rionaleonhart | Let's Hurry Up So He Doesn't Make Fun Of Us Again.

Persona 5 gave me an itch to play more stylish games about teenagers hanging out in Shibuya, so I'm replaying NEO: The World Ends with You. Here are my notes! I'm up to the end of week one, but this entry vaguely alludes to later events.

Kanon: And here I thought you two were just a couple of innocent little cuties. Maybe I thought wrong.
Fret: I mean... I think we're kinda cute.

Canon: Fret thinks Rindo is cute. As if there were any doubt.

Fret gets so excited about even the faintest of faint praise. 'Could've gone worse.' 'You think so??'

Rindo: So... what are we supposed to be doing today?
Fret: I dunno, but I'm super excited to do it!

I love Fret. He's so cheerfully willing to go along with anything. Whenever Rindo travels back in time and goes 'we need to do this and I can't explain why', Fret's response is 'I have no idea what you're talking about, but obviously I'm in.'

Motoi: I think you and I will get along smashingly.
Nagi: I cannot fathom engaging with you any further.

I laughed aloud. Murdered.

The Scramble Slam is mildly tedious, but I love the Reaper commentator. He's just having such a great time, and he doesn't know what to do with himself when the Slam isn't on.

I love a lot of the nameless hooded Reapers, actually! Considering their identical designs and how brief your interactions with them tend to be, they often have a surprising amount of personality. I particularly enjoy the ones who ask you to dress in a particular brand and are then delighted when you actually do it.

The returning characters from the first game feel a bit odd. As I said in

lassarina's journal, this game needed to either divorce itself more from the original or lean fully into being a sequel. It exists in an odd in-between space that doesn't quite work, as if Final Fantasy VIII just happened to have Cloud and Barret in the party alongside Squall and company; even if Cloud and Barret don't have much plot relevance, they're going to overshadow the new characters just by being there. It might have been better to keep the returning characters to minor roles - treating them like Kariya and Uzuki - rather than including them in the party.

But I really enjoy this game, in spite of its flaws; the writing is so lively and fun!

Possible fic concept: rather than the actual returning characters from the first game, Joshua joins the party and drives everyone up the fucking wall.

On this playthrough, I've made it my mission to befriend Yudai Miki, the Hog Fang shopkeeper on Centre Street. He greets me with 'O-oh, yo' whenever I enter the shop, and somehow I find it very endearing. I bought a hat I didn't need from him in the hope of making him like me.

(I added 'on this playthrough' to that paragraph because I was slightly worried people scrolling past this entry might think I'm forcibly attempting to befriend an actual real-life shopkeeper.)

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I've had this game in my Save For Later cart for quite a while, though I've never played any Persona games so I'm not sure how I'll like it? I get skeered buying new things

If you mean NEO: The World Ends with You, it's probably best not to play it without having played the original (which is a great game!).

If you mean Persona 5, though, dive in! I was hesitant because I'd never played any Persona games and they sounded long and complicated, but it turned out to be one of the best impulsive videogame purchases I've ever made. It's got its flaws, but I had a fantastic time. I recommend playing on easy mode if you're not into games for a huge challenge, though.

Also, I don't know if you mean the original Persona 5 or the expanded Persona 5 Royal. Either version is a worthwhile play (I got the original because it was cheap and enjoyed it so much I picked up Royal later), but Royal has some particular requirements for unlocking the extra content, so let me know if you'd like advice on that.

I love Fret. He's so cheerfully willing to go along with anything. Whenever Rindo travels back in time and goes 'we need to do this and I can't explain why', Fret's response is 'I have no idea what you're talking about, but obviously I'm in.'

Oh man, that is really fun!

The returning characters from the first game feel a bit odd. As I said in lassarina's journal, this game needed to either divorce itself more from the original or lean fully into being a sequel. It exists in an odd in-between space that doesn't quite work, as if Final Fantasy VIII just happened to have Cloud and Barret in the party alongside Squall and company; even if Cloud and Barret don't have much plot relevance, they're going to overshadow the new characters just by being there.

Everything I know about Final Fantasy was learned from your journal, but I know what oyu mean.

(I added 'on this playthrough' to that paragraph because I was slightly worried people scrolling past this entry might think I'm forcibly attempting to befriend an actual real-life shopkeeper.)

