NEO: The World Ends With You Should 'Steal' These Lessons from Persona 5
After a 13-year hiatus, Square Enix revealed NEO: The World Ends With You is in development for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. Longtime fans have eagerly anticipated a sequel for the cult classic DS title, but a lot has changed in the long interim between titles. Square Enix would do well to look to the examples Atlus set with Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal for delivering a modern, JRPG classic.
The original The World Ends With You glistens with style, has an amazing soundtrack, and a tells an engaging story. It is also full of compelling mechanics, including a few features that were ahead of its time, so as long-awaited sequels go, the core formula will likely require little modernization. But seeing where Persona 5 succeeded—and taking note of where the game could be improved—is a surefire way to deliver a memorable experience.
It did not take long for people to draw parallels between NEO: TWEWY and Persona 5, with many accusing Square Enix of ripping off Atlus. To begin with, drawing influence from successful titles is rarely a bad thing, but it is also important to keep in mind that the original TWEWY predated Persona 4, to say nothing of Persona 5 or Royal. It seems possible, therefore, that TWEWY's aesthetic influenced the Persona series in subtle ways, not the other way around. Persona 4 and 5's use of comic panel-like character portraits to represent all-out attacks are similar to TWEWY's animated manga aesthetic, and Persona 5's portrayal of Tokyo likely took some notes from TWEWY's stylized portrayal of Shibuya.
Now, the time is right for Persona 5 to repay the favor in kind, providing examples and areas for potential improvement that could help NEO: TWEWY live up to years of desperate anticipation and reignited hype. And even if Atlus did not use TWEWY as an influence, Square Enix would be foolish not to take heed of some of Persona 5's best ideas, especially since the title is making a jump to brand new platforms that play by different rules than the original Nintendo DS.
The original TWEWY brought the vibrant, fashion-forward culture of Shibuya to life on the DS. The neighborhood's vibe suffuses the game's visuals and genre-bending soundtrack by Takeharu Ishimoto, who is fortunately returning to score NEO: TWEWY. But as Persona 5 demonstrated, Tokyo has so much more to offer gamers than a single special ward. TWEWY could use some extra ground to cover as well. The original game's map is fairly small, and involves a near-excessive amount of backtracking, even if each area is ripe with things to do.
NEO also has the opportunity to improve on its use of Tokyo's distinct locales. While many of the destinations Joker can visit in Persona 5 and Royal have intriguing activities, shops, and sub-quests, others are essentially dating destinations that serve little other purpose. If NEO expands its offerings to include a few other areas, bringing the same level of meticulous detail as the original game, players will have a truly rich world to explore. At the very least, the sequel will need to expand Shibuya and Square Enix would do well to follow Persona 5's faithful recreation of Tokyo's notable landmarks.
Persona 5 offers players a staggering amount of content in even the most expedient playthroughs. In fact, one could argue that the title is too big, especially since it was designed with multiple playthroughs in mind. Part of this is due to the game's extremely complex scheduling system. Even though TWEWY would lend itself to a scheduling system fairly easily given the Reapers' Game's use of time limits and countdowns, NEO should take the opportunity to deliver a slightly more linear, focused experience than Persona 5's sprawling narrative.
This will not only help distinguish TWEWY's identity from Persona; it will make repeated playthroughs more feasible, which could enable the developers to come up with a wider variety of endings based on player choice than Persona 5 has to offer.
Even though it was released over a decade ago, many of TWEWY's characters still have a following and enjoy fairly wide-recognition for a niche title. And NEO: TWEWY's new addition, Nagi, already has a legion of fans on social media. Early reactions to the cast so far are similar to the reception the Phantom Thieves received when they were first unveiled, and now Joker & co. are among the most widely recognized JRPG characters in the world, landing guest appearances in Super Smash Bros. and spin-off titles to capitalize on their success.
The best way for Square Enix to pour fuel on the fires of super-fandom would be to allow players to interact with those characters in mechanically meaningful ways. And fortunately, the game lends itself well to that system already. Both TWEWY and the Persona series have a strong emphasis on the power of relationships. Neku requires the cooperation of partners to compete in the Reapers' Game, and Persona protagonists must establish meaningful bonds to summon more powerful personas.
While The original TWEWY captured the spirit of teamwork through it's frenetic, dual-screen gameplay, NEO seems to be trading that system for party-based 3D battles. Therefore, another system is necessary to mechanically convey cooperation. Allowing players to "level up" their bonds to other characters would be a welcome addition, and it provides TWEWY with an opportunity to distinguish itself from Persona. Rather than using dating-sim like choices to define relationships, NEO can allow parties to level up by completing successful combos in the context of combat.
There are even more parallels between TWEWY and Persona that present opportunities for refinement and divergent evolution. Just as Persona 5 was adapted into an anime, an anime adaptation of the original TWEWY was announced just prior to the reveal of NEO.
Unlike Persona 5's anime, which is a fairly straightforward adaptation of the game's content, the TWEWY anime has the opportunity to interact with the game franchise in a novel way. NEO is supposedly a sequel to the TWEWY anime, which means the anime creators have the opportunity to foreshadow the events of the second game, or raise interesting questions about what players thought they knew of the original rather than a more straightforward retelling.
Persona 5 is a brilliant game that provides NEO: TWEWY with countless other ideas to draw from, and it will be exciting to see what Square Enix does with those opportunities.
NEO: The World Ends With You is currently in-development for the Switch and PlayStation 4, due to release next summer.
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