, was this before

1:04:13

or after Lost? It was after Lost.

1:04:16

I know Final Fantasy 13 was like

1:04:18

the structure of that with

1:04:22

the flashbacks was very inspired

1:04:24

by Lost. But I feel like this was

1:04:26

kind of- We were not

1:04:28

only watching Lost. This was peak Lost. Okay.

1:04:31

2008, everybody was watching Lost. This was when people thought it was gonna go

1:04:34

someplace. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that structure

1:04:36

in 24, that was

1:04:38

very much kind of zeitgeisty. So this

1:04:40

definitely pulls in from that tradition as

1:04:42

well as from manga. But

1:04:46

really it's just kind of a convenient story

1:04:48

structure to sort of divide things out. And

1:04:50

you have different kind of challenges that you

1:04:52

face each day. You talk to

1:04:54

different reapers and completing their

1:04:56

tasks and they're rising up to their

1:04:58

challenges, unlocks more of Shibuya. When

1:05:01

the game first starts, you can pretty much just

1:05:03

go to the Scramble Crossing and two

1:05:05

or three adjacent little

1:05:07

sections of the area. But as

1:05:10

the game unfolds, you open

1:05:13

up more and more of Shibuya and

1:05:16

eventually find the hidden secret river that, I

1:05:18

don't know if it's actually a thing in

1:05:20

Shibuya. There are lots of rivers

1:05:22

in Shibuya and all of them have been

1:05:24

turned into concrete that the water just kind

1:05:26

of runs through because there's only like 2%

1:05:28

of rivers in Japan that

1:05:31

are still their original beds. It's a weird

1:05:33

little stat that just stuck in my head. So

1:05:37

yeah, like all of these things kind

1:05:39

of matter. But the idea behind the game

1:05:41

is that it's supposed to take place over the course of

1:05:43

a week, but the game actually,

1:05:45

like the World Ends With You,

1:05:47

the game actually takes place

1:05:49

over the course of three weeks because

1:05:51

there are various plot shenanigans that mean

1:05:54

once that Neku

1:05:56

reaches the end of the week and the end of the game,

1:05:58

something happens and draws a... back in just when he thought

1:06:00

he was out. Things

1:06:03

change up and he has to do with some other new

1:06:06

crisis. There's

1:06:08

shenanigans afoot and he has to figure all of that

1:06:10

out. There's

1:06:12

a real optimism to this story.

1:06:15

I think you were talking a little bit earlier

1:06:17

about how Jet Set Radio, you're a rebel. Whereas

1:06:21

in this one, you're sort of

1:06:24

a jerk-ass teenager trying to find their way

1:06:26

in one way or another. They're

1:06:28

all lost. All of

1:06:30

the characters have something revealed about them. At

1:06:33

a certain point, for example, there's a little bit

1:06:36

of a twist with Shiki. But

1:06:39

there's a little bit of a carpe diem kind

1:06:41

of aspect to it. It sees the day,

1:06:44

live for it to go out and live.

1:06:48

Which maybe is

1:06:50

a little bit on the nose in

1:06:52

some ways. But I personally found fairly

1:06:55

wholesome. And

1:06:58

I enjoy it when a game has something

1:07:01

to say. And it's sort of pushing

1:07:03

back against the on-wee

1:07:05

that maybe people just hang

1:07:08

out and Shibuya might feel sometimes.

1:07:10

Cutting through the superficiality of

1:07:14

fashion and trends and everything and maybe

1:07:16

going to the very heart of it

1:07:19

all. Of this

1:07:21

culture and such. I think I

1:07:24

really like the underlying messaging ultimately

1:07:26

of the world ends with

1:07:28

you. And it pops up

1:07:31

again and again. Throughout

1:07:33

the story and the relationships that are

1:07:36

being developed, even as Neku himself is

1:07:39

wildly unlikable. It's

1:07:41

a sort of more subtle,

1:07:43

more well-told version

1:07:45

of Kingdom Hearts essential themes. My friends

1:07:47

and my power, that whole thing. But

1:07:52

microcosm and vastly superior as storytelling.

1:07:54

You don't have to play like

1:07:56

15 disparate games to get this one, thankfully. understand

1:08:00

the kind of the story vibe

1:08:02

that was happening here, you kind

1:08:06

of have to understand sort of how

1:08:08

things were happening in Japanese society around

1:08:10

this time. So like 15 years

1:08:13

before this game came out, the

1:08:16

economic miracle, the bubble economy ended, and

1:08:18

Japan ended its

1:08:21

kind of like march toward being the

1:08:23

world's number one economy and started to

1:08:25

backslide. Its economy

1:08:27

is basically stagnated since then,

1:08:29

jobs were lost. So

1:08:32

the kids who were really kind

1:08:34

of being targeted by this and who were the

1:08:36

main characters of this game, 15 years old, were

1:08:39

basically the first generation to grow up in a

1:08:41

Japan that was in this sort

1:08:43

of post boom, I

1:08:46

don't want to call it decline, but stagnation. It's

1:08:48

kind of like, well,

1:08:50

really, if you wanted

1:08:53

to create a game about Americans, kids

1:08:55

who were 15, kids who grew up

1:08:57

in the shadow of 2008 and the

1:09:00

economy collapsing and

1:09:02

so forth that was happening right around the

1:09:04

time this game originally came out. Just,

1:09:07

you know, wait half a generation and

1:09:09

you've got the same problems happening in

1:09:11

America as in Japan. So there was

1:09:13

a lot of media

1:09:15

happening around this time that was

1:09:18

basically kind of examining

1:09:21

the social ailments

1:09:23

and difficulties that people

1:09:25

were experiencing, especially youngsters

1:09:27

who hadn't really established themselves yet,

1:09:30

who were expected to make

1:09:32

a life for themselves, but

1:09:35

in conditions that were much less favorable

1:09:37

than their older siblings or their parents

1:09:39

had experienced in the 80s and 90s.

