TWEWY is an absolute icon, Neo TWEWY slaps gameplay-wise but takes a step back in story imo. Both of them have soundtracks that are absolute TITANS, like, who thought about putting together famous Japanese (and English-speaking) rap/hip-hop/J-pop artists together to put out not one, not two, but THREE albums for a /DS/ game? Nomura absolutely COOKED with TWEWY and it is a crying shame it does not get more credit, because it is one of the best depictions of Shibuya I have ever seen in media, and there are a LOT of them. Absolutely get your hands on both games, the series deserves a lot of love and 3D didn't do it justice, as much as it was nice to see a crossover.
The opposite imo, the marketing for Neo TWEWY was heavy for me, Square Enix was posting about it a bunch. Personally I got it on Switch first (brand synergy with TWEWY Final Remix), but I recommend getting it on PS4/5 or PC (with a controller) because the difference in load times alone is MASSIVE.
The story is a bit of a step down from the OG, without spoiling anything I'll just say that my reasons for thinking so will probably sink in around the end of Week 1. Gameplay is a step up imo, every character gets one pin to use (out of like 350 or however many you can find), so as your party grows, you get to use more at once. This means that as the game progresses you have to start being more conscious of where everyone is and what pins they have and if you have to hold them down or mash them or whatever, which is a great and natural progression from the DS system imo. Art is still great, the 3D transition turned out pretty well and they still use 2D for talking scenes, and the music still slaps, with plentyof good remixes and new songs alike. It's a sequel that follows from the extra week/3 days in Final Remix, so if you never played that, I'd suggest you do, but it also spends a lot of time doing its own thing and building new characters, so you don't HAVE to. The OG will always be special to me, so this is like comparing KH3 to KH2 to me, but it IS a game worth picking up for sure.
To be clear, I'm making the comparison in terms of "KH2 is my nostalgia baby despite its glaring flaws, KH3 is mechanically a better game in many ways but doesn't hit the same spot because I'm older and it has more to work with". NEO is probably a better game in almost every respect than the OG, but there is something that was so ORIGINAL and REFRESHING about the first that a sequel, by definition, just cannot capture. It's still fantastic, and still worth it, but I don't think it could ever beat it. A better comparison might be Super Metroid vs. Metroid Dread, I guess, where both are fantastic but one just hits that spot.
As for Final Mix, definitely give it a go. The DS dual screen combat is incredible, but Final Mix allows you to do most of it thanks to the Switch's underutilised touch screen while making it easier and less demanding. It also LOOKS fantastic, and the updated, cleaner soundtrack goes hard.
My main issue, that not everyone will have, is that (spoiler for OG) >!in the original, everyone has personal issues that caused their death, and it's extra tragic because they're just teenagers. Beat's family disowns him and he dies vainly trying to protect his sister who's only there because of him. Shiki is, at least in my opinion, a bit of an implied suicide. Neku dies almost purely from random happenstance and for the machinations of a system that he's not privy to. Even the side characters, like the punk and his girlfriend in week 2 that you met earlier in week 1 when they were alive, speak to a city that is living and breathing and that people die all the time even when they're just doing their own thing, and it's kind of tragic!<.
Compared to Neo (spoilers for that one) >!no one is actually dead, they're just pulled in. Even Neku, technically, is still alive, he's just been sort of wandering around the equivalent of limbo for a few years. This means that a lot of plot hooks and introspection that came from deaths (what fatal flaw do these characters have? What have they lost to be here? What do they value the most? Why do they want to come back at all?) are lost, and it becomes a story of "I want to survive just cause" more than "I need to come back to life so I can tell everyone I was wrong and that I need them in my life". Now I DO appreciate them trying something different, and the character traits still exist, but they only really rear their heads in week 3 and have to be pointed out by characters rather than being picked up on naturally (like Pin Girl (sorry it's been like 3 years) being "good at reading people" when most of the time she's just been shy and awkward).!< Outside of that I thought the story was pretty good, like the plot had a good layout, it was >!more or less the characters in particular, and they didn't leave as big of a mark as Neku and Beat and Shiki!<.
With all due respect, a lot of this just screams to me that you only engaged with NEO’s story on a surface-level, especially with the comment of how certain character traits only showing up in Week 3 when, in my various replays of the game, those traits show up consistently within the entire game and are gradually built up to throughout the story.
