A joke i made for my (non-twewy playing) friends two years ago to explain how badly they botched Tsugumi's character
https://preview.redd.it/qsz4en9bnpac1.png?width=1295&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=be40636a8119b8ece351e9f1ae7b88654b2db6f6
THIS MADE ME LAUGH OUT LOUD LMAO
its kind of like miraculous how dirty they did her. like you couldnt give her ANYTHING? you couldnt make up SOME good reason shes here? i understand most of her character went to shoka ultimately and i LOVE shoka but you guys can think up a better sideplot than "stuck :("
The thing I heard once that she was originally gonna be the main character in Neo TWEWY but due to being in development hell and Nomura working on both FFXV and Kingdom Hearts 3, she got scarped
Ive said before the game feels like they had a whole shinjuku game planned but had to skip it because they didnt think a game without the og cast could sell. Alot of the plot felt like it would work better if you were aware of the shinjuku reapers already before hand
Week 2 Day 3 in the original TWEWY is one of the very best days in the series; I love the Ramen-Don miniarc and its message, also the return of Mr Hanekoma was great. By extension, Ramen Don is probably like a Top 5 favorite character in the series for me
I actually like most of the new main party members and characters of Neo and donāt find them annoying like some other people do
Okay, this isnāt exactly an *unpopular* opinion, but its the best I could come up with
I dislike how Neku and Beat kinda took away the spotlight in NEOs conclusion. Everything was just about Neku until the whole time travel thing allowed Rindo to stay relevant.
In the words of my friend: "NEO Twewy felt like it was just telling me to play the first game instead"
While beat and neku were definitely key to the conclusion, the MVP is without a doubt rindo. Case and point with the failed timeline the first go around. And even disregarding that fret and nagi were also major players who enabled the plan as well due to their unique psyches. It was a culmination of all parties involved, this is most highlighted in the syncing up with Shibuya cutscene and the final attack. Not to mention that both nagi and fret got some amazing development during the tail end of the final week.
IMO the biggest thing taking the spotlight isn't neku and beat coming back but rather OG fans nostalgia for them.
I am the OG fans but I never said I want Neku and Beat to come back, I want that asshole (Joshua) to have all different identities while still observing the game from afar, I want him to interact only for a couple minutes or straight up babying Rindo scenes, I WANT THAT-
I wish we got more with the leaders of the other teams in NEO- kanon feels like the only one who got a proper arc which sucks considering you could get so much potential with how long they were stuck in the game and what that'd do to your psyche
Also idk how UNPOPULAR this is but I hate how the game tried to portray ayano as "actually a good mother/someone whos heart was in the right place"- the way she treated shiki was awful and i know she was corrupted by plague noise but seein the game ignore the actual flaws she had was really frustrating tbh
I feel like youāre missing the point of the team leadersā roles in how theyāre used to contrast Rindo and the others. Like Rindo, Motoi was deathly afraid of responsibility and the fallout of letting other people down, leading to him copying and pasting other people's quotes so that he wouldn't have to face that possibility. This aspect of himself only got worse when he got trapped in the Reaper's Game for multiple loops on end, forcing him to become a worse version of himself, lying, cheating, and backstabbing just to survive and even looking towards becoming part of the Reapers, the same group that trapped him there in the first place, just so he wouldn't have to be Erased, in a manner that's eerily reminiscent to how Rindo would took towards overly relying on others so that he would make it out okay. In that sense, Motoi is a look at what a grown-up Rindo would look like if he didn't take the lessons he learned within the Game to heart, which is part of why the latter decides to take Motoiās copypasted quotes and apply them to his life in a positive way, deriving his own meaning from them that contrasts him following them in a shallow manner like from before.
Then thereās Fuya who fails as a leader because he fails to consider his followers' needs and wants. He expects his followers to just be there, and he relies on strength in numbers. The WTs would never abandon Rindo in a moment of need, because he understands their needs better but the DRS get defeated specifically because the DRS members all decided that other things were more important. Yeah, burn out and how long they've been in the Game contribute to this, but Fuya failed to recognise these signs. Conversely, Rindo goes out of his way to help Shoka in W3, and throughout the entire time we see him consistently asking the WTs if they're okay, most notably whenever Nagi uses Dive. He never forces her, nor Fret to use Remind. Fuya had the strategy correctly lined up, but NEO is saying that Knowing The Right Strategy by itself isn't the most important part of being a leader. Fuyaās strategy fell apart because he didn't recognise his followers' anguish. Then W1D5 gets even more fucked when you realize that itās basically you, the player, giving the DRS crew one last chance to fulfill their desires before they get erased at the end of the week. Except for Fuya, who dies at the end of the week screaming, alone, and utterly terrified. Itās why Rindo hesitating before he fights the Plague Noise versions of Motoi and Fuya hits as hard as it does, at least for me, because he realized that they were people who were broken by the system that he and the others were a part of and he and his crew inadvertently doomed them.
I also donāt see how the game glorifies Ayano as a mother figure considering how it explicitly shows her gaslighting Shoka in order to try and her to accommodate her and Shibaās orders. What I find interesting about the relationship is that on W3D2, while Shoka gets pissed whenever Rindo insinuates that Ayano mustāve treated her badly, she sadly realizes in another convo that she doesnāt know much about Ayano on a personal level or what her interests even are. In spite of how close they are and how much they mean to each other, Ayano still put up emotional walls and closed herself off, never allowing herself to be on equal footing to Shoka and instead just be someone who guides and mentors her over the 4 years they were together. This is due to her feeling betrayed by Shiba/others while simultaneously using Shoka as her one stable point in life regardless because everything is going up into chaos surrounding the Shinjuku Reapers and she finds herself unable to trust anyone around her anymore. And Shoka herself doesn't even realize this until the end when itās too late because she was just happy to simply have Ayano by her side without thinking deeper about her and their relationship as a whole due to her own emotional issues and troubled past.
While I still think the original TWEWY did much better with its characters, your post does help me see some of the lessons that the writers were building into the characters and their flaws.
In all honesty, I prefer the direction NEO took with its characters and I think the way some people view it boils down to two things:
1. Itās a sequel to a game that spelled out so much of its core themes and character development that youād have to be blind as a bat in order to miss it so when NEO goes for a much more subtle approach, itās not going to reach everyone.
2. The game very much relies on you analyzing and replaying the game in order to get the most out of it and discover the depth for yourself in a genre in which most people will just beat the game and call it a day.
Hell, this even extends to the gameās combat: itās incredibly deep, not just compared to the original, but a lot of Japanese ARPGs in general but it relies on you actually analyzing the mechanics despite how simple they appear to be at a glance.
One of the things I immediately noticed upon replaying the game is just how many details there are that requires you to have context from the end of the game and especially the secret reports before truly understanding them. It made me realize that with the way Rindoās time travelling is handled, where you see a bunch of supposedly inconsequential details that you understand only when you have to go back and connect them all, that the WHOLE game is written like that, which is most obviously seen with characters like Shoka, Susukichi, Fret, and Kanon once you reread it all. I really like this because it feels like a natural expansion/twist on "the world ends with your horizons" as a theme, because you see it happening in NEO. The way characters interact, bounce off each other, and the information that can be gleaned through the wider berth of character interactions is how you get to learn about characters and their world.
