The "Failures" of NEO: The World Ends with You
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ธ.ค. 2021
- Random loses his sanity telling the tale of NEO's “failures”.
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Good video. But can we also mention how Square promoted Balan Wonderworld more than Neo?
That was, and always will be stupid
The reasons are stupid, but in there head it’s like this. Promote a game with one of the main guys from sonic, or promote the game that no one really talks about (in the grand scheme of things). I’ve said this multiple times by now, but I got into twewy 2 months ago. Finished both games and really love the series. I wish more people knew about it.
@@agentclank8183 people would talk about it if it was promoted.
@@MakenaForest More likely to yes. But it still needs to get bring in an audience first. At least the series should be getting a few more fans. Seeing as there’s a demo and was a free trial on switch.
In theory, it makes sense. It’s a type of game that’s not truly associated with them by the creators of one of the most popular franchises in said genre. Balan, by any definition of the word should have been a success
Considering they hyped Balan Wonderland more then they did this game, I’m not sure if I trust Square’s expectations.
Dude it got like 3 major trailers that went less than 5 minutes each.
They advertised it LESS THAN BALAN WONDERWORLD FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.
They neglected the ever living hell out of this games marketing.
If I wasn’t actively looking for this game I wouldn’t have known when it released and that is a failure of the company marketing it.
I was wondering about the whole so called "controversy" around the localization, and after looking into it it really did turn out to just be a small handful of people complaining on the internet that the game didn't get a more direct translation.
Just a note on the anime: Read the English script if you want, but unless you want to hear how Funimation took the option to butcher all the character’s voices when the original cast was OPENLY OFFERING to reprise their roles, don’t listen to the actual words. The only VA they got back was Andrew Kishino to reprise Kariya, so he’s the only character that actually sounds right! Neku’s voice is too soft and deep, Shiki just sounds like she doesn’t care at all what happens, Hanekoma is just soulless, and Beat lost his accent almost entirely. And don’t even get me started on Joshua… Uzuki and Rhyme are fine, I guess, but it still would have been better if they’d hired the original actors.
I only watched episode one and a little bit of four just to hear Joshua’s voice, so I don’t feel fit to judge the other character’s voices based on what I loosely remember. Though kudos to Minamimoto’s to actually managing to capture the deranged spirit of the math maniac. Sounding in-character is at least more than I can say for most of them.
Where can you watch/find the script?
Also, why would they turn down VA's who were offering? Was there a low budget or something?
@@snowykitten6860 A. They have the anime on Funimation.
B. I have no idea. It would have been so much better if they'd brought them back, though!
@@mulduls a subscription I hope to buy soon I see. Thanks for letting me know! It sucks the VA's couldn't come back, woulda been nice lololol
The script kinda caught me off guard at the beginning as well and then I just got used to it. The way I see it is that it ends up expounding on the characters' personalities more like how Fret is the only one that says "GALAXY BRAIN, ACTIVAAAATTTE!" (god I felt awful just typing that lol) and Rindo himself even seems put off by it the first time. It's a pretty cool way to do things and by the end of the game I really liked it despite not using most of this lingo myself.
It's just characterization honestly. I have a few Frets in my life (which I guess would make me the Rindo. lol) and it just becomes characters quirks that really stick with you that tells you the types of characters they are. (Like Nagi's lovely vocabulary alluding to the Japanese formality of samurai speech which show's she's educated and speaks to people based on her opinions of them.) It makes them memorable. I DESPISE high math and yet Sho is one of my favorites too & how he's instantly recognizable due to those speech quirks.
Also, quite memable. lol
@phantomxero1x447no
Outrage and memeability are pretty standard marketing strategies here in the US though. I wouldn't be surprised at all if that was actually intentional.
It's like Thirteen Sentinels all over again only in it's case it was Atlus NA burying it and doing little to no advertising at all except the occasional TH-cam ad
The fact that SE buried this game in favor of advertising Balan Wonderland is criminal. I know of TWEWY fans who only just recently heard this game was out.
I don't know about TWEWY, but 13 Sentinels had obviously undergone a development hell similar to Anthem, i.e. the developers had no idea what they were developing for the first few years.
TWEWY on the other hand, already has a clear framework laid by the first game.
@@ultracapitalistutopia3550 Thirteen Sentinels was by VanillaWare, which isn't a huge dev team. Which is why the space between their games like Oboro Muramasa and Dragon's Crown are so far. With the amount of quality they put in their games it takes a while.