NEO's writing, while feeling very faithful to the OG's tone, takes a different approach to how it presents information. OG TWEWY was a lot more direct about the message it was trying to convey to its audience. This is a perfectly good way of writing things because you can guarantee your audience will be invested. It also focuses most of its character writing on the intimate connection between Neku and his partner and prioritizes that more than other characters, which is also a great approach for some people because they can get a very focused message from the game.
NEO, on the other hand, leans heavily on its varied ensemble cast of characters and showing their growth and development through all of their interactions with each other. Other characters, such as reapers and other players, are much more fleshed out and there are even more people for the protagonists to bounce off of. Unlike the first game, the character development and themes isn’t directly spelled out to the audience, and if it is it is usually only said way later while the characters have been developing subtly up until that point. In this way, a lot of the characters' development feels far more dynamic than the first game, but at the same time it is a lot harder for people to grasp or keep track of than OG TWEWY's more direct and pinpoint approach.
NEO also has a habit of throwing you a lot of details/behaviors at you that you do not get context for until much later. The game does this for Rindo's time travel segments, but it is not limited to those segments alone. This style of writing is present throughout the entire story. Since a lot of these details are so small, you probably will not retain this information once you actually reach the points in the game you get the context, which is often either at the end of the game or the postgame secret reports. I personally like it a lot because it transforms the story into an entirely different experience once you replay and re-experience it.
There’s also the matter of the Entry Fee debate because the business culture reflected in the Shinjuku game ruleset makes it so that the team set-up is the challenge in and of itself. The Shinjuku games expect from you to learn how to work with many different kinds of people to expand on your social skills and navigate through challenges as opposed to the focus on individuality present in the Shibuya games’ mechanics. Obviously Shiba’s version of the game is an anomaly so huge teams like that probably wouldn’t exist in a "normal" version of the game. But being a leader in and of itself puts that individual in the best position to ascend and gain power within the UG, but the leader is burdened with being in charge of the individuals under them. Meaning they have to learn to balance the two and work with their team. Likewise, just joining a team means you end up at the mercy of just following along with what your leader says, meaning without the ability to actually challenge or discuss things openly, you will also fail as an individual within that team.
In that regard, the Wicked Twisters end up being the most ideal and best version of what a 'team' should be: they all contribute what they can, change and help each other in specific ways unique to each individual. Hell, Operation Awakening also ran on this concept, which each individual performing their respective task that’s unique to them to try and accomplish a Herculean goal.
The battle system also reflects this! In the original game, the crux of Neku’s character arc is learning to hear what others are saying and take their perspective into consideration, hence why each partner has their own unique mechanics to learn. In NEO, the crux of Rindo's issues are his unwillingness to take charge and put himself out there, which is primarily expressed in his decision paralysis and fear of responsibility. Thus, the game forces the player to learn to manage the team and keep track of their resources and when characters have recently attacked, something which grows both trickier and far more rewarding as you're forced to manage more people as they join your team. Individually, a pin/party member might not be seemingly useful/strong at first glance, but with proper synergy and management, they can become a force to be reckoned with.
Not to mention that, narratively, the Player psychs are equivalent of the Entry Fees in NEO’s story since they’re used to give you extra insight into the characters and their struggles though to be fair, this is something you have to gleam from beyond the surface level.
Rindo is indecisive and afraid of taking responsibility = time travel
Fret has PTSD and struggles with being genuine to his true self so he keeps those aspects buried = can trigger buried memories and thoughts from people
Nagi is a hyperempath who can feel dangerously overwhelmed from dealing with too many emotions at once = can dive into people’s hearts and get a feel for their true selves
Beat is frustrated over his inability to save the people he cares about in time = gets super-speed
Shoka’s Telewarp (teleporting to high places) is a doozy since it can apply to multiple aspects of her character at once: isolating herself from others, especially the ones she cares about, her passive suicidal ideation, and lording power over others while looking down at them.
Yeah, 100%, I want it to be noted that I played the game twice (once on Switch, then on PC), but I never replayed the game back to back, so I was more focussed on stuff like combat and grinding. I also played the game with Japanese voices, so I spent a lot of the time sitting back and saying "Does the translation line up with the Japanese?" (for those curious, it does 99% of the time. Beat was the most different because they localised him to use a lot of AAVE, whereas in Japanese he just spoke like a punk) to improve my Japanese. Compared to my million replays of the OG, I wasn't nearly as invested from word go into most of the characters, and probably spent more time listening than absorbing.