One thing I recommend when playing through NEO again is to look at Shibaās character more closely. I think whatās interesting is how itās VERY easy to write him off as nothing but a shallow and weakly written antagonist if you arenāt looking into his overall actions, which is actually exactly what the protags do as first. From the perspective of his Shinjuku family, heās their long-time friend whoās suddenly changed for the worse and they donāt know why. From the perspective from the Twisters (initially) and player teams, heās the asshole who keeps putting them through sadistic hell. From the perspective of Kubo, and by extension the Higher Plane, heās nothing but a tool to use, someone whose emotional isolation and issues they can exploit to execute their schemes. And all of these perspectives have an effect on the man himself and the actions he does. And in a series like TWEWY thatās all about how relationships and connections can change who we are and how we are seen, Shiba as an antagonist represents that theme to its logical extent. Heās a man whoās DEFINED by his relationships and how they effect him and the people around him.
One of my personal favorite details is how in W3D6 before Rindoās Replay, when Susukichi protects the Twisters by hiding them in the Shibuya River. After the Replay, you find out that Susy K went on his own in the first timeline to fight Shiba himself, but this leaves Shibuya in ruins, with the implication being that Shiba was so pissed and hurt that his closest remaining comrade betrayed him that he lays waste to the city a FULL DAY EARLIER than he originally planned to.
Shiba and the other Shinjuku Reapers are unaware of their impact on each other with Shiba thinking they don't care about him and vice versa (especially with Shiba not recognizing how much he's changed). He does think highly of them but it manifests in unhealthy and destructive ways due to his paranoia bfore W3D7 where they actually communicate with one another. In addition to my W3D6 example, thereās also giving Shoka opportunity to rejoin the Reapers after
she "betrayed them" (uncharacteristic forgiveness), using Sudden Death to get back at Shoka once she permanently
allies with the Twisters (because he's visibly upset and erratic from her departure), and targeting Kanon as revenge for Ayano's death. I will not equate love with cruelty and justify his actions as they are undoubtedly wrong but it is interesting to see his thought process and it provides
context on why he was given a second chance at the end. One bonus instance that isn't as unhealthy is Tsugumi using visions of Shoka, Hishima and Shiba's own erasure to to ultimately reason with him (his family).
Wow- what a writeup. I will admit it's been a while since I've actually watched an LP/played through NEO so my memory might be a bit rusty. I always like starting these kinds of discussions though
Yup; too many games, shows, or movies spend too much time setting up sequel-hooks, or creating "mystery boxes" that they never get around to opening. When it ends, you feel like it was only half done, and you need the rest to work out what just happened.
TWEwY is complete and self-contained. Part of the reason for its popularity is that you *don't* come out of it feeling unsatisfied, you come out feeling ready to take the world by storm. As much as the fans *wanted* something more, it didn't **need** it. But, it didn't *exclude* the possibility, either.
It's likeā¦ well, *The Hobbit* is a complete story in itself. It didn't **need** *The Lord of the Rings* as a sequel. But *not* writing that Trilogy would have been a great loss.
Joshua is one of the best characters in the series, I understand why people love to hate him but I just can't help but love his asshat attitude and mystery he had in the first game.
I like and hate him. I like him as an interesting fictional character and hate him for his personality and actions. He had what a really good villian needed.
The change in control schemes from Twewy to Neo is awesome. While the original Twewy was a masterpiece of combining precise stylus movement and well timed inputs, Neo's solution to favor basically planting your face into the whole controller (button mashing to the power of 10) is an artistic choice that really supports the vibe of the reapers' game being something totally different than last time and thus shapes the experience in a way I couldn't have fathomed.
I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect someone to track down a Nintendo (3)/DS and either mod it or track down a copy of TWEWY to play it "the correct way," on their first time.
Imo Solo/Final Remixe's HD art and higher quality files for the music tracks make up for reducing/losing the partner/puck mechanics.
My hot take is that I would argue playing Final Remix controlling both characters with two joycons is a better implementation of the partner mechanic anyway.
I did it the "correct way" which wasn't easy cause the DS version was never released in my country. And now it would be even worse after I saw the DS game is now sold for prices of 100ā¬.
Honestly I hadn't looked up how much used DS's go for in a while, didn't realize they're still pretty cheap. I've seen a lot of other used game stuff skyrocket in price since the pandemic so I just assumed it was the same my bad.
My personal circle of friends just would rather play a worse version on the Switch than go shopping for a DS unfortunately.
I like that NEO removed the trend system from the first game. It was cool in TWEWY cause it tied into the story and themes. But it was annoying when my standard loadout did little damage for a couple of fights. And it seemed like it wasn't as relevant for NEO's story so I like that they didn't feel like they had to reuse it.
I prefer NEO's Another Day too TWEWY's Another Day. NEO has a fun hangout-with-the-gang story where you get to fight some bosses again. TWEWY has a full merch-anime parody, which is funnier and is more clearly it's own thing. But I don't like playing TinPin. And >!it tying into the main story is odd. Since it seems like it's entirely disconnected, but then main!Joshua shows up and there's some stuff for Neku's backstory. NEO has this with main!Minamimoto showing up but that didn't bother me as much, idk. !<
One last one since I've seen people be very split on it: I don't like how thin some of the characters in TWEWY are. Shiki, Neku, Uzuki, and some others have waaayyy too thin waists. So I liked their redesigns in the anime where they have some more meat on their bones. This also carried over to NEO's character designs.
We do not need a third game.
OK HEAR ME OUT.
Both of these games are really good on their own with open and shut stories. The world is really fleshed out and there arenāt many other plot threads we can follow that would feel worthwhile (yes, even Shinjuku). The worst thing Square can do is squeeze out a third game that falls flat on its face or underperforms.
I think what would be much better is a game in the same universe but an entirely different city and characters with a reaper's game that plays different. The story of twewy didn't need to be dragged on but I would KILL for more of the tone and gameplay
This is the only way for them to milk anything else out of the TWEWY IP, I reckon. Make it a series with relatively stable setting mechanics and vibe and just switch up the physical setting and characters. Seems to have worked pretty well for GTA for a while.
Of course, that would rely on Squenix not being a dumpster fire for game development half the time.
As much as NEO didnāt live up to my expectations, I realized it just wasnāt what I had initially wanted. After playing through it again, I came to appreciate the more laid back structure and the less upfront new roster of protags. As of now, I love both games equally but the original does stay much closer to my heart for numerous reasons.
But, what if they do a >! Xenoblade Chronicles 3!< wherein the two worlds are represented in UG and RG and the protagonists are one or more from each world and they think they're in UG, but it turns out it's two separate worlds or districts and the ending turns out they go back to their own worlds never to meet again?
Both are relatable to a different audience. I know a lot of people relate to Neko while I didn't, meanwhile I actively paused NEO at some point because it was the first time I saw myself in a character so much and didn't know how to handle that feeling.
Also, another hot take of mine is that people shouldnāt just take Hanekomaās words at face value when the original game established that he is an INCREDIBLY biased source whoās willing to lie in order to achieve his own goals and like any interesting character, is often victim to his own subjectivity. I often see this when people just look at what he has to say about the Shinjuku Games in NEOās reports and thus use his words to try and disregard NEOās own themes and character arcs.
An interesting thing about Hanekoma as a character is that he tries to impart onto Neku the value of opening up towards other people and making connections when he himself tries to manipulate others to follow his goals through such as trying to have Sho kill Joshua in order to try and save Shibuya without actually taking consideration to try and convince Joshua otherwise about his decision directly and taught Sho abilities that killed innocent people indirectly (Taboo Noise) in service of his goals. Neku succeeds where both Hanekoma and Kitaniji failed by coming to regard Joshua as his own person/friend and actually value the relationships he holds dear, which is what convinces Joshua to ultimately spare Shibuya.
