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How NEO: The World Ends With You captures the 15 year evolution of Shibuya, and is a better game for itThe game immerses you in one of the most iconic parts of Tokyo
The game immerses you in one of the most iconic parts of Tokyo
Now, NEO: The World Ends With You has arrived, but this long-awaited sequel is far from a simple retread of what the first game did 15 years ago. Shibuya itself has changed a lot in the intervening years and it’s fascinating to see how NEO’s setting and its gameplay mechanics have evolved alongside it.
NEO: The World Ends with You | Accolades and AcclaimWatch on YouTube
NEO: The World Ends with You | Accolades and Acclaim
One reason NEO needed to evolve its interpretation of Shibuya is obvious: many of the original game’s most memorable locales no longer exist today. Take the AMX store, for example. This was an in-game replacement for the flagship HMV megastore that once stood in Shibuya in the mid-2000s, yetclosed shortly after the financial crash in 2010. Following its closure, Forever 21 first took over the empty store as a symbol of the growing popularity of foreign-produced fast fashion. Now it’s an IKEA.
The original was ported to Switch in 2018 as The World Ends With You: Final Remix
MODI, the department store that stands tall on the same street as Tower Records, is another new shop replacing the old Marui City, while the PARCO store featured in the game onlyreopened in November 2019after years of rebuilding and modernization work. Shibuya Stream was a newbuild that opened in 2018, and even Shibuya 104, this game’s take on Shibuya 109, needed a facelift for the sequel: the buildingreplaced its old logoin 2019.
Shibuya’s melting pot of fashion and popular culture results in a city that exists in a constant state of flux, always evolving with the interests and trends of the people within it. You can’t replicate Shibuya without also capturing its penchant nature to evolve with the times; you need to leave behind the original game’s inspirations from designers like Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto and gyaru fashion to portray the city as it exists today, even if it results in beloved in-game fashion brands being replaced. Gameplay, too, can’t stick with routine because the tastes of players and the hardware available to developers has changed drastically.
Even the rules of the Reapers' Game have evolved over the past 15 years. Rather than playing in pairs for your survival, the Game in NEO is a team-based, points-driven affair. This offers our characters a little more time to explore Shibuya and what it has to offer, and even allows teams to ignore the game for a day if they have points or other plans. The increased number of players also allows more interaction with people from the varied subcultures that make up the city. Whereas before our limited interaction came from imprinting and influencing people’s minds without ever conversing directly, players on other teams represent the fashion and ideas that define Shibuya as a living, breathing (and ever-changing) cultural hub.
It was the fun I had with friends and the chance encounters with like-minded people, more than anything, that made Shibuya so exciting. Many of the people running these clothes stores, particularly independent ones, possess a shared love for fashion’s expressive qualities beyond its existence as a mere article of clothing. The passionate fans of musicians are desperate to share that love with others. Those chance interactions remain the most memorable from my time in Japan, and the ones I miss the most. I doubt I’ll ever forget the friends I made when I went to a concert in the basement of Tower Records for a pre-major debut idol group, or the time I accidentally stumbled upon a few people doing a fashion shoot in a side street in Harajuku.
There’s a storyline in the early hours of NEO: The World Ends With You which encapsulates this experience. On one of the days where you’re searching for a Golden Pig Noise (Noise being the main enemies in the series), you need to distract the members of another team. To do so, you need to find out what these people are passionate about and share that passion with them so they’ll indulge their interests rather than focusing on the mission at hand. As I distracted one group of fans with news of an upcoming performance for their beloved Peroxidols, I couldn’t help but think of the times I skipped university lectures to do just that for a cheki (Polaroid) with my favorite BiSH member.
Through events like this, and a greater interest in placing the player and your team on ground zero in the streets of Shibuya, NEO: The World Ends With You recognizes that nothing stays the same. Gaming hardware evolves, people evolve, and yes, cities evolve too. Even in the six short months I lived in Tokyo, I watched Shibuya transform almost beyond recognition. I watched the rebrand of Shibuya 109’s logo in real-time, and I watched stores open and close on a near-weekly basis.
These changes have only grown more stark since I left because of the impact of Covid. I’ve watched from afar as headlines announced the closure of many of my favorite livehouses and even an independent cinema I loved to visit that had stood for decades. The makeup of this iconic city has transformed again as many of its cultural landmarks disappear.
A lot can change in 15 years, and NEO: The World Ends With You understands that. This is Shibuya, but not as you remember it from the first game. And that’s exactly as it should be.