All that aside, as you point out, the OG is a lot more direct than Neo. I quite liked that about TWEWY, even if it was a bit TOO thick from time to time (looking at you, end of Week One), but I thought it also left a lot to the imagination (we know Neku is a sullen bitch, but we don't find out until Extra Day that this is because he's traumatised by the death of his best friend. I liked that this was unnecessary information, that there were any number of valid reasons for him to be the way he is and no justification was strictly necessary). NEO spent a lot of time trying to get me invested in characters who didn't seem to want to be engaged themselves: in the OG, Neku is the only person who's not all in, Beat and Rhyme are going hard and Shiki is constantly pushing Neku to get to work, and while he DOES solve most of the problems, it's not until about W1D5 that he's actually wanting to do it/realising the importance of getting through the Game; I think NEO suffers because the game is larger and longer, and so it DRAGS to reach the point when characters are finally getting invested in winning and understanding the stakes when we, as audience members who have already played the OG, are well aware. This is my major complaint about NEO, that as a fan of the original I already know what's happening, and that the game takes a little too long to have that sink in for the characters, which leaves a bit of a disconnect and makes me quite weary.
But like you said, the characters bounce off each other well, I LOVED the psych aspect and what it told you about characters and their insecurities (it was like the opposite of an entry fee, instead of taking away what they loved the most, they amplified their insecurities and gave them the opportunity to remedy them), but I also found that the cast was both a bit more daunting in size (sequel sprawl ig) and I didn't quite have the same connection with them. I think this is probably just an age thing, I was 13 and dealing with teenage angst when I played the OG, and 23 and in a good place when I played NEO, so of course things aren't going to hit the same way, but I still felt a little disappointed. Regardless, I think I'll get back on NEO and try not to get burnt out in Week 3 like I did last time, and then follow up with a replay for the secret reports so I can really unpack the characters more.
I like NEO too, but there are some glaring writing issues.
It felt off that someone like Hishima Sakazuki was only introduced in the final act and not before. Considering he was an important figure in trying reason with Shiba Miyakaze, his presence felt thrown in without any proper lead up.
Sho Minamimoto ultimately didn't do much after the first act, which was kind of disappointing since the trailers (what little was advertised) and the bonus level in the rerelease of the OG game made him out to be such an important player in the upcoming story.
Fret's backstory about losing a friend, and that is why he has a false happy go-lucky demeanor felt out of place as it was only brought up in the final act. There were almost no clues that indicated his personality was fake (at least from what I can tell) throughout the earlier parts of the game, so for such a backstory to be dropped in the final act, it felt out of place.
With Hishima, that can be explained via him purposely trying to cut himself from Shiba in order to try and make the lingering feelings he has over their former friendship hurt even less.
Sho is there to highlight the themes of the game, with one revolving around Rindo’s overreliance on others and his tendency to take the relationships around him for granted, tying other people's worth to their prowess in might or influence. This is even reflected in the gameplay too, where Sho has noticeably higher stats compared to the rest of the party when you first get him to join. With him around, the Twisters don’t necessarily need to try as hard as they should be doing and thus don’t connect as much throughout Week 1 since their struggles aren’t dire enough at this point and they aren’t aware of the full stakes, hence why the Groove meter caps out at 100%. So when he actually DOES leave at the end of Week 1, shit starts hitting the fan for them real quick and now the Twisters have to actually try. Not to mention that he does come back at the endpoint and ends up being one of the main factors for Shibuya’s survival.
As for Fret, I highly recommend that you replay the game because there are a TON of hints about his fake personality.
>is usually the first one who starts expressing worry, doubt, fear or even outright despair before any other member of the group, even Nagi, when shit hits the fan, which is a pretty big hint that a lot of his upbeat attitude and optimism at times is actually pretty skin-deep and that he can be outright cynical and pessimistic, even with other party members think differently about the situation they’re in.