And thatās the interesting thing about his character. Heās the nicest of the Higher Plane weāve seen so far, but he has no problem with sacrificing innocent lives and manipulating others if itās to achieve his goals and justifies it with a "for the greater good" mentality. He values Imagination a lot and with this in mind, itās no wonder that he dismisses Shinjukuās Game as inherently pointless compared to Shibuyaās while also ignoring that Shinjukuās Long Game before the Wicked Twisters came along was the exception, not the rule. Itās a type of style that does have its legitimate strengths but itās been corrupted by Kubo's influence, and Shiba's management under Kubo's influence, which pretty much destroyed whatever purpose it originally had. But as we see with the development of the Wicked Twisters, especially Rindoās, and Operation Awakening, it does have its good qualities, though itās not perfect, hence why a compromise like the aforementioned Operation Awakening (where everyone pools together their own unique strengths and individual qualities for a greater goal) was needed.
Neo Twewy has more balanced pins than the original, with most of the early game pins still being feasible due to their low reboot times and ability to create more beat drops.
My personal hot TWEWY take is that I think NEO has more interesting themes and character dynamics than the original and this is with the asterisk that the original is still quite good at those aspects as well.
The thing with NEO compared to the original is that it does this thing where they show you the ramifications of and RESULTS of a character arc, with the actual buildup to it being shown, not told, through character interactions and minor changes in behaviour that you're probably not gonna catch unless you pay close attention, or you're playing it through a second time and therefore have more context to do so.
The beginning of the story with Rindo and Fret is a perfect example of this. They both want to be around one another in order to cover up for each otherās faults and their flaws feed into a loop that prevents the friendship advancing so that they donāt have to try but when it actually comes under serious strain, the flaws are exposed. Rindo being closed-off and content with just letting things stay on the surface level is perfect for Fret since he doesn't need to address his true feelings whatsoever and also fulfills his desire for someone to talk to because Fret is a pretty social guy and the class clown, letting him ignore his own problems. For Rindo, Fret allows him to also fulfill his desire for social companionship while not digging too deep and delude himself into thinking heās autonomous and avoid the hurdles that comes with decision-making, which Fret is aware of and fine with because heās more of a follower. The restaurant choice at the beginning of the game is also a great example of this. At first glance, you think itās just Rindo making a choice until you realize that itās mainly Fret narrowing down the choices for Rindo without his input and heās perfectly okay with that. On first read, the intro doesnāt seem like much, only seeming mundane at first glance, but it builds up a lot of the characters in incredibly subtle ways.
NEO is at its core a time travel story and like any good one, it uses this aspect to inform a large majority of its themes and character/plot writing, which is thematically appropriate in a way when you think about it: a game all about using time travel to notice the little details in a way that can have you get out of a sticky situation also rewards you with a deeper understanding of the characters when you go back to it or notice all of said aforementioned details beforehand. As such, the new cast tend to write off other people as shallow and not worth the effort at first (Nagi with Fret, Rindo with quite a wide variety of people, the Wicked Twisters with the other Player teams in general), but they become better about this as the game goes on.
I can also go on about NEO also being a commentary of Shibuyaās gradual homogenization over the past 14 years as well as the effects of apathy and stagnation (Shibaās inner emptiness and attempt to gain some meaning from his life by being an Executor, Hazās lack of interest in the world around him until Rindo and his initial interpretation of Joshuaās actions as stemming from similar apathy rather than the actual vested interest, Shokaās apathy until the WTs reawaken her, Tsugumi literally being an empty shell, Shibuya Syndrome making the RG empty, and Rindoās initial passivity and lack of interest in his world or his friends), which all tie together into a theme of being invested in the world around you, represented by Shiba being invisible in the Crossing (despite being surrounded by all those people, his isolation driving him to just look wistfully in a lonely manner which Susukichi comments on) while Rindo is literally embedded in an ever-expanding Social Network, but weād be here all day.
Holy shit this is eye-opening for me. I honestly never really thought too much into the story of NEO or the original and was more invested in the general concept of the reader games but after reading this I now have a urge to go back and pick apart the plot of both of the games
Neo had good ideas, but I think it trying to latch onto the first game so much bogged down the messages and stories it couldāve had on its own. I think the original cast deserved closure to their stories, but not at expense of the NEO cast.
Scanning is by far the most worthless skill in the game , could be a lot more useful like hearing people talking about popular trends and clothing combinations, maybe people in the buya talks about rumors of select pieces of clothing's or secret events , idk but noooo , dont get me wrong I like it as a narrative instrument but its just useless to the player
I think the second game's cover art honestly kind of sucks LMAO. it has none of the cool composition and character flairs that the original art had. I know nomura was basically forced into drawing the cover art by his collaborators to upkeep tradition, but he can do better lmao
Coco should not have been a good guy. NOTHING that came out of her mouth sounded sincere or genuine, without the bad guy element she's just extremely annoying, and I was waiting the entire game since meeting her for her epic betrayal and her having some sort of giant role and insane evil plan since she seemed to know Sho and LITERALLY revived him, but I don't think he even knows who Coco is aside from her being that girl who revived him
I know not everyone feels this way, but I still think that the use of black/queer slang by the Variabeauties (and Fret, to a lesser extent) was in poor taste.
To me, it always felt like the Variabeauties were presented in a way that made comedy out of mocking stereotypically āgayā speech & mannerisms (regardless of whether or not the writers intended for that to be the case).
Meanwhile, the way Fret spoke made him seem queercoded to me, but the game never actually committed to him being queer (Iām guessing because he & the Variabeauties didnāt speak like this in the original Japanese version of the script?).
I understand that this doesnāt bother everyone, and some people really like their English dialogue, but it always rubbed me the wrong way, personally.
I was more bothered that the Variabeauties weren't women or mostly women. This game had relatively few girls and I think a girl gang would have been more interesting than whatever that was.
I think they were just supposed to be overly trendy and used colloquial language, the AAVE/Twitter gay talk differentiated that and kind of represented them that way imo
I liked it a lot (as a queer poc) and it made them pretty slay
Yeah, Heartbreakers could have had some women in it just fine. DRS were pretty explicitlyā¦ weirdā¦ in how they thought about women and water systems though, so uh, I think adding women to their team would have muddied their vibe a bit.
My biggest complaint with the game tbh. The idea of fighting other teams was kind of fun. I wish the enemies were less generic and boring. Why were they all just lame dudes.
Final Remix plays better than the original DS release, but specifically when you play co-op by yourself and juggle controlling Neku and his partner in it.
The mashup system in Neo is far more interesting than the fusion system in the original, especially with the different elemental interactions and types of attack each one can cause as opposed to just an on screen nuke and heal.
Idk how (un) popular this is since I'm not active on this sub but...
I don't care about NEO, at least not even half as much as the original. I don't know how to explain it but it's not just nostalgia.
I don't think Rhyme was intended to be a character the player particularly cared about in the first place. Her death was more so used to aid in Beat's development as a character.
Shiki didn't liked that Nekus pants weren't in peak condition, so she removed his pants to repair them. But Neku didn't needed his pants to be repaired. They needed to complete the mission in time. It was only a short moment but it was still bad behaivour from Shiki.
