Last May Square-Enix took me to Japan to play a number of their 2008 releases and meet and interview the teams behind them.

The most interesting title of the show was The World Ends With You, a curious DS game with simultaneous dual screen control and a memorable art style overseen by Tetsuya Nomura, he of Final Fantasy VII character design fame.

It’s interesting to review some of these titles which were mid-production at the time I first saw them. This is one of the ones that delivered on its potential.

Tatsuya Kando, director of The World Ends With You, has admitted that the development team decided on the game’s setting – Tokyo’s youthful and vibrant Shibuya district – before anything else.

While it might not be a case of style over substance, it’s clear right from the off that, like its closest reference point Viewtiful Joe, this is a game designed as style before substance.

From Tetsuya Nomura’s lithe, fashionista character designs to the graffito fonts, cute-dramatic- cute J-pop soundtrack and the self-conscious integration of mobile phones, MP3 players and pin badges into the game’s mechanics, this is a title precision-targeted at the young Japanese who populate Shibuya’s streets in both the game’s reality and ours.

The relentless styling hits the target, never feeling like the soulless result of corporate focus-testing, but it’s also overpowering and, coupled with the vogue petulance of teen protagonist Neku, ultimately distracts from the game’s underlying merits.

The story provides the framework into which the gameplay slots. Neku is drawn into an esoteric seven-day competition hosted by a mysterious group of hooded gamesmasters known as the ‘Reapers’. Every day he receives a task via text message, which must be completed before sundown if he is to avoid being ‘erased’.

Unable to leave Shibuya and with a timer etched onto the back of his hand, Neku has no option but to participate, rushing through the streets of Shibuya from target location to location aided by a single companion.

The game is stuffed with cutscenes and extended dialogue but when control is
wrested from the narrative, the action mechanics are deep and interesting, making unique use of both of the DS screens at once.

This review appears in this month’s edition of Edge magazine. The full piece can be read over at Next-Gen here.