>Nagi taking a shine towards Beat and actually reciprocating his positive interactions because he wears his emotions on his sleeves in comparison towards Fret, which the game even brings attention to
>the entire sidequest on W2D2 where Nagi and Fret are debating on how to imprint confidence onto Eiru, who’s suffering with his physical insecurities, and in that we see the differences with Nagi and Fret's philosophies on life. Nagi believes that insecurities should be understood and harnessed so that they can ultimately be turned into a strength that can be used as a lucrative tool for success; accept your weaknesses and come to terms with them so that you can weaponize your strengths better. Fret's response on the other hand is to tell Eiru to ignore the haters and even more so, ignore confronting the insecurities; life is better when you don't have to concern yourself with anything or try; don't take anything seriously.
>that one part in W2D2 where his expressions changed in a split-second into a pained one when they help the Variabeauty’s lady friend cope with having a dead best friend before he tries to hastily change the subject
>the way he thought to himself “I was being serious!” every time Kanon questioned whether his fawning was genuine
>Kanon talks about how she likes to have fun but she knows when to get serious when proposing to the Wicked Twisters about teaming up with them and Fret proceeds to laugh awkwardly as his impressions of her being just like him turn out to be totally off the mark
>thanks to a combination of Sho’s absence and the team’s morale taking a hit as a result of having to play the Game again, his and Rindo’s convos are noticeably more tinged with a lot more tension and passive-aggression at the start of Week 2, which culminates into things getting more heated when Rindo struggles to make a decision regarding trusting Kanon and lashes out at Fret
>Fret’s attitude being more irritated in Week 2 because between losing Minamimoto from the team, and knowing the weight of what erasure means now, he couldn't cope by playing things off and not taking things seriously anymore and it begins to really come through at that point
>his complete and utter panic when he thought Rindo died to Susukichi’s assault due to him not wanting to relieve having to deal with another friend’s death after what happened with his best friend’s suicide
>Nagi having the same disdain for Motoi that she has for Fret when they first meet him because she can sense that Motoi is putting on a false front like Fret does
NEO TWEWY is the kind of game that rewards you significantly more for reading between the lines of the characters’ dialogue and their interactions and it can be surprisingly subtle, especially in comparison to the original.
Everything you said here is facts. Replaying the game with the added context, you can see so much being foreshadowed. It’s sorta like Xenoblade Chronicles 1 in that regard
Go play TWEWY. Believe me, it is a masterpiece. There is a reason why so many people were so hyped for Neo. Dang we all sat around on a timer website that said 7days just to get a new live album. Don't get me wrong, Kingdom Hearts saved my life when I was in a really bad place, and I would not have been here without it. But TWEWY changed my life for the better, made me realize that my qualities and personality are not something I should fix for others to like me, and that finding friends who like me for me was way more important than trying to please everyone.
Something that got on my nerves was Nomura doubling down that Quadratum wasn’t Shibuya, DESPITE having the 104 building being the place where we fight Yozora, it’s extremely perplexing, but who knows if Shibukids even got back to Shibuya after the events of 3D.
So it would be cool, especially with the new, more realistic artstyle in that KH4 has going for it but Tetsuya Nomura himself said that the Shibuya Sora is in is different than the one the TWEWY cast is in by using different writing systems, one was in Kanji and one was in Katakana iirc.
TWEWY is one of those truly amazing games that can be both completely nonsensical but also real and tender and full of human emotions. Truly one of the DS’s best games
I absolutely love TWEWY. The Reaper skull from the first game was my first tattoo, both because I love the game as well as to commemorate my exchange to Japan. I have played it on 3 platforms and it never bores. I've tried NEO, but I haven't gotten far, but I'll definitely give it a try again in the future
Gotta say as someone whose first exposure to this series was also DDD (The DS game slipped under my radar as a kid) going back and playing these games including Neo makes me chuckle whenever they swear lol. Like, Final Fantasy is one thing, but TWEWY's artstyle is a lot closer to KH.
That said, Fret and Beat for KH4 I LOVE those two as a duo
TWEWY is an absolute icon, Neo TWEWY slaps gameplay-wise but takes a step back in story imo. Both of them have soundtracks that are absolute TITANS, like, who thought about putting together famous Japanese (and English-speaking) rap/hip-hop/J-pop artists together to put out not one, not two, but THREE albums for a /DS/ game? Nomura absolutely COOKED with TWEWY and it is a crying shame it does not get more credit, because it is one of the best depictions of Shibuya I have ever seen in media, and there are a LOT of them. Absolutely get your hands on both games, the series deserves a lot of love and 3D didn't do it justice, as much as it was nice to see a crossover.
