Square Enix Does Deep Dive Into NEO The World Ends With You’s Combat System

gameranx.com:

While it may have been considered “underwhelming” in terms of sales by Square Enix, pretty much everyone who played NEO The World Ends With You loved the stylish RPG. The game followed the cult classic Nintendo DS title that had been ported to multiple systems over the years to help its legend grow. In addition, the game featured a unique story about life and death in the Shibuya underground and the teens that were caught up in this game. The sequel did that story too, but with bigger stakes, new 3D graphics, and an all-new battle system.

NEO The World Ends With You was recently incorporated into another Square Enix title via DLC, so they dropped an internal interview on their website featuring the game’s staff. In it, the team mainly focused on the game’s combat and its predecessor and noted how they wanted to use pins from the get-go so that players could “build a collection” and then decide what powers they wanted to use within combat. That flexibility allowed for many possible styles and combinations of abilities, which fans adored.

The control style was the biggest challenge going from the first game to the second. In the original game, you had two characters on two “screens” and had to control them simultaneously at points to deliver massive damage and unleash a combo move. In the sequel, they had all the characters on one screen and had each character attached to one pin to give a “party” aesthetic. They struggled to make the “party” feel work until they went simple with the controls and realized they had something special.

That’s not to say they didn’t have to tone certain things down or remove ideas entirely because they did have to do that:

“We considered implementing pins that would allow the player to