I love this game, I love it a lot, and I'll say right out of the gate that if you're a fan of the original TWEWY, you should absolutely play this game because as a sequel, it's stellar.

Generally idk what people's perception of this game are if they've never played the series, and honestly it's really hard for me to say if this is worth playing if you haven't. What I can say is that this will definitely be one of the more unique AAA games you can find on the steam store and a lot of that comes down to how this game, and the original, look at basic mechanics.

For instance, levels in this game only increase your health. You can lower your health to increase your enemy item drop rate, which can be further increased by chaining fights together. Stats are increased by eating food, and food is worked off by fighting so you can digest said food. And a lot of what I like about this series is how it constantly adds features until the end, which keeps you playing and looking forward to what you can do next.

Also this game has a banger ost and originally I was literally gonna just post the lyrics to one of my favorite songs in the game, Bird in the Hand, as my review. I'm not gonna talk about the music like, at all, I'm just gonna post some of my favorites.

• Rockin' Rockin' (my personal fave)
  
• Breaking Free
  
• Last Call
  
• Incongruous
  
• Insomnia

I will say that overall I like this soundtrack more than the original's. Partially because a lot of songs from the original are in here and remixed, but also because it just feels like they went more out of their way to make a higher quality soundtrack and bring in more singers and I really appreciate that because I was honestly worried that was one area this game wouldn't stand up to its predecessor.

In fact, I feel like other people kind of cover the game enough, I guess for me rn I just wanna kinda talk about why this game hit so hard. Originally I didn't really know if I'd like this, hence why I waited so long to play it. The original TWEWY is one of my favorite games because it's just so bizarre and unique, it just feels so itself. Like, before this came out I couldn't recommend a The World Ends With You fan a game like The World Ends With You. It's a game that kept surprising you with ideas, one moment you're fighting frogs and bears in the middle of Shibuya, the next you're playing in a beyblade-like tournament, followed by getting lectured on the nature of fashion and trends- a mechanic that melded so well with the idea it was trying to portray that I still think about it a lot. It had a battle system where you were playing on two screens at once and used everything imaginable as a feasible option for how attacks would work on the bottom screen. It just felt like something that they were excited to make and just had fun making.

And this game feels like an extension of that. There's a lot of love here and I can't count the number of times while I was playing where I said "That's so COOL" or something similar just because this felt like a game that basically never stopped thinking. There's just so much to unlock and do and the story felt so insanely cathartic after waiting like...14-ish years for this game. It feels like a game that knows how long its been and tries to pay that time back in full which makes some moments hit so incredibly hard.

I'm just kinda rambling but to be honest, this is my GOTY, I voted this for most innovative though because I think that fits it best. While I do think some ideas fall flat, particularly the territory wars and fighting other players, overall I was hooked on this game from the moment I turned it on. It's a fantastic sequel and, hell, if you're just looking for a really unique ARPG then you'll probably enjoy it regardless. Huge recommend.

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Also, Square Enix like really wanted this game dead and stealth dropped it on steam after leaving it to rot on EGS along with the Kingdom Hearts games that are apparently really well ported but also no one played them, likely because all of the games in question are like, way more expensive than they are on console. So this game being half-off only 2 months later's a big surprise. Totally not complaining, would definitely recommend it at this price but like...why not just release it at this price then? Anyway, love this game, happy holidays~