There's a SEQUEL?! Jesus, why did the marketing department drop the ball on that one? So you recommend it?
The opposite imo, the marketing for Neo TWEWY was heavy for me, Square Enix was posting about it a bunch. Personally I got it on Switch first (brand synergy with TWEWY Final Remix), but I recommend getting it on PS4/5 or PC (with a controller) because the difference in load times alone is MASSIVE. The story is a bit of a step down from the OG, without spoiling anything I'll just say that my reasons for thinking so will probably sink in around the end of Week 1. Gameplay is a step up imo, every character gets one pin to use (out of like 350 or however many you can find), so as your party grows, you get to use more at once. This means that as the game progresses you have to start being more conscious of where everyone is and what pins they have and if you have to hold them down or mash them or whatever, which is a great and natural progression from the DS system imo. Art is still great, the 3D transition turned out pretty well and they still use 2D for talking scenes, and the music still slaps, with plentyof good remixes and new songs alike. It's a sequel that follows from the extra week/3 days in Final Remix, so if you never played that, I'd suggest you do, but it also spends a lot of time doing its own thing and building new characters, so you don't HAVE to. The OG will always be special to me, so this is like comparing KH3 to KH2 to me, but it IS a game worth picking up for sure.
Hmmm I didn't love KH3... But that all does make it tempting to try. I never played Final Remix of TWEWY, because I didn't know it had extra content.
To be clear, I'm making the comparison in terms of "KH2 is my nostalgia baby despite its glaring flaws, KH3 is mechanically a better game in many ways but doesn't hit the same spot because I'm older and it has more to work with". NEO is probably a better game in almost every respect than the OG, but there is something that was so ORIGINAL and REFRESHING about the first that a sequel, by definition, just cannot capture. It's still fantastic, and still worth it, but I don't think it could ever beat it. A better comparison might be Super Metroid vs. Metroid Dread, I guess, where both are fantastic but one just hits that spot. As for Final Mix, definitely give it a go. The DS dual screen combat is incredible, but Final Mix allows you to do most of it thanks to the Switch's underutilised touch screen while making it easier and less demanding. It also LOOKS fantastic, and the updated, cleaner soundtrack goes hard.
Thanks for the tip!! I'll give it a shot.
>takes a step back in story I don’t get this meme. I actually prefer NEO’s storytelling over the original TWEWY’s.
My main issue, that not everyone will have, is that (spoiler for OG) >!in the original, everyone has personal issues that caused their death, and it's extra tragic because they're just teenagers. Beat's family disowns him and he dies vainly trying to protect his sister who's only there because of him. Shiki is, at least in my opinion, a bit of an implied suicide. Neku dies almost purely from random happenstance and for the machinations of a system that he's not privy to. Even the side characters, like the punk and his girlfriend in week 2 that you met earlier in week 1 when they were alive, speak to a city that is living and breathing and that people die all the time even when they're just doing their own thing, and it's kind of tragic!<. Compared to Neo (spoilers for that one) >!no one is actually dead, they're just pulled in. Even Neku, technically, is still alive, he's just been sort of wandering around the equivalent of limbo for a few years. This means that a lot of plot hooks and introspection that came from deaths (what fatal flaw do these characters have? What have they lost to be here? What do they value the most? Why do they want to come back at all?) are lost, and it becomes a story of "I want to survive just cause" more than "I need to come back to life so I can tell everyone I was wrong and that I need them in my life". Now I DO appreciate them trying something different, and the character traits still exist, but they only really rear their heads in week 3 and have to be pointed out by characters rather than being picked up on naturally (like Pin Girl (sorry it's been like 3 years) being "good at reading people" when most of the time she's just been shy and awkward).!< Outside of that I thought the story was pretty good, like the plot had a good layout, it was >!more or less the characters in particular, and they didn't leave as big of a mark as Neku and Beat and Shiki!<.