The fact that TWEWY already had a groundwork and fanbase and SE still shit the bed is even worse.
Yes, the Japanese marketing was actually pretty good.
But like many others I agree with the point that the western marketing was just…Meh…Not enough.
I never heard of TWEWY before I saw it on this Nintendo News Page on the Switch.
But I never saw something of it ever again.
To add on to the tinfoil hat theory: I remember reading somewhere that square actually expects the game to sell much more copies as time goes on... how would they know ? TIME TRAVEL
This could be me, but I found this Neo cast more relatable.
I love the story, and seriousness of the original TWeWY. But come on, Fret whole character and personality in the localization really tugged me by the heart into the Neo game.
Part of it is definitely that Neo is reflecting more of modern times as opposed to the original's 2007. I can't speak on Fret but Rindo feels a lot more relatable especially with the advent of social media that more than ever pushes for the hivemind mentality and as such makes it easier for people to forgo making their own thoughts in favour of public opinion.
They are way more grounded, but it’s an issue that only by Week 3 we start to see developments. I felt it tedious because of that
They did state in the report that they knew that it was well received by fans, and the game was on fucking unity. The fact that every SE game since 2017 has been on UE4, and NEO gets thrown onto Unity???? This game had as much funding as drakengard 3, and I think did amazingly. Wasn't NieR automata and NieR Replicant considered under expectations too?? lol
Unity isn't a bad engine, y'know
It just has a bad rep
@@hubertsingh832 I know, im saying that its just kinda sus that square has this huge deal with UE and epic, and decided to go with unity. I guess whatever studio made neo twewyt snt really apart of square or they really didnt give a shit about NEO
@@Shayanzass The mobile and Switch versions of the original TWEWY was made in Unity as well
I really don't see the issue here, it's harder to make a more stylized game in Unreal than in Unity since Unreal games start out with all the post processing effects pre-applied while Unity just gives you a clean slate
@@hubertsingh832 I'm just saying that they have a contract and put all their games on UE4 as per the contract and then NEO wasnt and still got stuck on epic
Technically you can make a stylized game like TWEWY in UE4, but indeed you would need a very specific kind of technical artist to deal with (or "undo") UE's built-in features like the "realistic lighting" which causes problems when you only want a much simpler and stylized lighting model. With Unity's Universal Rendering Pipeline it is actually much easier to customize a stylized lighting model.
So, you mean that by saying it underperformed, Square did an IMPRINTING on us? 😆 Great video, dude!
Sad that NEO didnt even got nominated for best Soundtrack at the Game Awards. The OST is by far one of the Best for this years Releases....far better that the licensed Junk we got with Guardians of the Galaxy....good ost with really fitting Songs but....its just licensed and not Original.
Nothing wrong with using licensed music, especially after the James Gunn’s movie mare it a synonym with the characters.
That being said, it’s fair to not want to see it getting a nomination.
I wouldn’t say neo twewy had the best ost this year, but it should have gotten a nomination! It’s varied as hell and super catchy!
@@philatio1744 It was nominated. I voted for it.
@@DeeFig66 It didn’t get nominated for best ost, but gamer’s choice.
I agree with the licensed part but Gotg also had an entire fictional album and even though it didn’t have as many tracks as neotwewy it’s still pretty good. I’m willing to bet someone inside square wanted the game to die
One of the main ways Square under advertised NEO was not giving review codes, doing sponsored streams, and only showing a few seconds of a cutscene of the game. And in some cases not much gameplay. This was seen in the Square Enix E3 showcase that gave time to most of what they were selling that year and it even got a few seconds from the opening at the Game Awards. Now the big slip up was not passing out review codes or doing sponsored streams which is something they even did for the Trials of Mana remake. Even smaller games would get those types of ads. I also do think it would of been on pc regardless of EPIC because Square has shifted to doing less console exclusive releases, but the reason why square went with epic is because they have a working partnership and multiple deals, like FF7R and Forspoken being more recent examples.
I like how he said it had no marketing but every other ad i got when this game released was neo
probably because TH-cam advertises things to people already predisposed to consuming those products
Well also Square said. "The game underperformed our expectations." We don't know Squares expectations so for all we know the game sold good but it wasn't enough for se.
