Tips For Playing Neo: The World Ends With You - Kotaku

You don’t need to play the original The World Ends With You to appreciate Neo: The World Ends With You.

The original introduces players to the Reaper’s Game, an otherworldly team-based competition where the chosen dead battle to either be brought back to life or ascend to a higher plane of existence.

The original has the main character juggling powered pins and collecting various fashion brands to increase their power.

Neo is almost a retelling of the original with brand-new characters, music, fashion, and a great new 3D combat system that makes the original’s touchscreen-based Stride Cross Battle System feel as awkward as it looks.

References and characters from the original game in Neo will be lost to players who didn’t play the first rounds of the Reaper’s Game, but the new games explains what happened in The World Ends With You well enough that new players should be able to follow along.

One of the primary mechanics of Neo: The World Ends With You is collecting pins.

They are your characters’ powers, some of which level up and evolve into new pins as you do battle.

Combat pins also carry different elemental affinities, which can determine how effective they are against certain enemies.

Including special barter pins and those meant to be exchanged for cash, there are 333 pins in Neo: The World Ends With You.

Unlike the original TWEWY, in which battles alternated between the main character and a partner, Neo: TWEWY sees up to four characters fighting at once in real-time 3D battles.

If a battle proves too tough, think about your enemies’ weaknesses and re-equip pins as needed.

Sometimes battles go by so fast that a healing pin feels worthless, especially when team health recharges after every battle.

In the hours I’ve been playing Neo: The World Ends With You I’ve forgotten many amazing pin combinations.

Doing battle while your characters are wearing fashions from specific stores is how you gain VIP status with those stores, which unlocks more powerful stat-enhancing clothing to buy.

The more battles you chain together, the better your drop rate becomes, which means you’ll get more pins at the end of combat.

Another upgrade path that’s pretty unique to the World Ends With You universe is the Social Network.

It’s a branching network of characters you meet in the game, each of whom holds the key to unlocking some cool new item or feature.

Many times while playing through the main story I’ve found myself straying from the narrative’s goal in order to empty my stomach so I can order one more time from a local eatery, thus unlocking new menu items via the Social Network.

The Noisepedia is a special section of the menu that keeps track of the enemies you encounter, providing important information such as which pins they drop while playing at different difficulty levels, their hit points, how much experience they provide, and THEIR WEAKNESSES.

Aside from the whole fighting for your eternal souls thing, Neo: The World Ends With You is a game about hanging out with your friends and having fun.

I picked it up again and binged on it last weekend, currently enjoying A New Day as it supposedly bridges the events of the original game with the sequel’s.