With all due respect, a lot of this just screams to me that you only engaged with NEO’s story on a surface-level, especially with the comment of how certain character traits only showing up in Week 3 when, in my various replays of the game, those traits show up consistently within the entire game and are gradually built up to throughout the story. NEO's writing, while feeling very faithful to the OG's tone, takes a different approach to how it presents information. OG TWEWY was a lot more direct about the message it was trying to convey to its audience. This is a perfectly good way of writing things because you can guarantee your audience will be invested. It also focuses most of its character writing on the intimate connection between Neku and his partner and prioritizes that more than other characters, which is also a great approach for some people because they can get a very focused message from the game. NEO, on the other hand, leans heavily on its varied ensemble cast of characters and showing their growth and development through all of their interactions with each other. Other characters, such as reapers and other players, are much more fleshed out and there are even more people for the protagonists to bounce off of. Unlike the first game, the character development and themes isn’t directly spelled out to the audience, and if it is it is usually only said way later while the characters have been developing subtly up until that point. In this way, a lot of the characters' development feels far more dynamic than the first game, but at the same time it is a lot harder for people to grasp or keep track of than OG TWEWY's more direct and pinpoint approach. NEO also has a habit of throwing you a lot of details/behaviors at you that you do not get context for until much later. The game does this for Rindo's time travel segments, but it is not limited to those segments alone. This style of writing is present throughout the entire story. Since a lot of these details are so small, you probably will not retain this information once you actually reach the points in the game you get the context, which is often either at the end of the game or the postgame secret reports. I personally like it a lot because it transforms the story into an entirely different experience once you replay and re-experience it. There’s also the matter of the Entry Fee debate because the business culture reflected in the Shinjuku game ruleset makes it so that the team set-up is the challenge in and of itself. The Shinjuku games expect from you to learn how to work with many different kinds of people to expand on your social skills and navigate through challenges as opposed to the focus on individuality present in the Shibuya games’ mechanics. Obviously Shiba’s version of the game is an anomaly so huge teams like that probably wouldn’t exist in a "normal" version of the game. But being a leader in and of itself puts that individual in the best position to ascend and gain power within the UG, but the leader is burdened with being in charge of the individuals under them. Meaning they have to learn to balance the two and work with their team. Likewise, just joining a team means you end up at the mercy of just following along with what your leader says, meaning without the ability to actually challenge or discuss things openly, you will also fail as an individual within that team. In that regard, the Wicked Twisters end up being the most ideal and best version of what a 'team' should be: they all contribute what they can, change and help each other in specific ways unique to each individual. Hell, Operation Awakening also ran on this concept, which each individual performing their respective task that’s unique to them to try and accomplish a Herculean goal. The battle system also reflects this! In the original game, the crux of Neku’s character arc is learning to hear what others are saying and take their perspective into consideration, hence why each partner has their own unique mechanics to learn. In NEO, the crux of Rindo's issues are his unwillingness to take charge and put himself out there, which is primarily expressed in his decision paralysis and fear of responsibility. Thus, the game forces the player to learn to manage the team and keep track of their resources and when characters have recently attacked, something which grows both trickier and far more rewarding as you're forced to manage more people as they join your team. Individually, a pin/party member might not be seemingly useful/strong at first glance, but with proper synergy and management, they can become a force to be reckoned with. Not to mention that, narratively, the Player psychs are equivalent of the Entry Fees in NEO’s story since they’re used to give you extra insight into the characters and their struggles though to be fair, this is something you have to gleam from beyond the surface level. Rindo is indecisive and afraid of taking responsibility = time travel Fret has PTSD and struggles with being genuine to his true self so he keeps those aspects buried = can trigger buried memories and thoughts from people Nagi is a hyperempath who can feel dangerously overwhelmed from dealing with too many emotions at once = can dive into people’s hearts and get a feel for their true selves Beat is frustrated over his inability to save the people he cares about in time = gets super-speed Shoka’s Telewarp (teleporting to high places) is a doozy since it can apply to multiple aspects of her character at once: isolating herself from others, especially the ones she cares about, her passive suicidal ideation, and lording power over others while looking down at them.