Square does have very high expectations. Not surprising
They expect it to sell as high as FF VIIR maybe. that is... impossible, TWEWY has ever been a niche game
The localization hate bit was because some 'undesirable' people on Twitter really complained about the words "capitalism" and "cultural appropriation" in the localization and acted like the game was preaching about values. Except they're super off handed and its makes perfect sense for the instances.
Also while I love Fret, the guy's fake and ofcourse he's gonna meme and use an outdated meme for Nagi like "You're a boss!"
So yeah, Twitter moment.
The actual issue with the localization is not even about "values" so dunno what are these ppl are on about. The localization inserted several instances of unfunny comedy and forcing modern-day memes that weren't in the original japanese language, they also flanderized the characters personalities making many of them act more like jerks than in the japanese script, thankfully these types of stuff werent present in the whooooole game but there are various instances we can see the localization team being more interessed in rewritting the script instead of properly translating the game like they should have done.
I saw the localization hate before playing the game, but now that I've beaten it...
Outside seeing how Fret's "Galaxy Brain" might be a bit cringy (personally I'm fine with it), I genuinely saw nothing wrong with the localization. So I'm left kinda really confused about what folks problem was
@@OriginalGameteer As I already said the memes arent even the bigger issue here, its the changes to the cast's personality. You are focusing on only one part of the issue
@@akiradkcn can't really say I get what you mean about the personality stuff
None of the first games cast acted liked jerks from what I saw. I have no clue what the Japanese version was like, but Neku, Beat, and the Shibuya Reapers didn't seem bad at all
Plus I'm not exactly trying to cause a conflict here. Literally just said I couldn't figure out what folks had been complaining about at the time.
@@akiradkcn the original also had a ton of changes in localization. They made neku like seventeen times edgier.
4:26 and in all honesty, Neku has more depth in the english version because of the localization making me prefer it to the OG It's A Wonderful World version of Neku who didn't really seem like he needed to be in the Reapers' Game imo. Distant loner kid who doesn't talk much, vs distant emo kid with intense trauma making him lash out and push people away when they attempt to be his friend.
HUGE difference. English Neku has more depth as a character and more of a valid reason to be in the Reaper's Game
Well, remember how much Japan puts emphasis on community & doing your part for the sake of a group. Being a loner is more often than not framed as rebelliousness. But in the west, where indivuals getting ahead is part of the culture, that lack of participating in community doesn't feel like anything big.
Even high schoolers are encouraged by social pressure to participate in school clubs & committees when they already have 5.5 days of school per week. (Half days in Sat)
So it makes sense culturally to do this. Not so much here where anger issues from teenagers is a much bigger problem.
Dude, your channel is super underrated and amazing. it took me only three videos from here and now I'm hooked.
9:34 yeah in JAPAN. The marketing for TWEWY has always been better in Japan than in the US. It's the Western Marketing Team of Square Enix that spit on TWEWY again
Before watching this video: *Square is stupid*
After watching this video: *Square is stupid*
There's also the fact that the 18,000 copies is only for the physical copies in japan during the first week of sales, so it's a VERY specific number
In terms of the marketing bit, I dunno if they'd do it for a game that's also on PS4, but I think the treehouse showcase helped out with SMT5 at least a lil bit. But yknow I'd have to check to see if they ever did that for a 3rd party release 😂
Lastly, that ending was perfect and I lowkey could believe that
I mean.. That's how they count the sales for every game. So yeah, of course?
the true message of this video is that they should make a neo anime
and that se are a bunch of dickholes, but that's besides the point
It’s always a great day when Random makes a video
That was a very well put together video. You've just earnt yourself a subscriber.
That was a great video~ Thanks for putting this together!
I dunno man, I agree with most of this but I never saw a single ad despite being a huge jrpg fan who did play and love the first game. I only found out about it because I met one of the voice actors and he told me about it.
Also it would be cool if the TWEWY folx bought themselves out, pulled an IOI, and made more. I'd play so many more Reaper's games.
I personally only knew from looking on the Nintendo eshop
I loved this game, didn't preorder but bought it like 3 days later at my local store. I still don't understand how they did half of the visual effects. If anyone knows a tutorial for making fisheye cameras and use object texture as a canvas for the noises effects on unity or else let me know
That last revelation with the sale expectation had me facepalming.
Just here for the algorithms
Nicely done mate!