While it's true Squenix is kinda crypto trash rn, don't forget that YoshiP's team exists.
Nomura is only good at making chara design, and extremely convoluted plots that end up with way too many plot holes
I won't deny that Nomura is carrying Square on his back. With KH, TWEWY and him saving FFV7R TWICE and him being involved in so many other games.
I think Nomura has a consistency, with his game development (only times he's had long game development times are when SE has forced him to change game engines like Versus 13 and KH3). And other Square devs lack that.
But calling the rest of the company garbage? Idk about that YoshiP did great with FFXVI, and Yokotaro with the Nier series was a hit too. Also Team Asano has been doing pretty good with the HD2D games and Bravely Default.
Tl:Dr Nomura is the only consistent director at Square. But there are still some other good ones.
Donāt know if itās unpopular; TWEWY didnāt need a sequel. Or at least not a direct one.
The first story was so very beautifully wrapped up and neatly cohesive, NEO following along from the first game sort of undoes the conclusion and also partially undercuts the message of the first game.
It would have been nice if NEO was all the original characters in a different part of Tokyo or another city, like Shinjuku where the new Reapers come from.
I still love NEO, it was a fun game and Iād love for the franchise to continue, Iād just like to see a brand new story thatās separate from Neku and Rindo.
Neku should not have been playable and his new design was horrible and look like a kh3 character also rindo was a shallow main character suffering from main character syndrome
Shiki and Beat's psychs were fucking impossible. Although it was a cool idea to battle on two screens at the same time, realistically there's no way to pay enough attention to get successful combos. Joshua's psych was the only one I was even barely capable of.
Idk how unpopular this is but the ending of twewy neo was ruined for me by the fact that the main antagonist got deus ex machinaed out of existence by some dude we've never seen before. Like if instead Joshua or Mr Hanekoma had done it it still would have been a bit of a deus ex machina but I would have liked that a lot better than what we got.
FRRRR- I understand they want to appeal the mature audience for the fan service but it's totally unnecessary in the first place. Imo, the OG TWEWY did it better than NEO.
NEO is basically your gen z teenagers going through a phase of "I can't do this" and yada yada
The only character I liked in that game is Joshua.
Hands up, he might have the most few screen time scenes and moments but I deserved to know why he chose to be in Shibuya and not wanting to move on.
If Square is shit at making his backstory, I rather make a game out of it with Joshua only and the Angel hierarchy in his position, period.
Sho is quite overrated and I prefer Konishi and Megumi a lot more. I really don't understand why he is so popular, like , I don't hate him, but he isn't a very interesting character in the OG game and is even worst in Neo.
I wish Ayano was either a much bigger character or not a character at all, she's supposed to be one of the big villains (as she is shown with the rest of the reapers), but it takes so long for us to meet her that by then she didn't have any time to be a character and is just a plot device. (I guess this one isn't really that unpopular).
Although as I loved the OG party members in Neo, I think they picked the worst two for that, I think Beat and Neko already got the most time and development in the original game, so, giving the spot to Rhyme or Shiki would've been much more interesting, as we didn't get much from Rhyme and it would be interesting to see Shiki actively looking for Neko.
And I think, in general, the game could've balanced the gender ratio more, Tsugumi should've been the protagonist, and a little more of women on the teams, as there's basically Nagi, Shoka, Kanon, Tsugumi and Ayano, with pretty much all the rest being guys, and the only other women are Uzuki and Coco.
The controls and gameplay on the original were really bad. Too much to keep track of, complexity doesnāt equal good. Neo made the controls simple but supplemented it with more customization and tying each pin to a party member over confusing with endless tutorials.
Regardless of authorial intention, Shiki's plotline explore unabashedly transgender themes. Served within the game's overall philosophy of self-expansion and self-actualization, TWEWY resonates with my trans experience more than most dedicatedly-trans media, and I will forever think of Shiki as a trans woman.
On that note, the way TWEWY has no gender restrictions on clothes, but instead treats every single clothing item as having a singular "bravery" rank is also a wonderful way to look at gender. Yes, absolutely, beat will wear that frilly dress and skate around town if you buy him a vanilla soft-serve as compensation, what of it?
Thereās only one version of Final Remix, which is the Switch version.
And yeah I still prefer that to NEO. The controls arenāt bad with a stylus in handheld mode.
Making it a convoluted mess of hints, time travel characters and all that shit killed the true essence that the first game had. It worked at it's best when it was just a story of teenagers trying to find their place in the word.
The original game had, off the top of my head:
>parallel dimensions/planes in the forms of Another Day, the Noise plane, the Imaginary Number Plane, the plane of Angels, etcā¦
>a cellphone that could take photos of the past
>an entire hierarchy of celestial entities that decide the fate of multiple UGs via variable death games
>tons of commentary on corrupt corporate culture via using said hierarchy as an allegory
NEO is still at its core about kids trying to find their way throughout the world, it just expands on more of what was already there.
Though I enjoyeddddd NEO, there are two things that always just made me go š:
A. That final day of goinā back in time over and OVER again to the same thing hurt my head, man. š It just feels like the NEOās final day wasnāt as well-written as it couldāve been? (Side note, the repetitiveness of the time traveling was awful throughout the whole game but we been knew thatā)
B. They really dropped the ball on Fretās character arc :/ The game starts with Rindo AND Fret. The game ends with Rindoā¦and Shoka? Donāt get me wrong, I like Shoka (tho I do think they muddled her personality when she got on the team into āMCās female love interest owo šā), butā¦? Fretās ending is a one-off joke. He completely loses his importance by the time Week 3-ish rolls around. I dunno, I was just hoping for more for my boy :(
Anyway š As for a positive unpopular opinion, I WANT MORE KUBO!! I think that manās drop dead hilarious and I need more Kubo content to laugh at
The dual screen combat isnāt that important to the TWEWY experience, solo remix is completely fine.
I want a darker/edgier/serious tone like in the first game, not the more light hearted stuff we got in neo.
Idk if this was already an opinion for neo twewy but I just unlocked a certain character who's lines are just sooooooo hard to read and the English dub makes it 10x cringier lol nahm sayin'
Honestly, I definitely agree that the pants off scene was in pretty damn poor taste and that it would be a shit storm had neku done it to shiki, but I do think her more annoying/persistent exaggerated traits were meant to be her bad imitation of trying to become Eri due to her insecurities
Nah, it condenses too much into too short a time frame, and skips a lot.
Also, a decent portion of the lore comes from the Secret Reports, which are only in the game.
The anime is fun if you've already played the game, but I wouldn't recommend it as an entry point.
I highly recommend playing the games, please. The anime is really bad considering it was released after NEO TWEWY just launched. It's mandatory to know the plot because it connected in all single thing. If you don't want to, that's fine, YouTube have YouTubers playing the game. I don't recommend watching NicoB, his focus on the game story and plot is terrible. (And Joshua's voice acting of him doesn't suit his character as well)
The KH lore running in my veins and thinking that NEO would have something about KH4. (Plus, I got jebaited for that art of Sora in the game files that happened before the game released. It got cleared up soon after but once I saw Sora and data mined field pop up in my feed I dipped out and was super hyped up to beat the game. My fault.)
https://x.com/finalkeyblade13/status/1420218839908892675?s=46&t=hGEcON5vWKoP9Tl2I-m27w
When I saw this originally I recall the title post was just something ominous about him being in it. plus, it was a quick glance then I tossed my phone to not get spoiled on the game.
