Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Amazing"

This JRPG is a must have for DS owners and an amazing experience for anyone. Don't hesitate to go out and buy this game. Now, let's start the review with the main thing you are probably looking for in a Square Enix game of it's nature, the story. Don't be afraid, because Square Enix has done it again with bringing us an amazing and unique storyline to blow us all away. Neku Sakuraba, a 15 year old boy, finds himself waking up in the middle of modern Shibuya's scramble crossing with a strange pin with a skull on it in his hand. Soon after he gets a strange text on his phone telling him that he must get to 104 within one hour or face erasure. Assuming that it's junk mail, he deletes it, but strangely, it won't go away. Suddenly these strange looking frogs with tattoos appear out of strange symbols in the air. Neku runs away, wondering what the hell they were. Suddenly, a girl runs up to him and asks him to make a "pact" with her. In the heat of the moment, not knowing what is going on, Neku accepts, and they become partners. She says he can call her Shiki. And thus, the story begins. It turns out since Neku made a pact with Shiki, the strange frog creatures, called noise, can't attack them. There is a wide variety of noise that the "reapers," the main villians, send out to them. It turns out *SPOILER* Neku has died and that he is competing in the "Reapers Game" to, ultimately, get a second chance at life. However, Neku can't remember how he died, or anything for that matter, so he is left to fight for a life he never knew he had. Eventually, at the end of the week, Shiki and Neku are the winners, but only one can be brought back. Neku volunteers to stay behind, and decides to go through the game over again. However, everyone who enters the game has an entry fee of the thing they care most about. For that matter, Neku's memory was given back to him, which turned out to be his entry fee. But, as an entree fee for the next game, he is playing for Shiki. so 2 more weeks pass and he meets Joshua, a mysterious and ignorant boy who seems to be twice his age, and beat and Rhyme, with Rhyme dying in the first week for Beat to ultimately bring back to life. Basically, Beat joins the reapers, which turns out to be because Rhyme was made into a pin which summons her noise form, but he can't use it unless he is a reaper, and eventually he betrays the reapers and becomes Neku's partner in the final week. The composer of the games is the ultimate leader of the games, and Beat decides that in order to bring Rhyme back to life, he should overthrow the current composer and become the next one. In the end, *WARNING: spoilers are still going* Joshua turns out to be composer, and the whole time he was playing a game with the co leader, the conductor, to see if Shibuya should be destroyed or not. The conductor dies, and Shiki and Beat become Neku's one last entry fee for his *final* final week. After the last game (which is not shown), Neku is heard talking to Joshua about how he has friends now and isn't a jerk who hates people anymore, and those friends turn out to be, of course, Beat, Rhyme, and Shiki. *SPOILERS END HERE* Now for gameplay. Basically, on the bottom screen you control Neku and use different touch commands to use "Psychs" which come from pins that are used as the main weapon in game. Depending on the brand of your pin. you can get random buffs and debuffs, but using branded pins in a few battles influences the brand charts, making them go higher up and get better buffs. On the top screen, you control your partner using the key pad (or A, B, X, and Y for lefties) to perform attacks and build up fusion stars in different ways for each partner to get the fusion attack, which deals massive damage to all foes. You can also have the AI control your partner, but I don't recommend doing that for too long, because the AI is slow and unreliable. You and your partner share the same health bar, so things can get ugly if the AI doesn't cooperate. Overall, the gameplay is fast paced and fun. Now, the musical score is WONDERFUL. It represents the modern day japanese culture and gives a great feel. there are hip hop, Jpop, R&B, Rap, and even fully orchestrated songs all with wonderful vocal performances. In conclusion, TWEWY is a MUST have game in the DS library that makes for an unforgettable and crazy journey through Modern day Shibuya. Now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go play Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep in preparation for my next review. See you then!