1:09:42

So you have things like Spirited Away,

1:09:44

which is, you know, about the melees

1:09:46

of a young girl who

1:09:49

kind of finds this fantastical world and kind

1:09:51

of discovers the importance

1:09:54

of whatever she discovers

1:09:56

in that weird fantasy land with a little bathhouse

1:09:59

and everything. You had something

1:10:01

like Welcome to the NHK, which

1:10:04

was about the social

1:10:06

ills of, you know, perpetually

1:10:08

underemployed people, the hikikomori. I

1:10:12

feel like if you look at all the different forms

1:10:14

of media, the different works that sort of came out

1:10:16

of this period and addressed this

1:10:19

topic, The World Ends With You is

1:10:21

the most optimistic. I feel like it's

1:10:23

also the most in touch with actual

1:10:26

youth perspectives, like

1:10:28

Spirited Away is very much

1:10:31

an old man saying, damn

1:10:33

kids, get off my lawn and stop eating

1:10:35

your avocado toast. And Welcome

1:10:37

to the NHK is, it's kind

1:10:39

of optimistic, but it's also very, very

1:10:41

cynical throughout most of it. The

1:10:44

main character has no redeeming qualities, if

1:10:47

we want to be honest. Whereas

1:10:50

The World Ends With You, you

1:10:52

know, Neku starts in the same

1:10:54

place as the protagonists of these

1:10:56

other works, you know,

1:10:58

sullen, listless, detached,

1:11:01

kind of questioning what's even the point. But

1:11:05

the, you know, obviously he

1:11:07

experiences fantastical, strange things, but

1:11:10

he does it by sort of interacting

1:11:12

with society as much as he's able

1:11:14

to as a ghost who

1:11:17

floats around Shibuya fighting pigs.

1:11:21

And yeah, like by the

1:11:23

end of it, it

1:11:25

really feels like everyone's in a better place, even the

1:11:27

villains. Like, it's not really

1:11:29

about murdering the bad guy. It's about

1:11:32

everyone finding their personal resolution and

1:11:34

their reason to go on. And

1:11:37

something that is, you know, like emotionally

1:11:39

and spiritually satisfying to

1:11:41

them. And you know,

1:11:44

in that sense, it's very much a

1:11:46

work of its time and society. Of

1:11:50

all of those things, I really feel like it

1:11:52

has the best and brightest message.

1:12:02

It's just a moment for

1:12:04

me. It's

1:12:09

just a moment for

1:12:11

me. It's

1:12:14

just a moment

1:12:16

for me. Oh,

1:12:19

once and a half, I

1:12:21

can't move. Anyway,

1:12:31

I've had my two rants for the episode,

1:12:33

so I'm out. You guys have to carry

1:12:35

this on by without me. No,

1:12:38

we should talk a little bit about the

1:12:40

characters and just kind of what's unique about

1:12:42

them. I mean, obviously, Neku Sakuraba, the main

1:12:44

character, we've talked about him. He

1:12:46

becomes a ghost, a ghost that

1:12:48

can somehow still eat bento. I don't

1:12:50

know. It's not a bad way to

1:12:52

be when you're dead. But

1:12:55

no, the game really revolves around the mystery of why

1:12:57

is he a ghost? How did he die? Because

1:12:59

the idea behind the game is that you

1:13:02

enter the game voluntarily, you trade

1:13:05

something for it. And

1:13:08

in this case, he did not really volunteer for

1:13:10

the game. He was just kind of brought

1:13:12

into it. Spoilers, someone shot him. Where

1:13:14

do you even find a gun in Japan?

1:13:17

That's just crazy. Wow,

1:13:19

wild. Out of

1:13:21

control. In terms of

1:13:25

the actual characters, Joshua

1:13:28

is one who is the

1:13:31

most mysterious. I think

1:13:34

you compared him earlier to Kuoru. So

1:13:38

in week one, week

1:13:40

one in its own way is its own arc. And

1:13:44

I like the structure of this

1:13:46

game because each week is

1:13:48

its own sort of self-contained story

1:13:51

or self-contained chapter.

1:13:54

And then when you get into... So

1:13:56

the complexion of the game changes

1:13:59

greatly. when you

1:14:01

get into chapter two, because

1:14:03

you do reach a climax, like a mini

1:14:05

climax, when you reach the end

1:14:07

of week one. You go through

1:14:09

an entire arc with Sheikki and

1:14:12

everything, and you learn a lot about her. And

1:14:15

it feels like you're getting to the end

1:14:17

of something, and then all of a sudden

1:14:20

the reset button is

1:14:23

hit, and now

1:14:25

you're traveling along with

1:14:27

Joshua, and you have no

1:14:30

idea what his motives

1:14:33

are. And also, he's

1:14:35

also kind of a jerk. And

1:14:39

so now you have equally, you had

1:14:43

Shiki who was really nice and kind

1:14:45

of hurt and kind of sad, and

1:14:48

now you have Neku who's already

1:14:50

starting to come a long way, being paired

1:14:52

up with frankly

1:14:55

kind of a jerk in

1:14:57

this game. And the way

1:14:59

that they ping out off one another

1:15:02

is, I want to say, memorable. And

1:15:07

initially you're just kind of like, oh my god, why

1:15:09

am I stuck with this guy? And then of course,

1:15:12

as he's really sort of core to

1:15:14

the mystery of this game, you

1:15:16

can almost call this a mystery box game in

1:15:18

a lot of ways, because you're slowly but surely

1:15:20

unraveling a lot of what's going on with this.

