I've never really been a fan of 1Up. At least they distinguish themselves from the others out there, though. You have to at least give them that.
So I picked up the game and have stuck a couple hours into it, and so far I'm really impressed. The visuals are quite something, being maybe more stylistic than downright technically impressive, but throwing lots of little details into the mix which just make everything sparkle with a feeling of life. The very exaggerated character designs are really great too.
I don't feel at all like nick did. I thought the opening was quite interesting on the whole. They do sort of gradually introduce concepts, but that's more of a welcome thing than a curse. There's a lot to take in. I wouldn't mind it moving a wee bit faster, but it didn't take that long to get going, and I think the story is actually pretty interesting. It certainly isn't some groundbreaking Shakespearian epic, but it's kind of a fun little mystery with a very Japanese sense of progression. It's got the ability to take itself quite seriously or on the other hand not seriously at all, and seems to embrace the whole "style" concept of the game with open arms, integrating that sense of both "cool" and "cliche" into practically every element of the gameplay, either to do something that's actually cool or to do something in a very tongue-in-cheek kind of way. It's pretty intelligent for what it is, at any rate, and I find that the stylistic elements of the game don't annoy me at all. It's weird and different in the same ways that JSRF and Persona 3 are, and it really helps draw you into the game's... sort of cultural undercurrent, or whatever the word is I'm looking for.
Gameplay is pretty crazy. I haven't fully gotten the flow of it yet, as evidenced by the Es and Ds I'm getting rated with at the end of most battles. I've gotten some stars and As and Bs for battles with fewer enemies, but I'm still not entirely sure I grasp how the flow is supposed to go. Are you supposed to be attacking with both characters simultaneously at all times, or are you meant to alternate? I can see both as viable methods. Maybe there is no perfect rhyme or reason. Time will tell. But everyone says you get used to it, and I don't doubt it, so I'll keep playing and hopefully get better at it.
The combat is really interesting, actually. The core fundamental is that you're using two characters to attack the same enemies, but the enemies exist on two different planes at once, and the characters don't interact with each other. I.e., if you're fighting two frog monsters, each character has two frog monsters to fight, but they're the same two frog monsters even though the characters are essentially on two different battle maps and the frog monsters don't share any spatial relationship between the maps (so you can have the same frog at the far right of the top map and the far left of the bottom, or so I gather). But the two characters do interact in the sense that they're fighting the same enemies, and also that if you get a full combo of sorts with one character, they pass a glowing energy aura thing to their partner, who can then pass it back again if they do a full combo themselves. It's an interesting dynamic, but I haven't quite figured out what the point is. I mean, I gather that you do more damage when one character has the glow, and that the game rewards you for extended chains of passing without interruption (you lose it if you get hit, and possibly if you fuck up your attacks... not sure on that one), but it doesn't seem to really build up to anything otherwise. Or at least not yet. I know I haven't opened up all the game's stuff because as mentioned, it does give you new dynamics at a very slow pace.
So the bottom guy, your main character, fights using the "pins" (FFVII fans can rather accurately think of them as materia) which give you your abilities, and all of these are operated via the stylus. If you want to move the dude around, you grab him and drag him. If you want to use an ability, you use the stylus in whatever manner you're supposed to. There's a pin that's basically just a slash, for instance, which you use by simply drawing a quick slash across an enemy. Do this several times, and you'll punch them back a ways (and this will send the green glow to your partner). There's another that's basically the same thing, except you draw the slash over objects (parked cars, signs, garbage cans, whatever), and depending on the direction of your slash, the object will fly in that direction, potentially beating the crap out of enemies. Another is a tapping of the stylus around your character, which gets him to fire energy bullets toward the point. There's fire, too, which you operate by just touching the stylus to the ground areas and dragging it around, and it leaves flames behind it. You get the idea.
