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Episode 618: The World Ends With You (Patreon)

Published:
2024-06-10 11:00:09
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

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Content

Jeremy: Let us take you back to a better time. A kinder time. A time with handheld video games systems had two screens, and expected players to have two brains in order to deal with the wildly different things taking place on each screen. OK, well, that really only describes one game if we're being honest: Square Enix's The World Ends With You. Take a deep dive into a game that went deep into the youth trends and social malaise of Japan circa 2008, told by people who lived that life to varying degrees—from Kat Bailey, someone who lived in Japan at the time and hung out at all the locales featured in the game, to Stuart Gipp, who only knows Japan as the source of that vile rot known as anime. Despite our different perspectives and experiences, we all agree on one thing: This game rules. Actually, two things. The soundtrack rules even harder.

(Note that we recorded this a few days before NIS America announced a collaboration project for Reynatis and NEO, so you can kindly ignore our lamentations that no one remembers NEO. You should be used to this sort of thing by now: We mention a property for which there's been no action or movement for years, and before we hit publish, it suddenly becomes news again.)

Art by Greg Melo; edits by Greg Leahy.

09:59 - It's So Wonderful

20:04 - Twister

30:33 - Long Dream

39:11 - Calling (Nintendo DS in-game ver.)

49:41 - Calling (5th Anniversary Live ver.) | OWARI-HAJIMARI (JPN)

57:13 - Hybrid

1:09:44 - Someday

1:18:45 - Underground

1:29:20 - Give Me All Your Love

1:38:06 - It Is Fashionable

1:47:38 - Transformation

Closing - Calling (TWEWY acoustic ver.) (Selections were drawn from the 2007-8 LP/EP soundtrack releases unless otherwise stated)

Files

Comments

Deft Beck

I found Kat's comments about the fashion mechanic in TWEWY uncomfortable. Neku is a 15 year old boy. Even Shiki is only 17.

Nat

I’m excited to listen to the episode because I LOVE this game so much. On the topic of the music, I played a lot of DS games back when I commuted to work by bus, so I usually had the sound muted. However, with TWEWY, I had headphones plugged in whenever I played. It’s one of the few game soundtracks I bought on iTunes!

Andrew O.

Always a pleasure to hear Kat on the podcast. Just make her an official Retronaut already.

Kormakur Gardarsson

Been waiting for an episode on this game, and it certainly lived up to my expectations

Patrick McClafferty

My main experience with this game is Final Remix on Switch. The DS version seemed overwhelming for me with the need to control 2 characters at the same time. I did really enjoy the soundtrack in the years between the DS and Switch version thanks to friends sharing it. The one thing I'm glad the Switch port got right at least is that the Pin Points still grew if the Switch was in sleep mode.

PosiVibez4evr

Could never get into this game cause of the combat but always fascinated by it. Loved this convo! Kat’s nostalgia for it living in Japan was fun and evocative. 😁🙏

CapNChris

I loved hearing Kat on this episode! Never heard of this game before, but I hope I can pick it up at some point. I'm curious to ask, what books are the disaffected youth of Japan reading these days? I've read Osamu Dazai and I could understand his popularity with disaffected Japanese youth, but I imagine someone else must have written something impactful in the last seventy years, but I don't know enough about contemporary Japanese society or literature to answer that question. Maybe a simpler related question would be, are there any post-war literary depictions of disaffected Japanese youth that anyone would recommend?

PurpleComet

There really hasn't been nothing like TWEWY before or since. It's distinct style, soundtrack and battle system drew me in instantly. By far my favorite character is Joshua. He's such a little prick and it's fun to watch him mess with Neku. Square Enix did a poor job of promoting Neo: TWEWY. I also felt it should've been priced lower. The characters run around the same 10-12 environments the entire game and while most dialogue is voice acted, the production values are far below a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. Nevertheless I had a good time with the game and enjoyed spending more time with in that world. Maybe we can get a new Chrono Trigger game now.

Gareth_64

Honestly the only thing I can say that I like about TWEWY is that it’s in Japan. I don’t care for the music, gameplay, story or the character designs, I love Nomura’s art but even that has its limits.