1:15:25

But at the same time, he's

1:15:27

a little bit of a divisive

1:15:29

character, because he is

1:15:31

such a jerk. It's

1:15:34

also mechanically mirrored by the fact that his

1:15:37

control is totally different to Sheikki's as well.

1:15:39

So you've got to start from scratch, more

1:15:41

or less. I was discussed earlier in the

1:15:43

episode, but yeah, I love Joshua. I think

1:15:45

he's the standout character, but I think they're

1:15:48

all likeable. Maybe

1:15:50

not likeable for him, but there are a lot of

1:15:52

interesting twists to the characters, a lot of turns that

1:15:54

it takes that make for a really

1:15:56

memorable finale as

1:15:58

well. on the interesting story.

1:16:02

Then you also have Beep

1:16:06

who at various points

1:16:09

is an ally and then

1:16:11

an enemy and then an ally again

1:16:15

and he's sort of the skateboarder

1:16:17

character and

1:16:20

maybe my least favorite

1:16:22

of them because he's got that

1:16:24

bit of a tough guy thing

1:16:26

going on. Out of

1:16:28

all of them I think I like Sheikki

1:16:31

the most just

1:16:34

because I identify a lot

1:16:36

with her sort of

1:16:38

lack of self-confidence and

1:16:41

maybe desire to be

1:16:44

somebody else, be prettier, be whatever.

1:16:48

And so I think that

1:16:50

particular arc resonate with me

1:16:53

whereas I think that Beep

1:16:55

has more of the big brother little

1:16:57

sister dynamic going

1:16:59

on. He's very much trying to

1:17:02

look after rhyme and

1:17:04

everything. And then

1:17:06

the actual individual reapers

1:17:10

are sort of fun because they're almost commentating

1:17:15

on the plot itself. They're just kind of,

1:17:18

they're instigators but also observers

1:17:22

throughout. So as the

1:17:24

story unravels it's obvious that they

1:17:27

have their own motivations for what

1:17:29

they want to do but

1:17:31

it's not always clear what

1:17:34

they're trying to pull off and then every

1:17:36

so often someone like Beep will

1:17:38

do something that completely surprises them. They

1:17:41

all have rivalries with one another

1:17:44

and yeah it's a lot of

1:17:46

fun. And

1:17:48

you can't forget the best thing about Sheikki

1:17:50

is that she has a stuffed cat named

1:17:52

Mr. Mew that fights alongside her. So

1:17:55

cute. Very 2008 Japan.

1:18:00

The actual character designs, I should

1:18:02

add, I think were fairly divisive

1:18:06

at the time. Maybe because they had the super

1:18:09

big heads and sort

1:18:11

of little bodies. And

1:18:15

they almost look like the characters

1:18:17

from Final Fantasy IX. Right?

1:18:22

And... Except drawn by Nomura or like in

1:18:24

his style where it's very angular, lots of

1:18:26

spikiness, lots of accessories and

1:18:28

details on the clothing. Neku

1:18:31

has sort of the scarf

1:18:33

or the collar

1:18:35

that's covering his mouth. And

1:18:38

he's sort of glowering all

1:18:41

the time with the big headphones and

1:18:43

everything. Shiki,

1:18:45

it stands out the most because

1:18:47

she has just an

1:18:50

absolutely enormous head. And

1:18:53

itty bitty body. Yeah,

1:18:55

I mean, Neku... I admit, when I

1:18:57

first saw this game, I didn't really talk about when

1:19:00

I first experienced this game, but I was kind of

1:19:02

put off because I thought it was a Kingdom Hearts

1:19:04

tie-in based on the art style.

1:19:07

And the character seemed kind of unappealing to

1:19:09

me from a visual perspective. But because

1:19:11

I was the 1up.com handheld guy

1:19:14

and import guy, I imported

1:19:16

it to play it on handheld. It

1:19:19

was like, huh, this is actually pretty interesting

1:19:21

and I dig it. So I

1:19:23

might not have given this game a chance if

1:19:26

it hadn't been my job. But

1:19:28

because it was, I did

1:19:30

give it a chance and found that I really enjoyed it. But

1:19:34

the character designs did not help. But

1:19:38

I think over time, they've grown on me

1:19:41

a fair amount. And

1:19:44

again, very much of a time. I

1:19:47

definitely find them more

1:19:49

memorable now than I did the main

1:19:52

characters in Neo, the

1:19:54

World Ends With You. And

1:19:58

obviously, the art style is... The a

1:20:00

big part of it. We already said it

1:20:02

like jet set radio. And whatnot arm

1:20:04

and terms of like. The actual.

1:20:07

A Static. Of. This game so

1:20:09

it really fits in very well

1:20:12

with the the whole Sibelius feel,

1:20:14

some which when I was living

1:20:16

there was the. He. Was

1:20:18

kind of the height of. Cool. right?

