Many Role Playing Games (RPGs) have an extremely similar setting: knights, wizards, dragons and medieval times. That’s nice and all, but it becomes tiring after a while. That’s where The World Ends With You, or TWEWY for short, comes in.

TWEWY follows the story of Neku Sakuraba, a teenage boy living in the Shibuya district of Tokyo who separates himself from the world using his headphones, caring about no one but himself.

One day, he suddenly wakes up in the middle of the busiest intersection of the city, invisible, with absolutely no memory. Turns out he’s been killed, and forced to take part in the Reaper’s Game. This is where he either completes the missions assigned to him or faces Erasure, permanent death.

This brings about my biggest problems with the game: Neku is, to put it lightly, uncooperative. In order to survive in the Reaper’s Game, “Players” must work with their “Partners.” Unfortunately, Neku refuses to work with his Partner, Shiki Misaki, and that is frustrating to watch. His life is on the line, and he refuses to do what’s necessary. Later in the game, Neku is more open-minded, and the story gets interesting, but his attitude almost makes one want to stop playing.

Luckily, the gameplay is so engaging that it’s hard to put down. The overworld isn’t anything special, but it’s cool to be exploring a modern city instead of a fantastical kingdom or castle.

Battles are fast-paced and engaging. Fights will only take place when players want them to, which is convenient. Neku is controlled on the bottom screen, using the stylus, while his Partner is controlled on the top screen with the directional pad. The enemies appear on both screens and need to be eliminated in order to end the battle.

Neku can equip up to six pins with various abilities, and each can be utilized by performing an action on the touch screen. Shockwave is activated by slashing an enemy, and Street Jam is activated by saying something into the system microphone.

The screens connect via the Light Puck, which multiplies the attack power of whoever has it. If the Light Puck is passed quickly, the attack multiplier is increased up to five times. It’s a unique way to tie the combat together and rewards attentive players.

It’s an in-depth system for combat, but it comes with a couple of drawbacks. For one, I frequently got hand cramps because of the way I had to position my hands. There’s also the fact that a player has to be coordinated in order to maximize his/her damage output, as it requires constant awareness of both screens. This can be somewhat solved, as it’s possible to have the partners on autopilot, but these automated actions can be unreliable.

The presentation of the game is stylistic and modern. There’s a heavy focus on graffiti and similar styles of art. All the characters are well drawn, and they each have a fitting voice. The writing is sharp, with Neku and other characters his age using modern vocabulary.

Then there’s the soundtrack, composed by Takeharu Ishimoto, which is quite different from most games. Instead of a sweeping orchestra, TWEWY decided on a much more modern feel with its music. There’s a few instrument-heavy songs, such as “Despair” and “Amnesia.” But a lot of it is more rock and hip-hop focused. “Three Minutes Clapping” is an energetic, bass-heavy song, while “Hybrid” is more similar to classic rock. Overall, the soundtrack very rarely misses for me, but those expecting epic orchestral music will be disappointed.

The World Ends With You is a game with problems. The start can be pretty hard to watch, and the combat is difficult to learn. But if players can bust through the initial issues, they’re rewarded with an amazing story, addictive gameplay and a great soundtrack.

The World Ends With You

Developed by Square Enix

Current retail price listed at $24.99

Available on the Nintendo D.S.

Rating: Four Stars