Ok so we all still agree that Square is on some bullshit with how they reacted to Neos sales then 😂
Great video. Hope this series still has a future.
When the game was released here in Austria in july 2021, I could not get in anywhere in the stores. There were production and delivery problems. Only in september and onwards you were able to get the physical copy here. Poor availability probably hurt the sales as well :(
Great points and great video. You earned a new subscriber!
I think an actual failure of the game is the fact that there aren't many things in the story that are explained well. It's honestly hard to think about the overall plot without the secret reports. While in the OG they were merely there for background lore and didn't hinder enjoyment of Neku's story.
I like my games convoluted, kingdom hearts has done this type of thing for years.
It did end feeling disjointed as it reintroduced certain characters, so new players I can see being more confused as the focus of the game changes. Actually the originals secret reports do a lot to smooth out the plot of NEO.
That said I wouldn’t say the plot was hard to understand, at least not until the very conclusion which feels like it really necessitates familiarity, but it’s more for fam speculation. I really like the direction it makes me excited for the future, and it feels like it didn’t compromise itself to please everybody. It really felt like it was for fans.
I don't know man, the story was pretty easy to understand without secret reports
@@toby8907at least the ending of NEO wasn't confusing like the first game where neku seems to just give up and get shot and somehow everything gets fixed and you had to dig through the post game to figure what happened.
@@k.m.m.a81 While yes that is confusing at first there are small details in the game without secret reports to hint at the fact that Joshua wasn't trying to kill Neku and destory Shibuya. He was testing him to see if he could accept people back into his life and the world around him hence the title "The World Ends With You". I was confused at first too like many other people but when you give it some thought and maybe possibly replay the game again you'll understand the theme and why the ending played out the way it did.
Just finished neo last week, I would say neo is probably one of the best game I played in 2021, it did not let me down after all these years of waiting. The battle system is so good and the story plot is so nice! Glad to see Neku back and I really like the character build up like Rindo + Shoka, fret + kanon.
This game deserves more attention , and I like video's ending, probably this is one of the SE marketing.
You should've put a spoiler tag to that
Did you finish all the post game content? Or just the main story?
@@resean2727 just main. Move to other games now. 😂
Great video! Does anyone know the song in the background at the last part of the video?
Saw the first or so episode of the anime and was disappointed theyd scrap the most important parts of the first week, all the character development was gone
I saw a lot of ads for NEO too but I feel like it might depend on search history or something cuz I've also got a ton of articles on my smartphone about NEO too. So that makes me wonder if that's the case
As much as I like Persona 5, I DO NOT think NEO should've looked like that. NEO got the TWEWY 2D artstyle down
And yeah I had felt like Square Enix said it bombed for us to help promote the game. Heck NEO was SOLD OUT during the Black Friday Sale at Walmart. I couldn't buy another copy even if I had wanted to
I fully believe in your theory now. It makes too much meta sense
Thank you for giving me hope
Honestly I saw this game advertised so little that I forgot about the game until maybe a week after it came out. And I pre-ordered it.
I mean I knew that TWEWY Neo was coming out. However, when I found out that it was out for PC on Epic, I was shocked beyond belief.
I actually thought it was switch exclusive at first, but I found out after it was on pc and ps4. Generally I feel like I’ve been following Neo like a hawk, so that’s why I was aware of everything.
Marketing could have been better but it wasn’t the worst thing ever
@phantomxero1x447 I did learn about that actually, I may pick it up at some point, thanks for the heads up regardless though.
Love your content
pc port unplanned or not i think putting it on epic games kind of hurt it a good bit, it was on steam unlocked the literal first day it came out on pc so a lot of people probably didnt buy the game out of spite, maybe even ones that planned to get it on other consoles
Maybe the One doing the time travel was Nomura himself since he wanted the series to continue. In a way he is making the greatest twewy game one that surpasses the expectatations one that becomes meta one where you will have to save the series by giving your credit number the three digits in the back and the end date, otherwise the series will face erasure.
hey duude great vid loved it
but next time DO IT!! JUST DO IT!!! 12:46
being an epic exclusive is a negative in terms of sales, it's proven by now.
and epic is also known for paying for temporary exclusivity (AKA paying the dev to not release on steam), that's why people hate them.
and as far as the marketing goes, I remember seeing ads for fucking life is strange 2 and none for neo. and the algorythm is aware of my obsessions.
they did in fact underfund the marketing.
people are specifically pissed at square because they declared it a financial failure AND fumbled the marketing AND gave it no budget, it makes them look stupider than they did after cancelling the ending of FF15.
honestly square's management is so bad that yoshi-P is callying half of the company e.e
edit: also avengers didn't even make a lot of money, licencing ate all that piece of trash produced before people dumped it.