1:20:21

And. Everything was really

1:20:23

exaggerated there and so it's not

1:20:26

surprising to me. it's to see

1:20:28

not just third, the fashion and

1:20:30

the overall looks and everything of

1:20:32

the characters. But ah I'm. Just

1:20:35

like their actual proportions, extremely exaggerated

1:20:37

as well, everything is heightened. In.

1:20:40

This game and in this

1:20:42

setting. Yeah, That is

1:20:44

something I miss about traveling a lot of Japan

1:20:46

is that when you're there, you can just wear

1:20:48

whatever the hell you want. it can be, you

1:20:50

know, Something. That would you

1:20:53

weird looks here in the Us. the

1:20:55

know terms screw the six. So.

1:21:20

Those are the characters and the premise

1:21:22

and the plot, but we haven't really

1:21:24

talked about the combat system that the

1:21:26

gameplay mechanics we touch son of a

1:21:28

little bit in the sense that there

1:21:30

are two screens and a lot happening,

1:21:32

but we haven't really gone into great

1:21:34

detail. And I think like this

1:21:36

is so central to the game and

1:21:38

a big part of it's appeal is

1:21:41

just the variety happening here and how

1:21:43

it all integrate into the gameplay systems

1:21:45

and the mechanics and the things you're

1:21:47

doing kind of on the side. So.

1:21:50

I mentioned that the world ends with

1:21:52

you. Takes advantage of

1:21:54

the D S is dual screen set up.

1:21:56

And. that really comes into play during

1:21:59

combat because as you are

1:22:01

fighting, you are fighting as both Neku

1:22:03

and his companion for the week. And

1:22:06

the companion for the week is controlled

1:22:08

by the player independently from Neku. So

1:22:11

Neku is always on the bottom screen.

1:22:13

You control his actions with the stylus,

1:22:15

but the character on the top screen you control with

1:22:18

buttons. And it's a

1:22:20

lot to wrap your head around. Like I mentioned

1:22:22

earlier, unless you crank up the

1:22:24

difficulty slider, you can just kind of let the

1:22:26

gameplay itself on the top screen and

1:22:28

focus on the bottom screen. But as

1:22:31

Stuart mentioned, if you do take the time to kind

1:22:33

of figure out the combos for the

1:22:35

top player, the top character screen, then

1:22:37

you can get lots of bonuses

1:22:40

and advantages for

1:22:42

yourself in combat. So again,

1:22:45

it's kind of a question of how

1:22:47

deep into this do I want to go.

1:22:50

But really the gameplay is

1:22:52

focused around Neku because his

1:22:54

abilities and his loadouts, they're

1:22:58

so customizable. Like you

1:23:00

can change what he can

1:23:02

do really easily as you

1:23:04

collect pins and gain different combat

1:23:07

abilities. And

1:23:10

kind of going into different scenarios

1:23:13

equipped with different specializations and

1:23:15

skills is pretty crucial and

1:23:19

involves a lot of kind

1:23:21

of strategic thinking. It's

1:23:24

like a more involved version of the materia

1:23:26

system or the element system

1:23:28

from Chrono Cross, but

1:23:31

with much more flexibility and

1:23:34

much more integration into the overall

1:23:36

gameplay beyond combat. Yeah,

1:23:38

the variety is just outstanding. I think like,

1:23:40

I mean, you'll get given or find or

1:23:43

purchase these pins like little pin badges, you

1:23:45

know, depending on how many pin points you

1:23:47

have, I think it depends what

1:23:49

you can equip at one time, but they'll

1:23:51

be on the bottom screen as icons sort

1:23:54

of like a Diablo, I guess. And

1:23:56

if you use, for example, the more powerful ones, they're all

1:23:58

going to be on like a cooldown. so you won't

1:24:00

be able to just spam your most powerful pins.

1:24:03

Um, I've had a lot of the

1:24:05

time you're either swiping enemies with like a sword

1:24:08

pin or you're drawing like a ball of- a

1:24:10

ring of fire for enemies to sit on and

1:24:12

just do gradual damage or maybe burn damage, and

1:24:16

changing it up between encounters is more or less essential

1:24:18

because there is certain monster of noise, that's

1:24:20

what the monsters called in this game, that will resist

1:24:22

certain pins. So you really do have to switch it up

1:24:24

and sort of figure it out, and sometimes you'll get

1:24:26

in a situation where it's like, well

1:24:28

this is their weakness but the pin hasn't been leveled

1:24:30

up, so I guess I'll not play the game for

1:24:32

a bit and do something else, and when I come

1:24:34

back, the absence- I've always got absence

1:24:37

XP or something like that will

1:24:39

level your pins up quite

1:24:41

significantly, rewarding you for taking

1:24:43

a break. Um,

1:24:45

it's interesting how everything feeds into everything else. Promoting

1:24:47

a healthy lifestyle. Yeah, exactly. It's like bucket-type. Don't

1:24:50

always play video games. Without the risk of, you

1:24:52

know, baking yourself, I guess. Yeah,

1:24:56

um, I really- I've said

1:24:58

this before, I'm going to keep saying it, this

1:25:00

game out personas persona, in the

1:25:02

sense that, you know, the

1:25:04

abilities you equip are

1:25:07

essential to taking on different

1:25:09

enemies, and having

1:25:12

passive abilities, you know, pins

1:25:14

aren't just active attacks, they're

1:25:18

also things like stat buffs and,

1:25:21

you know, progressive healing

1:25:24

and debuffs for enemies

1:25:26

and things like that. Like knowing

1:25:28

when to use those and where to,

1:25:30

you know, how to hit enemy weaknesses

1:25:32

is crucial. Otherwise the battles

1:25:34

can really, you know, drag out and

1:25:37

be difficult. I mean, something

1:25:39

we haven't mentioned that adds even more complexity

1:25:41

is the light ball that goes between the

1:25:43

two characters that you pass back and forth

1:25:45

with successful combos, and I think the more

1:25:47

you do it, the more powerful you get

1:25:49

or something like that. It's been a while,

1:25:51

so I can't exactly remember, but there's so

1:25:53

much that you've got to play

1:25:55

efficiently to play it, to absolute efficiency.