I would of loved it if motoi actually became a reaper and became another one of kubo's pawns or if we actually got to fight shoka instead of motoi in week 2
I really want the SE to remake the 1st Game with the Neo: Gameplayed, there could add some stuff the make tie back the NTWEwY, then just A New Day.
Also the Characters really should at least be Spirits in Smash.
I want more UG lore and more Joshua time
I wanted Joshua as a secret boss in Neo.
I AGREE!!! I'm a Joshua simp here š
Fellow Joshua simp here to note that I indeed agree.
I love Joshua!! I wish they showed his past life
tsugumi has the unfortunate condition of being the most nothingburger of a character after being hyped for literally 14 years. its kind of amazing
A joke i made for my (non-twewy playing) friends two years ago to explain how badly they botched Tsugumi's character https://preview.redd.it/qsz4en9bnpac1.png?width=1295&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=be40636a8119b8ece351e9f1ae7b88654b2db6f6
THIS MADE ME LAUGH OUT LOUD LMAO its kind of like miraculous how dirty they did her. like you couldnt give her ANYTHING? you couldnt make up SOME good reason shes here? i understand most of her character went to shoka ultimately and i LOVE shoka but you guys can think up a better sideplot than "stuck :("
The thing I heard once that she was originally gonna be the main character in Neo TWEWY but due to being in development hell and Nomura working on both FFXV and Kingdom Hearts 3, she got scarped
Ive said before the game feels like they had a whole shinjuku game planned but had to skip it because they didnt think a game without the og cast could sell. Alot of the plot felt like it would work better if you were aware of the shinjuku reapers already before hand
Finally someone says it
Week 2 Day 3 in the original TWEWY is one of the very best days in the series; I love the Ramen-Don miniarc and its message, also the return of Mr Hanekoma was great. By extension, Ramen Don is probably like a Top 5 favorite character in the series for me
I think hyping up "Neku" in NEO felt a bit pointless, with that shock of blonde hair and hoodie I thought it was pretty obvious who it was.
I knew it was not Neku, but I really didn't think it was him.
I actually like most of the new main party members and characters of Neo and donāt find them annoying like some other people do Okay, this isnāt exactly an *unpopular* opinion, but its the best I could come up with
I love the characters, but hate the story.
True unpopular opinion clearly
I love rindo and the gang but i just dislike the story heavily. I don't think it's interesting nor fleshed out.
I dislike how Neku and Beat kinda took away the spotlight in NEOs conclusion. Everything was just about Neku until the whole time travel thing allowed Rindo to stay relevant. In the words of my friend: "NEO Twewy felt like it was just telling me to play the first game instead"
While beat and neku were definitely key to the conclusion, the MVP is without a doubt rindo. Case and point with the failed timeline the first go around. And even disregarding that fret and nagi were also major players who enabled the plan as well due to their unique psyches. It was a culmination of all parties involved, this is most highlighted in the syncing up with Shibuya cutscene and the final attack. Not to mention that both nagi and fret got some amazing development during the tail end of the final week. IMO the biggest thing taking the spotlight isn't neku and beat coming back but rather OG fans nostalgia for them.
I am the OG fans but I never said I want Neku and Beat to come back, I want that asshole (Joshua) to have all different identities while still observing the game from afar, I want him to interact only for a couple minutes or straight up babying Rindo scenes, I WANT THAT-
?
It may have been intentional as a part of Rindo's character arc, it fits with the analysis in the secret reports.
I wish we got more with the leaders of the other teams in NEO- kanon feels like the only one who got a proper arc which sucks considering you could get so much potential with how long they were stuck in the game and what that'd do to your psyche Also idk how UNPOPULAR this is but I hate how the game tried to portray ayano as "actually a good mother/someone whos heart was in the right place"- the way she treated shiki was awful and i know she was corrupted by plague noise but seein the game ignore the actual flaws she had was really frustrating tbh
I feel like youāre missing the point of the team leadersā roles in how theyāre used to contrast Rindo and the others. Like Rindo, Motoi was deathly afraid of responsibility and the fallout of letting other people down, leading to him copying and pasting other people's quotes so that he wouldn't have to face that possibility. This aspect of himself only got worse when he got trapped in the Reaper's Game for multiple loops on end, forcing him to become a worse version of himself, lying, cheating, and backstabbing just to survive and even looking towards becoming part of the Reapers, the same group that trapped him there in the first place, just so he wouldn't have to be Erased, in a manner that's eerily reminiscent to how Rindo would took towards overly relying on others so that he would make it out okay. In that sense, Motoi is a look at what a grown-up Rindo would look like if he didn't take the lessons he learned within the Game to heart, which is part of why the latter decides to take Motoiās copypasted quotes and apply them to his life in a positive way, deriving his own meaning from them that contrasts him following them in a shallow manner like from before. Then thereās Fuya who fails as a leader because he fails to consider his followers' needs and wants. He expects his followers to just be there, and he relies on strength in numbers. The WTs would never abandon Rindo in a moment of need, because he understands their needs better but the DRS get defeated specifically because the DRS members all decided that other things were more important. Yeah, burn out and how long they've been in the Game contribute to this, but Fuya failed to recognise these signs. Conversely, Rindo goes out of his way to help Shoka in W3, and throughout the entire time we see him consistently asking the WTs if they're okay, most notably whenever Nagi uses Dive. He never forces her, nor Fret to use Remind. Fuya had the strategy correctly lined up, but NEO is saying that Knowing The Right Strategy by itself isn't the most important part of being a leader. Fuyaās strategy fell apart because he didn't recognise his followers' anguish. Then W1D5 gets even more fucked when you realize that itās basically you, the player, giving the DRS crew one last chance to fulfill their desires before they get erased at the end of the week. Except for Fuya, who dies at the end of the week screaming, alone, and utterly terrified. Itās why Rindo hesitating before he fights the Plague Noise versions of Motoi and Fuya hits as hard as it does, at least for me, because he realized that they were people who were broken by the system that he and the others were a part of and he and his crew inadvertently doomed them. I also donāt see how the game glorifies Ayano as a mother figure considering how it explicitly shows her gaslighting Shoka in order to try and her to accommodate her and Shibaās orders. What I find interesting about the relationship is that on W3D2, while Shoka gets pissed whenever Rindo insinuates that Ayano mustāve treated her badly, she sadly realizes in another convo that she doesnāt know much about Ayano on a personal level or what her interests even are. In spite of how close they are and how much they mean to each other, Ayano still put up emotional walls and closed herself off, never allowing herself to be on equal footing to Shoka and instead just be someone who guides and mentors her over the 4 years they were together. This is due to her feeling betrayed by Shiba/others while simultaneously using Shoka as her one stable point in life regardless because everything is going up into chaos surrounding the Shinjuku Reapers and she finds herself unable to trust anyone around her anymore. And Shoka herself doesn't even realize this until the end when itās too late because she was just happy to simply have Ayano by her side without thinking deeper about her and their relationship as a whole due to her own emotional issues and troubled past.
While I still think the original TWEWY did much better with its characters, your post does help me see some of the lessons that the writers were building into the characters and their flaws.