The character on top fights using the d-pad (or face buttons if you're a lefty), and you basically just press in the direction of an opponent to start attacking it. When you do this, a little menu pops up which shows you three "paths" you can follow. The character never actually moves, but you sort of start using the d-pad to operate this menu. So you can either just press LEFT like 6 or 7 times to get to the end of the menu, and you'll essentially have just attacked whatever enemy was in that direction 6 or 7 times, completing a little combo of sorts. This will pass the energy aura to your partner. But you could also hit LEFT 2 or 3 times, then UP, then LEFT another 2 or 3 times to get to a different end of the menu. There's another identical one you'd get do by pressing LEFT then DOWN then LEFT again (and of course if the enemy was on your right, you'd be pressing right instead). These 3 paths all end in a symbol, and that symbol becomes important a little ways into the game. Basically, the upper character has 3 cards at the top of the screen which they can turn over. They get turned over when you use your attacks, get to the end of the menu, and hit one of those symbols. The card at the top of the screen which corresponds to that symbol will then flip over, either permanently if you get it in the right order, or temporarily if you do it in the wrong order. In other words you can tell which of the three cards are which simply by attacking, but if you're smart and attack in such a way that you flip the three cards over in order, you'll power up a super move which the bottom character can use just by pushing a button with the stylus. This power move hits all enemies on the screen and restores some of your health. It's a little hard to explain, but hopefully you get the idea.
Health is another way the characters are tied together even though they're separate. Your health meter is actually a single meter for both, and whenever it runs out you die. But "running out" can mean different things. If the top character just keeps getting slugged over and over again, the bar will eventually run down the screen into the bottom characters screen, and will continue depleting his life bar as the upper character gets beaten up. If your bottom character is getting beat up too, this means your health is shrinking from both ends, and when the ends "meet" in the middle, you're dead, regardless of where it is along the bar that they end up meeting. It's quite interesting.
And yes, it's really confusing and kind of hard. The game itself doesn't strike me as overly difficult so far. There are options to automate the upper character if you so choose, and there's difficulty options in the game as well. You can voluntarily increase the difficulty to increase the amount of experience you get (and how much loot drops), and you can also voluntarily *lower* your character's level to make the rewards multiply even more. It's neat, and will both reward you and get you killed. Because of this, it's nice that you can save anywhere, anytime. Makes the risks seem more fun and useful.
Anyway, I've rambled on enough. But yeah, the game is really cool. If you've got a DS and generally enjoy stuff with this sense of style, you should check it out. If you like action RPGs it's worth looking at too, and even if you just think it sounds neat you should probably at least watch some videos and see what you think. It's definitely a much better game to play than it is to watch, but that'll at least give you the gist.
So far I highly recommend it.
EDIT - This is quite possibly the best DS game I've ever played. That isn't to say it's like the best thing evar and everyone will love it unconditionally... it's definitely got a lot of stuff that will be a matter of taste. But it's amazing that like every good unique feature of the DS is used in some way, and it all adds up to something that just works perfectly here and wouldn't work anywhere else. I got to try some of the wireless stuff today, which was fun. Put it in "mingle" mode which picks up any DS it comes across that's using wireless and gives your pins some experience based on how many people you found. If you run across another World Ends player, they'll get added to your friends list and you can buy items from their "store" at a slight discount. In the same way, if somebody else runs across you, your "store" gets added to their list (basically anything you were wearing at the time they can buy copies of, I guess). So it's cool because the game really keeps you thinking about it and enjoying it even when you aren't playing. When the game itself is turned off, your pins are gaining a little bit of bonus experience that will tally up and be dished out to you when you load your game next. And if you're going somewhere but aren't playing, you can throw it into this mingle mode and watch as your DS just sort of automatically picks up any signals it runs across and lets you play with that stuff or get a little bonus experience for it. It's neat. Also, even if you don't run into anyone, you can randomly get "aliens" that will pop up in the wireless mode, and they'll net you experience as well even though they aren't actual people and are just given you to randomly... or at least as far as I understand it.
Anyway, I have to say that everyone not thrown by the subject matter or art style owes this game a shot. The learning curve is a little steep and the game takes a long while to really get going (a lot of the extra stuff takes a few chapters to unlock), but it's extremely accessible in terms of difficulty since you can do so much scaling and automating until you figure out what you're doing, and the rewards you get for sticking with it are many.
Oh, and the combat is really awesome. Once you start getting a lot more pins you start realizing how much variety there is, and while some of that is variety only in terms of how you perform an attack, most of them are also different "brands" of pins, which can have entirely different values depending on what area of the game you're in, since each area will reward you or punish you for using certain brands. It's a slick system and the combat is moderately button-mash friendly once you figure out how it generally works, but it's also super deep and rewards skill considerably. It's a very nice balance.