1:25:58

You've got to be so alert and what- going

1:26:00

on on both screens. I mean, this is like

1:26:02

real time. This isn't turn-based. You're getting attacks. You're

1:26:04

getting – you need to dodge attacks as well

1:26:06

by dragging Neko out of the way for a

1:26:08

little dive. It's just kind of

1:26:10

crazy and it couldn't be done on any other

1:26:12

system and wasn't. They just dropped it for the

1:26:14

Soviet remixes. Yeah. And

1:26:17

another thing to mention about the pin

1:26:19

– like, which pins you equip. In

1:26:21

addition to what does this pin do

1:26:23

and what are its elemental affiliations and how

1:26:26

leveled up is it, you also have to

1:26:28

consider how do I activate this pin because

1:26:31

all of your pins that you have equipped – and you can

1:26:33

only equip a few at a time, but all of them are

1:26:35

active at once – and different

1:26:38

pins have different methods to

1:26:40

activate them. So you want

1:26:43

to equip a set of pins that

1:26:46

all use different activation techniques. So

1:26:48

you want one that you can

1:26:50

maybe activate by slashing

1:26:52

vertically on the screen or diagonally.

1:26:55

One that you use by pressing

1:26:58

the stylus against the screen and dragging

1:27:00

something around. One that you tap once

1:27:02

or tap multiple times. And

1:27:05

I guess if you want to, one that

1:27:07

you blow into the microphone for. I hate that. It's

1:27:10

one of the most powerful pins so get it leveled

1:27:12

up and get screaming. Friggin – I

1:27:14

think you can just tap the mic. Yeah.

1:27:18

It's fine. You don't need to actually blow

1:27:20

into it. Get a little sound

1:27:22

drop. Just

1:27:24

start screaming. That's the best way. Kind of

1:27:26

a problem though if you're riding a bus.

1:27:29

Yeah, it's true. I went into that

1:27:31

problem with Phoenix Wright once because at the end you

1:27:33

actually do have to yell objection or hold it. You

1:27:36

can't just blow into the mic and I was on a bus

1:27:38

at the time. I was like, great, I can't finish the game

1:27:40

now. It's the same

1:27:42

with the pan pipes and

1:27:44

spirit tracks. Oh, wow. Where I

1:27:46

was on a bus and

1:27:49

the pan pipes weren't working

1:27:51

properly and you need that to be able

1:27:53

to beat the final boss. So

1:27:55

I was like, well, this isn't working.

1:27:58

So that was one of the – fun, many fun

1:28:01

quirks of the Nintendo

1:28:03

DS. Would this be an appropriate time to

1:28:05

mention the absolute most death-inducing use of the

1:28:07

microphone on the DS? Or should I say

1:28:10

that? Well, okay, this is very sewage, I

1:28:12

can apologize, but my Frogger

1:28:14

toy trials on the DS, one of the levels is

1:28:16

a boat race. Like, you know, with like, you build

1:28:18

a boat, you put the frog on the boat, and

1:28:21

then it's like, you've got to blow into the mic

1:28:23

so that the wind carries the boat. I don't

1:28:25

know if I like where this is going. You've got

1:28:27

to blow into the mic for about two solid unbroken

1:28:30

minutes, which you can't do. Seriously,

1:28:32

it's impossible. It will cause you to

1:28:34

die. Don't do it. Okay,

1:28:38

I won't. Thank you. That's good. I

1:28:41

was gonna play that game next, but now that

1:28:43

you've told me that. Yeah, it's

1:28:45

everyone taking off their lizards.

