A refreshing action rpg, definetly worth a shot.
You are a boy named Neku who lands in the middle of Shibuya city, the crowd is swelling but most seem unaware of Neku's presence, also Neku suddenly gained the ability to hear peopl'se thoughts and is also able to see strange creatures that seem to devour what ever victim that sees them.
After being cornered by the creatures Neku stumbled upon a girl named Shiki who formed a pact with him which enabled both to fight back the creatures, Shiki explains to Neku that they bothed landed in the "reaper's game" and have to complete missions send by the reapers within given time limits, they have 7 days to complete their missions, if they fail they will be erased, Neku usualy a very anti-social individual had no choice but to journey around Shibuya together with Shiki in order to escape the reaper's game, it is also his only way of figuring out how he got into this mess to begin with.
The game has some nice anime feel to it, all the characters and environments are rendered in very stylish sprites, making the game feel very modern.
You will recieve text messages describing your mission objectives and will be given time limits to complete each, You will be going around from one point to the next, each point will have walls blocked by reapers and you will have to fullfil some requests in order to proceed, after succeeding a mission you will be jumped to the next day where your next mission awaits and the story will progress, failing to complete the mission before time runs out will result in game over and you will be send back to retry the whole mission, you will have more than ennough time to complete the mission so there really isn't much pressure to worry about, there are no side quests at first but they will become available after progressing quite far in the game.
You will navigate Neku using the stylus, if you touch the pin on the button right of the bottom screen Neku will open up his senses which will allow him to hear people's thoughts as well as see "Noises" which are creatures that attack you, touching a noise will allow you to engage in battle, tapping multiple noises will allow you to engage in multiplte battles.
In the battle mode you will be controlling 2 characters, Neku will be your main character and will be displayed in the bottom screen, you can move Neku around using the stylus and can attack noises using equiped pins, pins are basically Neku's weapons, they come in different varities each will have different properties and uses, pins can be leveled up when being used in battle, also pins can become more affective depending on where you are, in certain parts of shibuya some brands are more popular than others, the pins with corresponding brands will have increased effects while others may get weaker in certain areas.
on the top screen your partner will assist you in battle, while your partner will remain stationary you can attack noises using the D-pad, using the D-pad in the right order will allow Neku to sync with their partner and allow them to perform combined combo attacks which will heavely damage enemies on both screens, partners will have their own weapons for battle and they cannot be costumized.
While managing two characters at the same time is tricky auto-play will take over for you when not using your partner, however in auto mode the chances of getting the correct combos is very slim so manualy tapping the D-pad is better in most situations, remember though both characters will share the same health bar, so if one of them is in danger its best to heal them quick, health will be restored in each battle session.
You can equip accessories on both characters to increase their stats and also give them variouse foods to permanently increase some of their stats such as health and etc.
The game is littered with awesome sound tracks in and out of battle, definetly those that you want to hear on the go, the game also has an item section where you can listen to your favorite tunes.
The game's story is presented with text and characters displayed, so there is almost no voices to be heard other than during battle and rarely on some cut scenes.
The World Ends With You shows that JRPGs can be good even without high production values, the game's story is intriguing (though not really to the point where it gets memorable, but thats just me) and the game's art is pretty sweet, also the game is very accesable for new comers since difficulty can be set any time during gameplay.
The combat and pin system is quite deep and there is plenty of content to dig in to, once you finish the game you can choose from which ever part of the story to replay and in adition there will be new chapters filled with extra request so replayablity isn't an issue, the game also features plenty of online features such as being able to trade items and pins with a friend who has a copy of the game and a DS of his/her own.
The World Ends With You is an awesome JRPG that anyone can enjoy and shoud definetly be played.