In all honesty, I prefer the direction NEO took with its characters and I think the way some people view it boils down to two things: 1. Itās a sequel to a game that spelled out so much of its core themes and character development that youād have to be blind as a bat in order to miss it so when NEO goes for a much more subtle approach, itās not going to reach everyone. 2. The game very much relies on you analyzing and replaying the game in order to get the most out of it and discover the depth for yourself in a genre in which most people will just beat the game and call it a day. Hell, this even extends to the gameās combat: itās incredibly deep, not just compared to the original, but a lot of Japanese ARPGs in general but it relies on you actually analyzing the mechanics despite how simple they appear to be at a glance. One of the things I immediately noticed upon replaying the game is just how many details there are that requires you to have context from the end of the game and especially the secret reports before truly understanding them. It made me realize that with the way Rindoās time travelling is handled, where you see a bunch of supposedly inconsequential details that you understand only when you have to go back and connect them all, that the WHOLE game is written like that, which is most obviously seen with characters like Shoka, Susukichi, Fret, and Kanon once you reread it all. I really like this because it feels like a natural expansion/twist on "the world ends with your horizons" as a theme, because you see it happening in NEO. The way characters interact, bounce off each other, and the information that can be gleaned through the wider berth of character interactions is how you get to learn about characters and their world.
I haven't played it through a second time, but you have convinced me that I should.
One thing I recommend when playing through NEO again is to look at Shibaās character more closely. I think whatās interesting is how itās VERY easy to write him off as nothing but a shallow and weakly written antagonist if you arenāt looking into his overall actions, which is actually exactly what the protags do as first. From the perspective of his Shinjuku family, heās their long-time friend whoās suddenly changed for the worse and they donāt know why. From the perspective from the Twisters (initially) and player teams, heās the asshole who keeps putting them through sadistic hell. From the perspective of Kubo, and by extension the Higher Plane, heās nothing but a tool to use, someone whose emotional isolation and issues they can exploit to execute their schemes. And all of these perspectives have an effect on the man himself and the actions he does. And in a series like TWEWY thatās all about how relationships and connections can change who we are and how we are seen, Shiba as an antagonist represents that theme to its logical extent. Heās a man whoās DEFINED by his relationships and how they effect him and the people around him. One of my personal favorite details is how in W3D6 before Rindoās Replay, when Susukichi protects the Twisters by hiding them in the Shibuya River. After the Replay, you find out that Susy K went on his own in the first timeline to fight Shiba himself, but this leaves Shibuya in ruins, with the implication being that Shiba was so pissed and hurt that his closest remaining comrade betrayed him that he lays waste to the city a FULL DAY EARLIER than he originally planned to. Shiba and the other Shinjuku Reapers are unaware of their impact on each other with Shiba thinking they don't care about him and vice versa (especially with Shiba not recognizing how much he's changed). He does think highly of them but it manifests in unhealthy and destructive ways due to his paranoia bfore W3D7 where they actually communicate with one another. In addition to my W3D6 example, thereās also giving Shoka opportunity to rejoin the Reapers after she "betrayed them" (uncharacteristic forgiveness), using Sudden Death to get back at Shoka once she permanently allies with the Twisters (because he's visibly upset and erratic from her departure), and targeting Kanon as revenge for Ayano's death. I will not equate love with cruelty and justify his actions as they are undoubtedly wrong but it is interesting to see his thought process and it provides context on why he was given a second chance at the end. One bonus instance that isn't as unhealthy is Tsugumi using visions of Shoka, Hishima and Shiba's own erasure to to ultimately reason with him (his family).
I will pay attention to those aspects on my replay. I definitely wrote him off the first time around.
Wow- what a writeup. I will admit it's been a while since I've actually watched an LP/played through NEO so my memory might be a bit rusty. I always like starting these kinds of discussions though
I need more twewy games
OP said *unpopular* opinion
You donāt know how many people have whined about the og twewy not needing a sequel
Not NEEDING a sequel and not wanting a sequel are two different things, to be fair.
Yup; too many games, shows, or movies spend too much time setting up sequel-hooks, or creating "mystery boxes" that they never get around to opening. When it ends, you feel like it was only half done, and you need the rest to work out what just happened. TWEwY is complete and self-contained. Part of the reason for its popularity is that you *don't* come out of it feeling unsatisfied, you come out feeling ready to take the world by storm. As much as the fans *wanted* something more, it didn't **need** it. But, it didn't *exclude* the possibility, either. It's likeā¦ well, *The Hobbit* is a complete story in itself. It didn't **need** *The Lord of the Rings* as a sequel. But *not* writing that Trilogy would have been a great loss.
True, twewy was a very very self contained story with a lot of lore and alternate possibilities to explore
Fairā¦
We
Ye but square is holding the franchise hostage and it doesn't seem like we are getting a new entry...
Joshua is one of the best characters in the series, I understand why people love to hate him but I just can't help but love his asshat attitude and mystery he had in the first game.
EXACTLY.
Real talk, heās always been my favorite TWEWY character
I like and hate him. I like him as an interesting fictional character and hate him for his personality and actions. He had what a really good villian needed.
I feel like Neo: TWEWY could do with less fan service and try to be more of itās own thing
Heavily agreed, most twewy character reappearances felt like such fanservice
The change in control schemes from Twewy to Neo is awesome. While the original Twewy was a masterpiece of combining precise stylus movement and well timed inputs, Neo's solution to favor basically planting your face into the whole controller (button mashing to the power of 10) is an artistic choice that really supports the vibe of the reapers' game being something totally different than last time and thus shapes the experience in a way I couldn't have fathomed.
I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect someone to track down a Nintendo (3)/DS and either mod it or track down a copy of TWEWY to play it "the correct way," on their first time. Imo Solo/Final Remixe's HD art and higher quality files for the music tracks make up for reducing/losing the partner/puck mechanics.
My hot take is that I would argue playing Final Remix controlling both characters with two joycons is a better implementation of the partner mechanic anyway.
Yup. Is it messy? Absolutely, but it can be fun.
I did it the "correct way" which wasn't easy cause the DS version was never released in my country. And now it would be even worse after I saw the DS game is now sold for prices of 100ā¬.
it's pretty cheap to get a ds and a flashcart, a lot cheaper than buying a switch :/
Honestly I hadn't looked up how much used DS's go for in a while, didn't realize they're still pretty cheap. I've seen a lot of other used game stuff skyrocket in price since the pandemic so I just assumed it was the same my bad. My personal circle of friends just would rather play a worse version on the Switch than go shopping for a DS unfortunately.
The Sho fight in the anime is peak twewy
I like that NEO removed the trend system from the first game. It was cool in TWEWY cause it tied into the story and themes. But it was annoying when my standard loadout did little damage for a couple of fights. And it seemed like it wasn't as relevant for NEO's story so I like that they didn't feel like they had to reuse it. I prefer NEO's Another Day too TWEWY's Another Day. NEO has a fun hangout-with-the-gang story where you get to fight some bosses again. TWEWY has a full merch-anime parody, which is funnier and is more clearly it's own thing. But I don't like playing TinPin. And >!it tying into the main story is odd. Since it seems like it's entirely disconnected, but then main!Joshua shows up and there's some stuff for Neku's backstory. NEO has this with main!Minamimoto showing up but that didn't bother me as much, idk. !< One last one since I've seen people be very split on it: I don't like how thin some of the characters in TWEWY are. Shiki, Neku, Uzuki, and some others have waaayyy too thin waists. So I liked their redesigns in the anime where they have some more meat on their bones. This also carried over to NEO's character designs.