1:28:47

Damn. The thing that I remember

1:28:50

the most about the world ends with you, battle

1:28:52

system, which is enjoyable,

1:28:55

a little overstuffed,

1:28:58

I think. There's a lot going on with

1:29:00

it. And I remember it was one of the key points

1:29:04

of criticism when

1:29:06

this game first came out was there

1:29:08

was a little bit of the rub your

1:29:10

tummy, pat your head going on

1:29:13

with the top screen and the bottom

1:29:15

screen. For sure. Yeah. But also, I

1:29:17

was playing

1:29:20

on a DS light and the

1:29:23

little swirling scratches from

1:29:26

playing this thing between that

1:29:29

and Os Tatakay

1:29:31

Oendan meant

1:29:34

that my touch screen was just

1:29:36

a permanent scratched up mess from

1:29:40

all the swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe,

1:29:43

drag, drag, drag, drag, drag, drag, tap, tap, tap,

1:29:45

tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, with

1:29:48

this game. Also, it was kind of annoying

1:29:50

if you were in a room with someone trying

1:29:52

to play it and you're just going as

1:29:55

much as humanly possible with

1:29:58

this one. Of course, it's all only

1:30:00

got worse with the actual mobile

1:30:02

games when you were swiping frantic with your finger,

1:30:04

but at least you weren't doing it with a

1:30:06

stylus, I guess. I think it's

1:30:08

just that, sorry. Oh, I was just

1:30:10

going to say those DS Lite bottom screens were

1:30:13

a little delicate. I

1:30:16

played through the entirety of Etri and Odyssey 1

1:30:18

and 2 on a limited edition

1:30:20

Zelda DS Lite, and

1:30:23

that thing, by the

1:30:25

time I was done with those two

1:30:27

games, like the bottom screen,

1:30:29

you could see the grid that

1:30:31

I had carved into the bottom

1:30:33

screen by drawing maps for Etri

1:30:35

and Odyssey. It

1:30:38

was like a piece of graph paper that

1:30:40

you could use to play video games. It

1:30:42

was rough. I think it's a

1:30:44

reasonable criticism to say, you know, the rub your

1:30:46

head, which one is it?

1:30:50

I don't even know. There's two things in

1:30:52

some configuration. I think it's a reasonable criticism.

1:30:55

I also think that, again, as

1:30:57

we've talked about thematically, that there is something there

1:30:59

as you learn to kind of work in sync

1:31:01

with each other. But honestly,

1:31:03

if this game had a

1:31:06

simpler battle system, I

1:31:08

don't think it would hurt the game. The

1:31:11

way they did it in solo remix, the other changes

1:31:13

they made, I don't like. Like, I don't like the

1:31:15

higher res look. I don't think it works. So if

1:31:17

we could somehow get the DS version visuals with maybe

1:31:19

an option to play with a

1:31:22

solo battle, maybe they change the stats somehow, I'd

1:31:24

be into that. And I wonder why it hasn't

1:31:26

been done by hackers yet. Just get on with

1:31:28

it, hackers. What are you doing? So

1:31:31

we have also

1:31:33

talked about.

1:32:00

pins to a certain degree, but

1:32:02

not really in direct

1:32:04

detail. But these are the sort

1:32:06

of the main element of your battle system.

1:32:08

I mentioned, you know, the Chrono Cross element

1:32:10

system before. And pins are

1:32:12

basically sort of the same thing. They

1:32:14

are abilities that

1:32:16

you acquire and

1:32:18

collect and then attach

1:32:21

to your character to activate combat

1:32:23

abilities. You can buy these,

1:32:26

you can earn them in combat,

1:32:28

you can earn them through playing

1:32:30

minigames, etc. And on top of that,

1:32:33

most, if not all of them, level up

1:32:35

to different degrees. So you can

1:32:37

enhance them kind of like you do Materia in

1:32:40

Final Fantasy 7

1:32:42

by engaging in battles or by putting

1:32:44

your system to sleep for a day, whichever

1:32:46

you prefer, and gain

1:32:48

new powers and, you know, more

1:32:50

powerful capabilities with your pins.

1:32:53

But again, this is one of those things that is

1:32:56

very much integrate like

1:32:59

a way that the narrative and

1:33:01

premise and environment setting and

1:33:04

gameplay mechanics all tie together in

1:33:06

this game. Because, you

1:33:08

know, basically the pin badges are like the

1:33:11

little accessories that you would wear

1:33:13

on your outfit or on your

1:33:15

backpack or whatever, a keychain, cell

1:33:17

phone strap, etc. And they all

1:33:19

represent different things. And I

1:33:22

mentioned world tendency earlier, and there's

1:33:25

some truth to that, because wearing

1:33:28

and equipping different pins will cause

1:33:30

those elements, those styles and

1:33:32

brands, to

1:33:35

exert influence on the

1:33:39

crowds around you in Shibuya. And

1:33:42

so, you know, you're like this ghost

1:33:44

fighting in the background, but the things

1:33:46

you do are sort of like sending

1:33:48

out psychic waves that ripple throughout the

1:33:52

ward and affect

1:33:55

different people and like kind of change their

1:33:57

minds. And so the more you use something,

1:33:59

the more powerful. it becomes

1:34:01

through becoming popular.

1:34:03

And it's just

1:34:06

a really fascinating way to integrate

1:34:09

the concept of fashion and

1:34:11

trends and what's

1:34:13

popular among teens as

1:34:15

a video game mechanic. It's very interesting and

1:34:18

unusual, but it works really well. I

1:34:21

didn't engage with that very much. The

1:34:23

trends would be happening. I

1:34:25

also don't engage with world tendency very

1:34:28

much from the Souls games, maybe, for

1:34:30

my detriment. So there

1:34:32

would be the trends happening, but

1:34:35

most of the time, I would just go

1:34:37

with the pins and the

1:34:39

clothes that sort of worked best for me and

1:34:43

keep on going, I suppose. And

1:34:45

especially because certain

1:34:47

of the pins, I just felt

1:34:50

way more comfortable with and felt

1:34:52

like I was doing way more

1:34:54

damage to individual enemies.