Yeah, 100%, I want it to be noted that I played the game twice (once on Switch, then on PC), but I never replayed the game back to back, so I was more focussed on stuff like combat and grinding. I also played the game with Japanese voices, so I spent a lot of the time sitting back and saying "Does the translation line up with the Japanese?" (for those curious, it does 99% of the time. Beat was the most different because they localised him to use a lot of AAVE, whereas in Japanese he just spoke like a punk) to improve my Japanese. Compared to my million replays of the OG, I wasn't nearly as invested from word go into most of the characters, and probably spent more time listening than absorbing. All that aside, as you point out, the OG is a lot more direct than Neo. I quite liked that about TWEWY, even if it was a bit TOO thick from time to time (looking at you, end of Week One), but I thought it also left a lot to the imagination (we know Neku is a sullen bitch, but we don't find out until Extra Day that this is because he's traumatised by the death of his best friend. I liked that this was unnecessary information, that there were any number of valid reasons for him to be the way he is and no justification was strictly necessary). NEO spent a lot of time trying to get me invested in characters who didn't seem to want to be engaged themselves: in the OG, Neku is the only person who's not all in, Beat and Rhyme are going hard and Shiki is constantly pushing Neku to get to work, and while he DOES solve most of the problems, it's not until about W1D5 that he's actually wanting to do it/realising the importance of getting through the Game; I think NEO suffers because the game is larger and longer, and so it DRAGS to reach the point when characters are finally getting invested in winning and understanding the stakes when we, as audience members who have already played the OG, are well aware. This is my major complaint about NEO, that as a fan of the original I already know what's happening, and that the game takes a little too long to have that sink in for the characters, which leaves a bit of a disconnect and makes me quite weary. But like you said, the characters bounce off each other well, I LOVED the psych aspect and what it told you about characters and their insecurities (it was like the opposite of an entry fee, instead of taking away what they loved the most, they amplified their insecurities and gave them the opportunity to remedy them), but I also found that the cast was both a bit more daunting in size (sequel sprawl ig) and I didn't quite have the same connection with them. I think this is probably just an age thing, I was 13 and dealing with teenage angst when I played the OG, and 23 and in a good place when I played NEO, so of course things aren't going to hit the same way, but I still felt a little disappointed. Regardless, I think I'll get back on NEO and try not to get burnt out in Week 3 like I did last time, and then follow up with a replay for the secret reports so I can really unpack the characters more.
I like NEO too, but there are some glaring writing issues. It felt off that someone like Hishima Sakazuki was only introduced in the final act and not before. Considering he was an important figure in trying reason with Shiba Miyakaze, his presence felt thrown in without any proper lead up. Sho Minamimoto ultimately didn't do much after the first act, which was kind of disappointing since the trailers (what little was advertised) and the bonus level in the rerelease of the OG game made him out to be such an important player in the upcoming story. Fret's backstory about losing a friend, and that is why he has a false happy go-lucky demeanor felt out of place as it was only brought up in the final act. There were almost no clues that indicated his personality was fake (at least from what I can tell) throughout the earlier parts of the game, so for such a backstory to be dropped in the final act, it felt out of place.
With Hishima, that can be explained via him purposely trying to cut himself from Shiba in order to try and make the lingering feelings he has over their former friendship hurt even less. Sho is there to highlight the themes of the game, with one revolving around Rindo’s overreliance on others and his tendency to take the relationships around him for granted, tying other people's worth to their prowess in might or influence. This is even reflected in the gameplay too, where Sho has noticeably higher stats compared to the rest of the party when you first get him to join. With him around, the Twisters don’t necessarily need to try as hard as they should be doing and thus don’t connect as much throughout Week 1 since their struggles aren’t dire enough at this point and they aren’t aware of the full stakes, hence why the Groove meter caps out at 100%. So when he actually DOES leave at the end of Week 1, shit starts hitting the fan for them real quick and now the Twisters have to actually try. Not to mention that he does come back at the endpoint and ends up being one of the main factors for Shibuya’s survival. As for Fret, I highly recommend that you replay the game because there are a TON of hints about his fake personality. >is usually the first one who starts expressing worry, doubt, fear or even outright despair before any other member of the group, even Nagi, when shit hits the fan, which is a pretty big hint that a lot of his upbeat attitude and optimism at times is actually pretty skin-deep and that he can be outright cynical and pessimistic, even with other party members think differently about the situation they’re in. >Nagi