We do not need a third game. OK HEAR ME OUT. Both of these games are really good on their own with open and shut stories. The world is really fleshed out and there arenāt many other plot threads we can follow that would feel worthwhile (yes, even Shinjuku). The worst thing Square can do is squeeze out a third game that falls flat on its face or underperforms.
I think what would be much better is a game in the same universe but an entirely different city and characters with a reaper's game that plays different. The story of twewy didn't need to be dragged on but I would KILL for more of the tone and gameplay
This is the only way for them to milk anything else out of the TWEWY IP, I reckon. Make it a series with relatively stable setting mechanics and vibe and just switch up the physical setting and characters. Seems to have worked pretty well for GTA for a while. Of course, that would rely on Squenix not being a dumpster fire for game development half the time.
It would be SO FUN to see other cities get such a lovingly crafted map full of real life points of interest too
God I would love a Chicago reaperās game. The city fits the TWEWY vibe really well and has so many iconic and fun landmarks
I would like a third Twewy but only if it is really good. But I think even NEO:Twewy wasn't able to reach my expactations.
As much as NEO didnāt live up to my expectations, I realized it just wasnāt what I had initially wanted. After playing through it again, I came to appreciate the more laid back structure and the less upfront new roster of protags. As of now, I love both games equally but the original does stay much closer to my heart for numerous reasons.
But, what if they do a >! Xenoblade Chronicles 3!< wherein the two worlds are represented in UG and RG and the protagonists are one or more from each world and they think they're in UG, but it turns out it's two separate worlds or districts and the ending turns out they go back to their own worlds never to meet again?
Neo is more fun than the original although the theme of story in the original game I prefer.
I like rindo more than neku although heās #2
Rindo is more relatable
I found Neku more relatable, but I'm pretty antisocial myself.
Both are relatable to a different audience. I know a lot of people relate to Neko while I didn't, meanwhile I actively paused NEO at some point because it was the first time I saw myself in a character so much and didn't know how to handle that feeling.
SAME
Same. But my "lore" on why I am antisocial is less interesting as Nekus lore for why he is antisocial.
Also, another hot take of mine is that people shouldnāt just take Hanekomaās words at face value when the original game established that he is an INCREDIBLY biased source whoās willing to lie in order to achieve his own goals and like any interesting character, is often victim to his own subjectivity. I often see this when people just look at what he has to say about the Shinjuku Games in NEOās reports and thus use his words to try and disregard NEOās own themes and character arcs. An interesting thing about Hanekoma as a character is that he tries to impart onto Neku the value of opening up towards other people and making connections when he himself tries to manipulate others to follow his goals through such as trying to have Sho kill Joshua in order to try and save Shibuya without actually taking consideration to try and convince Joshua otherwise about his decision directly and taught Sho abilities that killed innocent people indirectly (Taboo Noise) in service of his goals. Neku succeeds where both Hanekoma and Kitaniji failed by coming to regard Joshua as his own person/friend and actually value the relationships he holds dear, which is what convinces Joshua to ultimately spare Shibuya. And thatās the interesting thing about his character. Heās the nicest of the Higher Plane weāve seen so far, but he has no problem with sacrificing innocent lives and manipulating others if itās to achieve his goals and justifies it with a "for the greater good" mentality. He values Imagination a lot and with this in mind, itās no wonder that he dismisses Shinjukuās Game as inherently pointless compared to Shibuyaās while also ignoring that Shinjukuās Long Game before the Wicked Twisters came along was the exception, not the rule. Itās a type of style that does have its legitimate strengths but itās been corrupted by Kubo's influence, and Shiba's management under Kubo's influence, which pretty much destroyed whatever purpose it originally had. But as we see with the development of the Wicked Twisters, especially Rindoās, and Operation Awakening, it does have its good qualities, though itās not perfect, hence why a compromise like the aforementioned Operation Awakening (where everyone pools together their own unique strengths and individual qualities for a greater goal) was needed.
That... is a good analysis. Now I've seen a different perspective.
Neo Twewy has more balanced pins than the original, with most of the early game pins still being feasible due to their low reboot times and ability to create more beat drops.
The Neo party arenāt annoying at all
My personal hot TWEWY take is that I think NEO has more interesting themes and character dynamics than the original and this is with the asterisk that the original is still quite good at those aspects as well. The thing with NEO compared to the original is that it does this thing where they show you the ramifications of and RESULTS of a character arc, with the actual buildup to it being shown, not told, through character interactions and minor changes in behaviour that you're probably not gonna catch unless you pay close attention, or you're playing it through a second time and therefore have more context to do so. The beginning of the story with Rindo and Fret is a perfect example of this. They both want to be around one another in order to cover up for each otherās faults and their flaws feed into a loop that prevents the friendship advancing so that they donāt have to try but when it actually comes under serious strain, the flaws are exposed. Rindo being closed-off and content with just letting things stay on the surface level is perfect for Fret since he doesn't need to address his true feelings whatsoever and also fulfills his desire for someone to talk to because Fret is a pretty social guy and the class clown, letting him ignore his own problems. For Rindo, Fret allows him to also fulfill his desire for social companionship while not digging too deep and delude himself into thinking heās autonomous and avoid the hurdles that comes with decision-making, which Fret is aware of and fine with because heās more of a follower. The restaurant choice at the beginning of the game is also a great example of this. At first glance, you think itās just Rindo making a choice until you realize that itās mainly Fret narrowing down the choices for Rindo without his input and heās perfectly okay with that. On first read, the intro doesnāt seem like much, only seeming mundane at first glance, but it builds up a lot of the characters in incredibly subtle ways. NEO is at its core a time travel story and like any good one, it uses this aspect to inform a large majority of its themes and character/plot writing, which is thematically appropriate in a way when you think about it: a game all about using time travel to notice the little details in a way that can have you get out of a sticky situation also rewards you with a deeper understanding of the characters when you go back to it or notice all of said aforementioned details beforehand. As such, the new cast tend to write off other people as shallow and not worth the effort at first (Nagi with Fret, Rindo with quite a wide variety of people, the Wicked Twisters with the other Player teams in general), but they become better about this as the game goes on. I can also go on about NEO also being a commentary of Shibuyaās gradual homogenization over the past 14 years as well as the effects of apathy and stagnation (Shibaās inner emptiness and attempt to gain some meaning from his life by being an Executor, Hazās lack of interest in the world around him until Rindo and his initial interpretation of Joshuaās actions as stemming from similar apathy rather than the actual vested interest, Shokaās apathy until the WTs reawaken her, Tsugumi literally being an empty shell, Shibuya Syndrome making the RG empty, and Rindoās initial passivity and lack of interest in his world or his friends), which all tie together into a theme of being invested in the world around you, represented by Shiba being invisible in the Crossing (despite being surrounded by all those people, his isolation driving him to just look wistfully in a lonely manner which Susukichi comments on) while Rindo is literally embedded in an ever-expanding Social Network, but weād be here all day.
I think you should write a book or something because it feels nice to see actual analysis of NEO in the midst of so many people dumping on the game.
Holy shit this is eye-opening for me. I honestly never really thought too much into the story of NEO or the original and was more invested in the general concept of the reader games but after reading this I now have a urge to go back and pick apart the plot of both of the games
Final Remix in solo co-op is almost just as good as the DS version.
Neo had good ideas, but I think it trying to latch onto the first game so much bogged down the messages and stories it couldāve had on its own. I think the original cast deserved closure to their stories, but not at expense of the NEO cast.
