Making a sequel to a favorite game is difficult enough. Planning to start producing a sequel that is nearly fifteen years old? This is a greater challenge.
One might argue that the developers behind NEO: The world is with you The challenge is even greater. The original TWEWY was a big killer on Nintendo DS, but part of what made it unique was its obsession with the culture of the time. It is set against a twisted version of real Tokyo, which draws heavily on the fashion, music and trends of the mid-2000s. This is cool and refreshing.
Watch on youtube
However, this puts the sequel in an interesting dilemma. In the following 14 years, music, fashion, and even the towering buildings of Shibuya have changed-but developers must bridge the gap and retain the elements and style choices so that fans now see it as the main product while maintaining Modern.
“In the past 14 years, 15 years, many changes have taken place in culture,” Tatsuya Kando, director of The World Ends With You series, admitted through an interpreter. What we are talking about is part of the game promotion cycle, during this period, usually, the main developers of the game will talk to the media around the world on a global scale. However, it is 2021, so we need to zoom and ignore it across multiple time zones.
“Everything is actually based on the previous game-its ideas are still very important to this game,” Kando promised. But he also asserted that the passage of time itself is more exciting than fear, which provides new opportunities for TWEWY’s unique storytelling.
He excitedly said: “For example, I mean looking at mobile phones.” “Nowadays, their appearance and function have completely changed. Now, we still have a very complicated Internet, etc. In this sense, people The way of interaction (interpersonal communication) has also changed a lot.”
If you have never played the original, then these relationships are a key part of making people like it. It is different from many Japanese RPGs in that they put relatively rooted “life fragments” characters in extreme situations, but they also retain the rooted real environment. In many ways, it is inextricably linked to the “Persona” series, which really stood out in the West with the release of “Persona 4”.
Guan Dao said that the only way forward is to embrace the new culture of the 2020s and constantly update the series.
“We really want to try to recreate what’s happening now-like a snapshot if needed. Our new protagonist is a high school student, so we worked very hard and thought about how he sees the world through his eyes, and How does he interact with the world in this sense.”
After so much time, NEO has a new core role and a new fashion protagonist. Although the core narrative drive of “Reapers’ Game” started from the previous version, the game iteration the team participated in was completely different from the previous version. In this way, just like in many other games, the game fully embraces the time that has passed. That being said, there will still be a lot of small movements and blinks that excite the original fans.
“With these different protagonists and a new story, I think those who have just played the game from now on, those who have not played the previous game but just started from here, they will be able to participate very deeply. It’s easy,” Kando said.
“Of course, there are people who have played the game before-but I think they will be satisfied because some returning characters will give some kind of support and sometimes get into trouble. I think people who return to the series will be happy about it all. I am very satisfied.”
However, the one thing that will not return to the series is one of its most iconic elements-touch-based controls. The original game was immersed in DS design quirks-although trade-offs had to be weighed to make the game get more news and release it to PlayStation and PC and Nintendo Switch. This means that the touch screen must be turned off.
Just like dealing with Shibuya’s ever-changing reality trends, the team’s answer is simply to focus more on the feel of the original game, rather than trying to fully replicate in different situations, as explained by producer Tomanoiko Hirano Original game.
“There is a unique way [the original game] Feeling, and the feeling you get from control. Transferring it to a modern platform, it is impossible to recreate it in the same way. “Hirano said.
“So, we really really think about the feel of the game we want-how we can reproduce the feel of “Worlds With You” through the control panel, that is, the essence. Even if we can’t completely recreate everything, we really paid a lot To make sure it looks like the original game.”
The result is that it looks very different, but it will definitely cause a lot of the same feeling. First of all, it is a complete 3D title, which undoubtedly has overhauled every element of the game presentation.
“The image of the original, how the style of the original is-very popular, everyone is very friendly, and really like it. So in this sense, we want to make sure that this game has the same feel and the same overall Image,” Kando said of the “perspective switch.”
“So in this sense, we try to make sure that even just a quick glance, the background, cutscenes, characters, etc. will have the same feeling as the original title.”
“The background used to be very styled in the way it was drawn, so we have been working hard to ensure that it can be converted to 3D well, and the camera work and so on are very interesting.”
But in addition, NEO also focuses on more role-playing elements, expanding the original character’s attention to interpersonal relationships, as well as the concept of clothes and fashion pins. The clothes your character wears will affect mature RPG equipment and Upgrade the combat power in the system. In our chat, the developers did a naming check on “Final Fantasy” and explained that including such a system allows them to create larger games-they claim that such a game is twice the size of the original game.
Now, the battle around teamwork may be more appropriate to the theme of the game to some extent, as exciting and dynamic as the original game-just different. In fact, this seems to be a general theme. TWEWY’s core development team has been studying Kingdom Hearts for a long time, which allowed TWEWY’s franchise to be reconsidered-it now appears to be a reimagining and continuation of one of the best games of 2007, which is not enough People play.
If there are no other problems, then Shibuya’s new 3D entertainment activities may allow fans to take a bit of digital tourism and appreciate the scenery of the city when they cannot travel throughout the year. When I say that this is the game I am most looking forward to, the developer will laugh, but also nod in excitement.
“You can definitely do it, you can definitely use it to visit Japan!”