Yoshi-P actually cares about the fans, that's why. Just look at his reaction to telling everyone that Endwalker was being pushed back a couple weeks. Compare that to SE saying KH3 was being pushed back a few years ago for an unknown amount of time and it's night and day. Square as a company, though having released many of my favorite games (and thus I am a huge fangirl but one that tries to not be bias), doesn't care about anything but the money.
@@VainVanitas I just hope they don't burn yoshi down like they did nomura, the guy's on top of ff14 and 16 now :/
@@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz so very true! Especially because I doubt the problems with just the early access launch for Endwalker is doing him any good. Tomorrow it'll probably get worse too since it'll be open to everyone. He definitely has a *lot* on his plate.
Where can you watch the dub of twewy? :o I watched it with subs but now I wanna hear the English dub!
About NEO not being on their E3 well aside from being a rpg fan I LOVE shmups. They showed Darius cosmic revelation in their presentation in E3 despite most people not caring for shmups. Based on reactions you can tell people didn’t care about Darius or shmups because they either talked over it about something else, called it a completely different unrelated shmup or clowned on it. So I feel Neo would’ve fit way more into their presentation more than Darius as I forgot Taito is part of square now.
Edit: spelling
I honestly didnt even know it released i thought it was still in the works
great video
So Square Enix was talking notes from Capcom and their treatment of Darkstalkers. Why am I not surprised?
The fun part, the game actually came out on the Consoles the day before my birthday
About being neck and neck with ace attorney chronicles the game has already been out in japan, It was basically a re-release. And the original game sold 60,000 copies at launch. Square just needed to put this game on gamepass imo
One of my favorite things about steam is how it marks your hours so friends can see which is why i dont buy or play games not on steam
the plot thickness
Wtf, I didn't even know NEO Twewy had a PC version until this video
Twewy and Neo really felt like Square kept the devs locked in the basement and fed them breadcrumbs and cigarette butts and let them out once in a while to make them money and Twewy/Neo Twewy was a cry for help. That’s why it’s so creative, and also bashes the establishment. It feels like their final attempt to knock it out of the park and get their message out before they get locked up for another 13 years.
That’s my head canon anyhow lmao. Hyperbole aside I think it is a factor of their work environment
In my country they didn't even sale neo in stores :/ I needed to buy it online.
Found neo just by accident because I wanted to buy twewy 1
Great video! While I think the marketing could have been improved in certain regards (more specifically in the area I live in, there was nothing done anywhere and I never saw a single ad for the game even with all the NEO and TWEWY content I watched on TH-cam) I agree with what you have to say! Also the localization hate is hilariously misinformed, I couldn’t have asked for a better English dub too! Look forward to seeing more of your content it’s always a blast!
11:00 you have a typo
it should be sentence instead of "sentrance"
5:38 I cracked up way more then Id like to admit when I heard fret make a frickin among us imposter reference when looking for beat
(10:20) Speaking as a random TWEWY fan, I legitimately had no idea this game existed. I'm pretty sure I even knew Final Remix was coming before its release - but this game's existence comes a pleasant surprise to me.
So... er... thanks for being the one guy in the TH-cam algorithm that managed to bring this game to my attention! ^_^"
The combat is very different but I found it very enjoyable, story is very tied to “A New Day” though
Overall I recommend it
Didya play neo
look mom i'm on TV!!!
Great video btw :P
14:36 Wow!!
14:55 18,799 Copies for switch Alone, THAT Is Outstanding!!!
Oh really, the animes doing well in japan? I didnt know that and thats awesome to hear!
Ill have to share it with some friends then. I'm a purist for the OG story and I felt like the anime kinda disappointed me and so have been leery about showing anybody something that only feels meh. But I'll trust the majority opinion and show some friends!
I agree with most things but I still disagree that it was marketed well in the West (even for a game of its type). I’m in the UK and pretty much the only marketing for it I saw were the 3 trailers (I think only one of them was showcased in a gaming event) and the fandom wikia banner and video player ads, that’s it. Meanwhile Balan wonderland and a bunch of other stuff that aren’t much bigger than neo was everywhere.
