Innovative combat and design can't prevent The World Ends With You's main issues... it's characters and setting.
That said after the unmitigated crap that was Final Fantasy III on the DS, The World Ends With You is a refreshing change. Its a new franchise from Square Enix, its slick, well presented has a interesting combat system and I should love it. Unfortunately the urge to strangle hip-hop kids with their own beanies grows to such high levels for me when playing that the overall experience was somewhat spoiled.
Story & Characters
For a super secret plot spoilering reason, a bunch of kids have been forced to take part in a Battle Royale style compotetion where they compete against beings called the Reapers in a present day Shibuya. The cast headed up by our lead protaganist Neku (or possibly the worst lead character EVER in a RPG, as I like to call him), are flung from day to day over the course of a week completing tasks in Shibuya with their team-mate. Fail the task? Your erased by the Reapers and your dead. Hooray. Now this may sound all very simple but there is a lot of depth to it, theres a lot of "Whys?" and "Hows?" and "WTF is going on's?" answered throughout and I can't cover the details as they are genuinally genius story aspects and contain massive spoilers. Let's just say the game has a lot of plot twists and interesting ideas.
Unfortunately if only the game had been set in another setting and different cast I'd be giving this aspect of it 10/10. Unfortunately being set in present day Shibuya and translating being what it is, all the kids speak and act like their IQ is less than 4 and it would be a great service to the community if their mouths were stapled shut. With the exception of Joshua every cast member grated on me to some degree, whether it's Neku moaning and being a typical emo kid, or Shiki lost in raging teenage PMT or Beat simply going "Yo Waddup" or something equally irritating the cast and setting REALLY grated on me after about 30mins play. Oh and most of the cast have a fixation on clothes and brands and the usual shallow claptrap the media is intent on getting children into from an increasingly early age. That annoyed me.
Gameplay
That said, to slate the game based souley on the setting and cast being unrelatable to me from a personal standpoint would be unfair as TWEWY has some great aspects, like the combat.
The combat involves you as Neku and one other character using special abilities to fight enemies known as "noise" and some Reaper bosses too. On the bottom screen you control Neku, running around with the stylus and using your skills held within "pins" to perform different attacks using different stylus movements. Each ability you collect uses different movements and all can be employed tactically in different situations against different kinds of noise. You get to send flame burning along the floor, shoot icicles out the ground and many other abilities. Meanwhile if you happen to be in possesion of nine thumbs you can also use the D-pad to attack on the top screen at the same time, or switch between screens as the flow of battle changes, whatever you prefer. It can seem overwhelming at times but its new, refreshing and different and yes.. it is a Square Enix game and I just used all those words in the same sentance as "Square Enix."
The non combat aspects of the game have you running around Shibuya solving adventure game puzzles. You know the ones I mean, "find conversation part X" then "put conversation part X into somebody elses body so they sya something triggeting an event" although usually a bit more complex than that. It may be slightly different from the usual "pick up stick, shove stick in beavers bum to make it gnaw down a tree which falls and creates a bridge for you to walk across" but the concept is the same. This is a double edged sword for me as I suck at puzzles in games, I really do. The puzzles for me gain marks for again doing something different but lose marks slightly for all the times I had to consult a guide in frustration. Still overall though I guess adventure game style puzzles in a RPG make a nice change.
Graphics & Sound
Wonderful, a triumph on the DS theres even a bit of voice acting for the leads here and there, technically TWEWY cannot be faulted in it's excellence. Oh and the cutscenes work well too.
Lastability
A lot to do if you can be bothered, personally I couldn't be, but again I'm sure theres plenty of you out there who will be. Length? Probably 20 hour mark for most people I suppose.
Overall TWEWY does a lot right, but unfortunately for me at least it fails on one of the most important RPG aspects.. the cast. A game can have the best story and gameplay ever but if the characters are the equivalent of watching blobs of diarrohea leap around the screen then the enjoyment factor is lost. I wonder when more RPG creators will realize the entire gaming market is no longer under 18.