I did briefly misread that sentence and think you'd found a real-life shopkeeper who you were trying to make friends with, yes.

It's a bit like what happened to Martha on Doctor Who, come to think of it; she was never allowed to stand as a character in her own right because her series was overshadowed by the constant mentions of Rose. It's like that, only Rose comes back to join the TARDIS team halfway through the series, and she doesn't really have much to do plot-wise but pulls all the focus from Martha just by being there.

PLEASE LIKE ME, SHOPKEEPERS, I'LL BUY SO MANY UNNECESSARY HATS IF I HAVE TO

Fret sounds adorable! (Deliberate icon choice is deliberate, haha.)

(I added 'on this playthrough' to that paragraph because I was slightly worried people scrolling past this entry might think I'm forcibly attempting to befriend an actual real-life shopkeeper.)

lolllllllllllllllllllllll

A well chosen icon! Fret definitely has an element of a Prompto to him.

Persona 5 gave me an itch to play more stylish games about teenagers hanging out in Shibuya, so I'm replaying NEO: The World Ends with You. Here are my notes!

Oh, this is so exciting! I'm so excited you're replaying NEO:TWEWY! I loved reading all your notes the first time around, and can't wait to see how the game plays out for you this time.

I love Fret.

My partner and I love him, too, so much so that we named our second cat after him. (We named our first cat Neku, and we would have called the second cat Joshua, were "Joshua" a cute name to call a cat by. It isn't, however.)

NEO:TWEWY has a fantastic supporting cast. I have mixed feelings on Rindo, but Fret, Nagi, older!Beat, and the Shinjuku reapers were big fun and hugely compelling, I found. I love all of Nagi's dialogue so much and her disses are delightfully ice-hot with a side of verbal murder. I adore her.

The returning characters from the first game feel a bit odd. ... this game needed to either divorce itself more from the original or lean fully into being a sequel.

Yes. This. I am in full agreement. The game functionally doesn't work either as a sequel or a standalone - it spends so much of its final act setting up a reunion that's supposed to make us feel nostalgic but actually ends up taking too much attention from the characters we've spent the whole game caring about, the characters the game is supposed to be about. I liked the inclusion of older!Beat (who felt different enough from his younger self to justify his presence here, I feel) and Kariya & Uzuki (who have always felt like the Team Rocket of this series, only far more competent - the game would have felt odd without them, I think! :D). But Neku et al. add little to nothing to the story while also taking far too much attention away from the newbies; the game ends up feeling distracted, and by the end you're not sure whose story it really wants to tell.

(All this said, though, it amuses me to no end that Joshua's only role in the game is to blink into existence after Neku does a thing, congratulate him with a "Great work, Neku," then leave by disappearing, having done nothing to help and said nothing of value neither. Best.)

Befriending the shopkeepers is some of the best fun one can have in this game, honestly. In our playthrough, we ended up cracking the steel heart of Il Cavallo Del Re's Wataru Koketsu, so much so that I'm convinced he had a crush on us by the time we'd bought everything from his store.

Fret is an adorable name for a cat! (And probably bodes better for its temperament than calling it Joshua.)

I love all of Nagi's dialogue so much and her disses are delightfully ice-hot with a side of verbal murder. I adore her.

I'm definitely appreciating Nagi more this time around! She's a bit restricted in week one by the fact that Rindo's the only character she really interacts with, but she has some really nice interactions with the other characters later in the game.

Kariya & Uzuki (who have always felt like the Team Rocket of this series)

Absolutely! I've been watching a lot of Pokémon recently, so I've been thinking a lot about the Team Rocket similarities. Kariya isn't quite James, but Uzuki is extremely Jessie, and there's a general Team Rocket feel to the two of them.

the game ends up feeling distracted, and by the end you're not sure whose story it really wants to tell.

This is such a good way of putting it.

it amuses me to no end that Joshua's only role in the game is to blink into existence after Neku does a thing, congratulate him with a "Great work, Neku," then leave by disappearing, having done nothing to help and said nothing of value neither.

Incredible. I love him.

In our playthrough, we ended up cracking the steel heart of Il Cavallo Del Re's Wataru Koketsu, so much so that I'm convinced he had a crush on us by the time we'd bought everything from his store.

Oh, damn, this makes me want to befriend him as well! But all his wares are so expensive!

Let's Hurry Up So He Doesn't Make Fun Of Us Again.

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