Neo being on Epic is really something new...
@phantomxero1x447 Yeah that got shadow drop on steam and even at the same timing that persona 5 royal got release on steam too.
If that ending is true Square is beyond stupid
The counterpoint is Xenoblade chronicles a niche rpg got into a seminal spot in Nintendo directs
Yeah, but Nintendo and Square are different companies. Xenoblade Chronicles was also an objectively bigger game with a more vocal fanbase.
i honestly feel like square gave thsi series their best shot with neo but will decide to bury it permanently now
So basically it's still square's fault xd.
YASSSS SLAYYYY AGENT RANDOMMMMM
I was not vary shocked this game didnt do great at least in the west its a sequel to a unwell known jrpg franchise and just looking at the game box and hearing about the game at least to me did not seem vary interested it took me waching a video and then trying out the first game to get me to play it but with how much the squar pr manger and the fact that the anime got a dub in no way means that they are giving up on these games I just no idea how they plan to follow up on neos story if they were to ever make a new one.
Dude wdym they can’t give up the anniversary slot????
Delay it to 2022 for the FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY. 🤣
I don’t like TWEWY and I still got a ton of ads on TH-cam and other platforms when the game was coming out
while i do agree with your explanation about what localization is and what it's meant to do, including the part about modern slang to a certain extent (memes are where i draw the line for various reasons) the problem people have and where the criticism comes from is that a few lines were being rewritten, not localized, and replaced with things that either disregard authorial intent and/or straight up don't belong in NEO
Yeah thats the main complain, the localizers went too far, and often out of touch too.
Word
PowerPoint
I wasn't a twewy fan before neo and I wouldn't have tried it out if the advertisement didn't pull me in, so from personal experience they did sell the game to me
I actually loved this game 100%ed it :D
Imma be honest Neos failure was mostly due to the game debatablely not needing a sequel, but when making a sequel you completely replace the cast and add new characters…. and only bring back 2 of them at the end as playable party member..
I think it really was just the direction of Neo, many twewy fans really didnt reside with the new cast at first and it pushed people away from getting the gsme.
It also bums me out Joshua wasnt playable at the end either
I low key loved this game, the only reason not high key because it felt like a chore at some points. And to me a game should never feel like a bother. That being said, I will really miss these characters.
I dunno if the game has a bad English script but I don't agree with the idea of switching everything to American culture is the best way to go about doing this. I also think some lines are for sure just the team having fun and doing what they want which happens on occasions (and sometimes too often) in stuff like this and I feels like the "localization" explanation always seems like too easy a way to shut down complaints when these things should probably be looked at case by case.
I just beat the game today and i loved it, never played or heard about the game. I played the demo and was hooked. Now i want to play the first game but i hear the switch port has horrible controls.
I'd try finding the DS version
If you don't have a DS, you can also buy it in the playstore on android, not sure about Apple though. :)
If you get the switch version, just play it on handheld mode. The docked mode is when it forces you to use the joycons but the handheld has you using the screen itself like the other versions.
They dropped on Steam completed unannounced I December
And they also release it at a wrong day for the game since they did release the game a day early by the time persona 5 royal was going to come out.
that's Ridiculous
Both games are actually really good
So, the "Failures" sounds just hilarious that people believed that
Square is sorely out of touch and off the rails they gave the lackluster failure balance wonderland MORE COVERAGE THAN THIS AMAZING GAME
This game pretty fun
I'm like half way through with the game
and I honestly enjoy the silly lingo in the game. I know most people won't like Fret but I love the dude, his way of thinking just has me rolling with laughter.
The game is really good, I don't have anything to complain about
Great story, awesome characters, have a great time playing it
i personally found it mediocre as hell. While the art style is inspired and the music is incredible and the visuals very stylish, the pacing and story were horrible for me.
I liked the battle system and the fact that you can choose when to battle, but the game throws many mandatory fights at you, that the choice might honestly not be there.
The characters are well designed, and pretty decent for the most part, but the constant need to add characters and elements from the last game took away from them and the slow pacing of the game made their development and growth advance incredibly slow. The game also has an overwhelming amount of characters and I don’t feel like it manage to do all of them justice or justify them within the context of the story. Character motivations change in a whim, character relationships we never heard, nor were established before, about are suddenly relevant on the last day and new characters are introduced in the climax of the game make the story feel as if it was kept together by duct tape to me.
