The story begins with you

The World Ends with You is one of the best games i’ve played on the Nintendo DS, and I have a lot of games for the DS. Some would say too many. TWEWY is unlike any of the others, though. I spend most of my DS time playing Mario Kart DS or Clubhouse Games–casual gaming experiences. Last fall was spent beating Elite Beat Agents and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, but those two games don’t have much replay value. (Believe me, I’ve replayed them.) My attention then shifted to the Wii: Guitar Hero III, Super Mario Galaxy and No More Heroes. It’s been a good couple of years for Nintendo fanboys. That’s another post entirely.

The World Ends with You is the first Square game I’ve played since Secret of Mana on the SNES, which should prompt the exclamation “Final Fantasy!?!” from anyone literate in video games. I’ve never played Final Fantasy VII despite multiple arguments over about a decade that I should. My only brush with the series was a brief stint with Final Fantasy III at a time when the game seemed dated. So after a decade and a half away from any Square franchise, The World Ends with You is a revelation, and from what I’ve read, reviewers agree.

It’s refreshing to have an immersive storyline and intense action sequences in a handheld. No More Heroes provided that on the Wii, and I wished that I could play it when I was away from the console. Now I can’t put down the DS.

There’s been a call from various sources for adequate game criticism, akin to film theory and literary theory. Another year or two, and plot-laden games like this are still lacking when it comes to dialogue and exposition. There’s a necessity to point the player to things in an obvious way (“He went that way! We should follow him!”) that sacrifices the subtlety of good storytelling. Dialogue then suffers. The World Ends with You has done something I haven’t seen yet–marry teenage tech culture with the gravity of an emotional story. No More Heroes almost accomplished this, with its otaku protagonist, but the culture protrayed was still very much adult in spite of the protagonist’s initial immaturity.

A bunch of fifteen-year-olds are the main characters of TWEWY, and they act fifteen. But by “acting fifteen,” they aren’t caricatures of teenagers–they are teenagers. They’re moody and emotional, but they have ambitions, hopes and cares like most fifteen-year-olds would. They’re literate and thoughtful but also tech savvy (the main menu of the game is represented by a cellphone). One comic relief character is a typical otaku: hyperactive and obsessed with a game within the game. He’s portrayed in stark contrast to the characters the player controls. There are weaknesses in the story, as with any game, and unfortunately, because of the way the industry has developed, story is a lot less important to the production of the video game than it would be to a film.

Another year and another handful of games like these, and that could all change. «»