1:34:57

And in the actual battles, the

1:35:00

drops that you get, I think, are

1:35:03

often dependent on how

1:35:06

fast you can take out the

1:35:08

individual noise. So kind

1:35:10

of the faster, the more efficiently you

1:35:12

can deal damage in any

1:35:14

given time, the better the

1:35:16

rewards in this one. So I

1:35:19

felt really incentivized to

1:35:21

stick with particular pins

1:35:24

that I felt the most comfortable with,

1:35:26

rather than swapping them around and trying

1:35:28

on different things. I

1:35:31

think it's, yeah, the main

1:35:33

game, the main story, I think they want

1:35:35

you to finish it. So they're very friendly

1:35:37

in that regard with change. Not necessarily needing

1:35:40

to go beyond a few

1:35:42

core, very powerful pins, but when

1:35:44

you get to the post game, that sort of

1:35:47

the harder parts of the post game,

1:35:49

that becomes a bit less feasible, as

1:35:51

is sort of tradition. And I'm going to say,

1:35:54

again, Kingdom Hearts, where suddenly

1:35:56

your tactics that you've been relying on for the past

1:35:58

40 hours become completely null and vulnerable. Yeah, there's

1:36:01

an ultimate difficulty. It's

1:36:04

interesting, this

1:36:06

gave, there is a lot of strategy

1:36:08

to it as you were kind of suggesting,

1:36:11

Stuart, and it really starts to

1:36:13

come out at the very highest

1:36:15

difficulty levels. You will get

1:36:17

rolled by certain

1:36:20

bosses, especially like Minami Moto and

1:36:22

such. If you're not being

1:36:25

pretty mindful, I

1:36:28

suppose, of how everything comes together,

1:36:30

it's not an easy game for

1:36:32

sure at the top

1:36:35

tier difficulties. But

1:36:37

fortunately, you can eat snacks. Just

1:36:40

like real life. Exactly.

1:36:45

One last element we haven't talked about in

1:36:47

addition to clothing and pins

1:36:50

is the food system and Stuart said basically

1:36:52

he didn't really get that until the end

1:36:54

of the game. I think

1:36:56

the easiest way to think about it is it's

1:36:59

kind of like buying food in River City Ransom

1:37:01

where you buy food, you eat it, and

1:37:04

it confers permanent stat boosts to you.

1:37:07

But this game prevents you

1:37:09

from abusing that by sort of

1:37:12

limiting what you can eat. So

1:37:14

you have like a certain amount of

1:37:16

appetite and once you surpass that,

1:37:18

like you're sated, you don't want to go

1:37:20

any further than that. Once

1:37:24

you've eaten food, you gain some immediate benefits

1:37:26

like battle perks. Like

1:37:28

wow, I ate a hot dog and I really like hot

1:37:30

dogs so now I've got like plus 20

1:37:32

to my attack or something like that. But

1:37:36

over time, as you battle, you digest

1:37:38

your food and once it's gone, once

1:37:40

you've fully digested it, then

1:37:42

it becomes a permanent stat buff and that's

1:37:44

going to be different than the temporary effect

1:37:46

it has. But

1:37:49

basically it's a system that allows you to build

1:37:52

your stats but you can't just like go

1:37:56

overboard and eat all

1:37:58

the most powerful food all at once. and

1:38:01

suddenly have an out-of-depth super

1:38:04

stat monster. You have to kind of work through it

1:38:06

in time. And you know that

1:38:08

that fits because time is a core concept

1:38:11

of this game. Not only

1:38:14

the time that sort

1:38:16

of dictates the game, game capital

1:38:18

G, but also the time that

1:38:21

you know you put your system to sleep and

1:38:23

let your pins soak up experience and that sort

1:38:25

of thing. So it all just kind of seems

1:38:27

of a piece. And you have favorite

1:38:29

foods, at least favorite foods, kind of like in

1:38:31

Snake Eater. So you're going

1:38:33

to gain different perks. Each character

1:38:36

is going to gain different perks from

1:38:39

different kinds of food depending on how they feel about it.

1:38:41

So yeah, there's again

1:38:44

it's a lot of complexity that you don't have

1:38:47

to engage with, but if you do there's you

1:38:49

know there's benefits to it. Sometimes

1:38:51

I like to shout out, I don't think

1:38:53

we have yet, is the the clothing and you

1:38:55

know the vinyl records and the records. Yeah,

1:38:57

the records from Tawa

1:38:59

Records, which is not Tawa Records, it's

1:39:01

different. Does Tawa Records still exist in

1:39:04

Shibuya at this point? Because it did

1:39:06

as of last summer. In

1:39:08

fact, it's expanding I think. I think a friend of mine

1:39:10

was there a few weeks ago. Okay,

1:39:12

because I was a...

1:39:14

go ahead. I was

1:39:16

just gonna say they had this amazing display

1:39:19

on the outside, like at the street level.

1:39:21

They have this entire video wall and it's

1:39:23

playing music and showing video and when I was there

1:39:26

last summer they were playing some

1:39:28

sort of new City Pop recording or

1:39:30

like reissue that was coming

1:39:32

out and they had created a custom

1:39:34

video for it that was basically outrun.

1:39:37

And it was just like this

1:39:39

is the most retro Japan

1:39:41

thing I can possibly imagine. It's

1:39:43

like futuristic, but also it's the

1:39:45

80s and I love this. So

1:39:48

yes, Tawa Records still there, still

1:39:50

pretty awesome. But basically those records,

1:39:52

those clothes and this food, they're

1:39:55

all a display to

1:39:57

you in the most gorgeous

1:39:59

pixels. Lot for these things for everything

1:40:01

has been just meticulously drawn. It's a fantastic.