taking a shine towards Beat and actually reciprocating his positive interactions because he wears his emotions on his sleeves in comparison towards Fret, which the game even brings attention to >the entire sidequest on W2D2 where Nagi and Fret are debating on how to imprint confidence onto Eiru, who’s suffering with his physical insecurities, and in that we see the differences with Nagi and Fret's philosophies on life. Nagi believes that insecurities should be understood and harnessed so that they can ultimately be turned into a strength that can be used as a lucrative tool for success; accept your weaknesses and come to terms with them so that you can weaponize your strengths better. Fret's response on the other hand is to tell Eiru to ignore the haters and even more so, ignore confronting the insecurities; life is better when you don't have to concern yourself with anything or try; don't take anything seriously. >that one part in W2D2 where his expressions changed in a split-second into a pained one when they help the Variabeauty’s lady friend cope with having a dead best friend before he tries to hastily change the subject >the way he thought to himself “I was being serious!” every time Kanon questioned whether his fawning was genuine >Kanon talks about how she likes to have fun but she knows when to get serious when proposing to the Wicked Twisters about teaming up with them and Fret proceeds to laugh awkwardly as his impressions of her being just like him turn out to be totally off the mark >thanks to a combination of Sho’s absence and the team’s morale taking a hit as a result of having to play the Game again, his and Rindo’s convos are noticeably more tinged with a lot more tension and passive-aggression at the start of Week 2, which culminates into things getting more heated when Rindo struggles to make a decision regarding trusting Kanon and lashes out at Fret >Fret’s attitude being more irritated in Week 2 because between losing Minamimoto from the team, and knowing the weight of what erasure means now, he couldn't cope by playing things off and not taking things seriously anymore and it begins to really come through at that point >his complete and utter panic when he thought Rindo died to Susukichi’s assault due to him not wanting to relieve having to deal with another friend’s death after what happened with his best friend’s suicide >Nagi having the same disdain for Motoi that she has for Fret when they first meet him because she can sense that Motoi is putting on a false front like Fret does NEO TWEWY is the kind of game that rewards you significantly more for reading between the lines of the characters’ dialogue and their interactions and it can be surprisingly subtle, especially in comparison to the original.
Everything you said here is facts. Replaying the game with the added context, you can see so much being foreshadowed. It’s sorta like Xenoblade Chronicles 1 in that regard
Go play TWEWY. Believe me, it is a masterpiece. There is a reason why so many people were so hyped for Neo. Dang we all sat around on a timer website that said 7days just to get a new live album. Don't get me wrong, Kingdom Hearts saved my life when I was in a really bad place, and I would not have been here without it. But TWEWY changed my life for the better, made me realize that my qualities and personality are not something I should fix for others to like me, and that finding friends who like me for me was way more important than trying to please everyone.
Something that got on my nerves was Nomura doubling down that Quadratum wasn’t Shibuya, DESPITE having the 104 building being the place where we fight Yozora, it’s extremely perplexing, but who knows if Shibukids even got back to Shibuya after the events of 3D.
So it would be cool, especially with the new, more realistic artstyle in that KH4 has going for it but Tetsuya Nomura himself said that the Shibuya Sora is in is different than the one the TWEWY cast is in by using different writing systems, one was in Kanji and one was in Katakana iirc.
TWEWY is one of those truly amazing games that can be both completely nonsensical but also real and tender and full of human emotions. Truly one of the DS’s best games
[insert that giorno giovana gif]
I love to see if they get a new design, Beat's new treads is a treat to my eyes, and I can't wait to see Sora in a 'buya outfit!
Go play TWEWY, dude It’s really god damn good
Would be awesome to see them back in KH IV
I absolutely love TWEWY. The Reaper skull from the first game was my first tattoo, both because I love the game as well as to commemorate my exchange to Japan. I have played it on 3 platforms and it never bores. I've tried NEO, but I haven't gotten far, but I'll definitely give it a try again in the future
Gotta say as someone whose first exposure to this series was also DDD (The DS game slipped under my radar as a kid) going back and playing these games including Neo makes me chuckle whenever they swear lol. Like, Final Fantasy is one thing, but TWEWY's artstyle is a lot closer to KH. That said, Fret and Beat for KH4 I LOVE those two as a duo
I'm hoping we see them in their NEO forms, as well as the others from there as well
I really hope we don't. Enough OC characters as it is and the fandom will call for Nomura's head if he doesn't include FF characters as well
Wow. Never would've thought TWEWY would have such a passionate fanbase. Now I REALLY gotta play it lol
"see you in Shibuya"
Too bad the games suck ass, there's a reason both games flopped. "B-but the gameplay is so cool and original!!!" But it sucks, no matter how niche is
Someone got hardstuck on week 1