I found the game’s story absolutely dreadful, which saddens me a ton because the first one might be one, if not my favourite game ever and i genuinely like the presentation and some of the character interactions. I see many people enjoying and praising it, but i guess it wasn’t for me.
It’s probably one of the biggest disappointments this year for me, as i waited to play this almost seven years.
@@philatio1744 I feel you kinda. The story had it's down moments (Middle of Week 2) but the other weeks and constant fan service saved it for me.
SMT 5 was a bigger dissapointment. At least Neo has a story and characters.
I think instead of taking money from epic, they could have taken money from microsoft for game pass, it could have given a bigger audience for neo and money to square as well whether it sells well on xbox or not (probably not).
Glad to see somebody else who understands that the localization is Good, Actually. Some parts of the internet have gotten unbearably toxic re: calling Neo's localization garbage. Impossible to talk about the game on Twitter without somebody who was mad about "vagina bones" in Tokyo Mirage Sessions posting screenshots of the word sus.
I think we as TWEWY fans are just salty that Square stated that NEO didn't meet sales expectations. I think that's why people complain about the marketing. If Square wanted NEO to reach higher levels of success and introduce more people to the series, well, maybe try to show it on a Nintendo Direct or something? Maybe in your E3??
This is a "Square Enix fans, does this ever happen to you?" moment.
Fucking makes me mad, this is my game of the year and it will go under the radar.
For me, the biggest reason why Neo failed for me personally is it kinda ignored half the point of the original game and why it existed in universe.
By that I mean, the thesis of the first games story was it was a closed off jerk learning the importance of broadening your horizons and trusting people, even if that meant taking risks and getting hurt by people you trusted but learning not everyone will hurt you, but that some will, and you come out a better person for it. That's why Neku's arc and the handful of characters and the order he encounters them is very specific, special, and makes the story really impactful. Everything about how the world, characters, rules of the game and who the true antagonists and heroes are is set up the way it ultimately is.
Neo ignored all of that. The game wasn't some thing a select individual with a flaw was picked to evaluate humanity to see if people were capable of change. It was another hunger games or just life or death game of a bunch of random people thrown together for a sickos entertainment. Rindo is fun I guess..but he doesn't have some fatal flaw or anything that made me really feel he changed or like there was a special reason I was playing as him versus Neku where I was far more interested in why was this jerk the main character? What's he about? Why am I playing as him? Then there is Rindo just your average Gen Z teenager addicted to his phone, lol. Sure, he learns about some of the uglier sides of life but he doesn't really feel like he changed or grew into a meaningful person beyond his original shell and while some of the other characters like Fret grow...man, does it just feel so forced and like they made these characters just to be vessels for the OG casts arc's to be finished, realized they need to pad the game out to be 30+ hours because of being a home console/3D game now and we're like "oh yeah, better give em arc's so people care".
Idk, the main cast felt like just "another JRPG" cast with the typical bro dude side character, more quiet reluctant yet agreeable protagonist, and gamer girl personality JRPG's have been really taking a liking too and as such I felt it didn't feel very fresh to me.
Neku, Shiki, Joshua, Beat, and Rhyme and that story, what it stood for, it's messages, and everything about how that OG game work all felt excellently crafted and like it had a purpose for why everything worked the way it did.
With NEO, half the things felt like they existed because tropes other JRPG'S like Persona 5 became popular or to appeal to current day trends and for me making those changes and opting to be a bigger scale adventure with a huge cast versus a smaller, more contained cast with very few characters and a specific message hurt it more than it helped it.
The biggest thing about Neo that paid off for me was the OG cast getting their arc's fullfilled, I shed a tear, I won't lie, but the new characters and idea of the series continuing. Nah man, neither of those two things vibe with me. I feel like the more they do with the IP the more of what that made it special in the first place would be lost.
Just my take. Feel free to disagree.
I highly disagree with your take on the marketing. I can't speak for Japan obviously, but it took over a month for me to realize the game was out on Steam. I hadn't heard anything about that happening! If you look at the reviews of the game on that platform, you can see a lot of people saying the same thing. A lot of people didn't even know there was a sequel to the original at all. You know there's a problem when people are saying stuff like that.
My favorite franchise being killed by other of my favorite franchises? Oh no...It's Wild Arms all over again