1:40:03

I do wish they have had like how

1:40:05

does like but cats said that would really

1:40:07

push over the edge butter. You know there

1:40:09

are limits. It's still a desk and I

1:40:11

love looking at those so screens the just

1:40:14

of triumph of a have it has been

1:40:16

involved. In

1:40:39

that of the said Helier and

1:40:41

Tower Records last one of my

1:40:43

I went there a lot when

1:40:45

I was living in Japan because

1:40:47

he could get a lot of

1:40:49

English language materials and books and

1:40:51

things that otherwise would have to

1:40:53

import. So in a way it's

1:40:56

and I remember as a key

1:40:58

part of the skyline as well.

1:41:00

You see the huge sign of

1:41:02

say Tower Records on one of

1:41:04

the streets. Thrown. Away it's serve

1:41:06

comforting to know that even as simply

1:41:08

as sense that this sort of artifacts

1:41:11

in the nineties in two thousand says

1:41:13

still, they're going strong after all these

1:41:15

years. the doesn't exist in America anymore

1:41:17

like Toys R Us, but it's still

1:41:19

still going strong in Japan. Actually, I

1:41:21

remember meeting up with the once A

1:41:24

Tower and Shibley A Cup bid way

1:41:26

that so long time ago probably like

1:41:28

wow, twelve or thirteen years ago by

1:41:30

Yes. So it's a It's a good

1:41:32

central location, easy to spot. As

1:41:36

as for the food, First

1:41:39

of all I like any Rpg

1:41:41

that has a food mechanic that

1:41:43

confers bus and everything as see

1:41:45

also. So. Many square games

1:41:47

including Final Fantasy Fifteen, was going to

1:41:50

say how does the food graphic out

1:41:52

of the food graphics and as compared

1:41:54

to Final Fantasy Xiv, teens fi me

1:41:57

and file fancy Fifteen They literally. And

1:41:59

were. out and cooked the

1:42:02

food and came up with

1:42:04

individualized recipes so that

1:42:06

they could put them into the game and

1:42:08

it did look quite delicious. The

1:42:11

food in this game are maybe a little

1:42:13

more pixelated and a little more simple but

1:42:16

still recognizable as

1:42:18

something that you would probably want

1:42:20

to eat. All of the characters have

1:42:24

their own preferences. Apparently,

1:42:27

Joshua is the least picky

1:42:29

and Beat is the most

1:42:31

picky in this game,

1:42:36

which I think is interesting. Also,

1:42:39

though, this game is

1:42:42

such a kitchen sink game in terms

1:42:44

of actual systems and

1:42:46

mechanics and we've already talked about the

1:42:48

way that the individual pins

1:42:50

interact with one another, the way

1:42:53

that they evolve, the world

1:42:56

tendency stuff with the trends,

1:42:58

the clothes, and the food

1:43:01

as yet another layer of

1:43:04

complexity. There is really

1:43:06

a danger of this game almost

1:43:08

spinning out of control a little

1:43:11

bit but somehow it manages

1:43:13

to all hold

1:43:16

together. I'm sort

1:43:18

of curious why y'all think that

1:43:20

that is the case. How

1:43:23

does it manage to not become an abject

1:43:25

mess? I think it's

1:43:27

probably because it's relatively grounded. We

1:43:30

all eat food, we all wear

1:43:32

clothes on all of us and

1:43:35

we'll find vinyl records. We don't know all of

1:43:37

us. The tactile thing of just dragging the clothes

1:43:39

onto the character, dragging the food onto the character

1:43:42

and then it's like the characters eat the food,

1:43:44

the characters eat just the food. That

1:43:46

makes a lot more sense to me than just like any

1:43:49

given other RPG system for leveling up.

1:43:51

You put your sphere on the grid, you're

1:43:54

more powerful now. Your junction is this. You're

1:43:56

more powerful now. It makes so much more

1:43:58

sense to just say you've had some fries. now you

1:44:00

want to beat up a titan. I

1:44:02

think by making it that level of

1:44:05

grounded it helps to digest,

1:44:07

no pun intended, the different

1:44:09

systems. That's just my opinion. Yeah,

1:44:12

and I think another big part of it is kind

1:44:14

of what we talked about earlier with the

1:44:17

customizable flexibility of the

1:44:19

difficulty. This game,

1:44:21

if it required you to engage

1:44:24

all systems at max capacity, would

1:44:26

be a nightmare. It would be

1:44:28

no fun. But it really

1:44:30

says, you know, kind of come to

1:44:32

this game, approach it on your own

1:44:34

terms. You pick the parts

1:44:37

that you want to experience and enjoy

1:44:39

and work your way through the story, through the

1:44:41

combat. You know, and if you really

1:44:44

get into it, there's an entire new game plus where

1:44:46

you can go back and replay individual

1:44:48

days one at a time and

1:44:51

see different thoughts from characters, find secret

1:44:53

reports, that reveal more of the backstory

1:44:55

and the plot. You

1:44:58

can really, you can really like

1:45:00

go super deep into this and

1:45:02

just commit yourself to it. But you don't

1:45:04

have to. And as a result,

1:45:06

it seems overwhelming at first, but you quickly

1:45:09

realize like, I can make this, you

1:45:11

know, much simpler, and much more approachable.

1:45:13

And I can just enjoy the

1:45:15

story. Or I can just, you know, fart around

1:45:17

and use my pins in combat and see what

1:45:19

kind of cool tricks I can do. It really

1:45:22

is kind of a DIY

1:45:24

game. And I think that

1:45:27

that willingness to let the

1:45:29

player engage with it at

1:45:32

the level they want to that they feel comfortable with,

1:45:34

really does a lot to make this an

1:45:36