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The World Ends With You also breaks the bonds of regular DS titles in a big way, specifically making use of the DS internal clock and local wireless to add to the gameplay substantially. When the system is off, for example, you earn experience for each day you didn't play (starting huge, and then dropping off for seven days until minimal), and while you won't want to spend time away from the game just to level up – the yield isn't that high – it's a great way to encourage players to come back to the game after a brief pause. We've touched on the food and fashion system before, but to sum up those aspects of the game players can gain attributes by eating food items, but actually need to digest the food before effects take place, so you'll eat a hot dog, feed your partner a hamburger, and then need to battle to work down the counter. Each piece of food takes a certain number of bites to eat though, and you can only use 24 bites in an actual day; yet another way the game blends the RPG world with real-time, Animal Crossing inspired sim aspects.
Fashion also plays a gigantic role in The World Ends With You, with each district in the game having preferred brands. Not only will you need to equip both your characters with the best items to boost stats, but you'll also need to pay attention to trends in the world. Use the right pin attacks and clothing in the right district and you'll nearly double your effectiveness in battle. Fail to pay attention, however, and you can be crippled instantly. We weren't sure what we thought of these very "out of the box" gameplay aspects at first – they could just have easily been a gimmick as anything else – but they've really grown on us, and it makes for a much stronger RPG experience having them in the game.
And it's really the attention to the little things that makes this such a unique and rewarding experience. Shop venders, for example, grow on you the more you shop at their store, dropping prices, giving you access to special, exclusive items, and giving you tips. There's also an "imprinting" system tied with the mind-reading system we touch on earlier, which allows you to learn phrases and ideas to imprint into the minds of the people in Shibuya. This is used constantly in story advancement, and adds an interesting mechanic into the mix.
The level of depth continues as you dive into the level progression and user interface of the game, including some truly inspired, user-determined character growth. You'll level up just like any other RPG, but will only truly thrive in The World Ends With You by dropping your level via a slider, and exchanging those levels for an increase of drop rate. Just like DS Castlevania model, each enemy you encounter has different drop rates for items or pins, and to get the truly rare drops you'll need to lower your levels substantially (we played a huge chunk of the game as a level one team, sacrificing all HP and damage for the chance at big cash, and incredible items) to essentially go big, or go home. More than any other RPG out there we've played, The World Ends With You combines an incredible mix of risk vs. reward.
That same user-determined risk continues throughout the game, as you can change the level of difficulty on the fly (again adding better items for more risk), can set the AI for your partner based on how much dual screen gameplay you want to tackle, and will need to determine which pins to level up and use during combat. With over 300 total pins (each with their own slide, tap, or drawing technique, and experience-based level system), there's a tremendous level of depth in just the battle mechanic alone. If that wasn't enough, the ability to chain together battles also adds yet another level of depth to the game, as you can trigger not just one, but multiple battles all in a row, using the same health bar but gaining an insane amount of pins and items if you can complete each of the fights in a row. With the right level of risk factored into the match, you can gain dozens upon dozens of pins in a single chain of battle. Granted that can include the general currency pins, which are used to exchange for money, and aren't the 300 battle pins in the game, but there's a huge difference between taking the easy way out, gaining a few hundred credits to spend at a shop, or risking it all to find rare items, new battle pins, and upwards of 30,000 in cash all in one daring fight.
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