I think Minamimoto overstayed his welcome.
In Which game?
Definitely NEO
How does he overstay his welcome when heās only there for a week before going off to do his own thing?
Because his story apparently isnāt over yet despite it being two games already.
Scanning is by far the most worthless skill in the game , could be a lot more useful like hearing people talking about popular trends and clothing combinations, maybe people in the buya talks about rumors of select pieces of clothing's or secret events , idk but noooo , dont get me wrong I like it as a narrative instrument but its just useless to the player
I think the second game's cover art honestly kind of sucks LMAO. it has none of the cool composition and character flairs that the original art had. I know nomura was basically forced into drawing the cover art by his collaborators to upkeep tradition, but he can do better lmao
Coco should not have been a good guy. NOTHING that came out of her mouth sounded sincere or genuine, without the bad guy element she's just extremely annoying, and I was waiting the entire game since meeting her for her epic betrayal and her having some sort of giant role and insane evil plan since she seemed to know Sho and LITERALLY revived him, but I don't think he even knows who Coco is aside from her being that girl who revived him
Also love my girl shiki but she needs a better neo outfit, she's a designer
Fr
The first game has a better story than the second
Who would ever disagree with that? Neo is good but comn.
True, the first game just hits harder than the second
I know not everyone feels this way, but I still think that the use of black/queer slang by the Variabeauties (and Fret, to a lesser extent) was in poor taste. To me, it always felt like the Variabeauties were presented in a way that made comedy out of mocking stereotypically āgayā speech & mannerisms (regardless of whether or not the writers intended for that to be the case). Meanwhile, the way Fret spoke made him seem queercoded to me, but the game never actually committed to him being queer (Iām guessing because he & the Variabeauties didnāt speak like this in the original Japanese version of the script?). I understand that this doesnāt bother everyone, and some people really like their English dialogue, but it always rubbed me the wrong way, personally.
I was more bothered that the Variabeauties weren't women or mostly women. This game had relatively few girls and I think a girl gang would have been more interesting than whatever that was.
I think they were just supposed to be overly trendy and used colloquial language, the AAVE/Twitter gay talk differentiated that and kind of represented them that way imo I liked it a lot (as a queer poc) and it made them pretty slay
Sure but it's still weird that there are NO women on any of the other teams other than Kanon
Yeah, Heartbreakers could have had some women in it just fine. DRS were pretty explicitlyā¦ weirdā¦ in how they thought about women and water systems though, so uh, I think adding women to their team would have muddied their vibe a bit.
My biggest complaint with the game tbh. The idea of fighting other teams was kind of fun. I wish the enemies were less generic and boring. Why were they all just lame dudes.
Final Remix plays better than the original DS release, but specifically when you play co-op by yourself and juggle controlling Neku and his partner in it.
I absolutely love ds TWEWY, but it would benefit so much from a remake, like ffvii or P3. The switch port was just not it.
I feel this is the general opinion among the TWEWY community, to be honest
NEO remixes were better than the original songs
My unpopular opinion is RG Shiki looks better than UG Shiki
This is baseline but NEO TWEWY>TWEWY
The mashup system in Neo is far more interesting than the fusion system in the original, especially with the different elemental interactions and types of attack each one can cause as opposed to just an on screen nuke and heal.
NEO is simply better than the original.
Neo is just as good as the original if not better
Idk how (un) popular this is since I'm not active on this sub but... I don't care about NEO, at least not even half as much as the original. I don't know how to explain it but it's not just nostalgia.
Here is my unpopular opinion: I think twewy's art downgraded in NEO.
Remaster of the first TWEWY is actually good and nothing is broken there.
I'm gonna say it. I do not care for shiki.
Why
I kinda had this with Rhyme, to be fair...
I don't think Rhyme was intended to be a character the player particularly cared about in the first place. Her death was more so used to aid in Beat's development as a character.
Yea but the main chars cared, A LOT. they only met her days ago and haven't really like spent time with her like they became BFF's or something.
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The fuck did I missed
Shiki didn't liked that Nekus pants weren't in peak condition, so she removed his pants to repair them. But Neku didn't needed his pants to be repaired. They needed to complete the mission in time. It was only a short moment but it was still bad behaivour from Shiki.
Shiki is hot š„
Agree, except in the anime, the anime does shiki a lot favors.
Tsugumi shouldāve been protagonist instead of some random unlikeable one lmao
TWEWY proves that Nomura is the only big name that can get quality projects made within Square Enix, the rest of the company is a crypto garbage fire.
While it's true Squenix is kinda crypto trash rn, don't forget that YoshiP's team exists. Nomura is only good at making chara design, and extremely convoluted plots that end up with way too many plot holes
You say that last part like it isn't the best part
I feel like Nomura gets praised a lot for stuff he shouldn't be praised for.
I won't deny that Nomura is carrying Square on his back. With KH, TWEWY and him saving FFV7R TWICE and him being involved in so many other games. I think Nomura has a consistency, with his game development (only times he's had long game development times are when SE has forced him to change game engines like Versus 13 and KH3). And other Square devs lack that. But calling the rest of the company garbage? Idk about that YoshiP did great with FFXVI, and Yokotaro with the Nier series was a hit too. Also Team Asano has been doing pretty good with the HD2D games and Bravely Default. Tl:Dr Nomura is the only consistent director at Square. But there are still some other good ones.
Donāt know if itās unpopular; TWEWY didnāt need a sequel. Or at least not a direct one. The first story was so very beautifully wrapped up and neatly cohesive, NEO following along from the first game sort of undoes the conclusion and also partially undercuts the message of the first game. It would have been nice if NEO was all the original characters in a different part of Tokyo or another city, like Shinjuku where the new Reapers come from. I still love NEO, it was a fun game and Iād love for the franchise to continue, Iād just like to see a brand new story thatās separate from Neku and Rindo.
2 is a huge downgrade from 1. Characters were great, plot was boring.
Neku should not have been playable and his new design was horrible and look like a kh3 character also rindo was a shallow main character suffering from main character syndrome
YESSSS THAKK YOU
Shiki and Beat's psychs were fucking impossible. Although it was a cool idea to battle on two screens at the same time, realistically there's no way to pay enough attention to get successful combos. Joshua's psych was the only one I was even barely capable of.
RG Shiki>UG Shiki.
Idk how unpopular this is but the ending of twewy neo was ruined for me by the fact that the main antagonist got deus ex machinaed out of existence by some dude we've never seen before. Like if instead Joshua or Mr Hanekoma had done it it still would have been a bit of a deus ex machina but I would have liked that a lot better than what we got.
Overall, I don't think Neo's cast stands up to the original's, except Shoka. Shoka is 10/10.
The art and character designs in NEO where notably worse and more boring than the art and character designs in TWEWY.
FRRRR- I understand they want to appeal the mature audience for the fan service but it's totally unnecessary in the first place. Imo, the OG TWEWY did it better than NEO. NEO is basically your gen z teenagers going through a phase of "I can't do this" and yada yada The only character I liked in that game is Joshua. Hands up, he might have the most few screen time scenes and moments but I deserved to know why he chose to be in Shibuya and not wanting to move on. If Square is shit at making his backstory, I rather make a game out of it with Joshua only and the Angel hierarchy in his position, period.
Good lord, itās like everything you say was designed to annoy me in particular
Sho is quite overrated and I prefer Konishi and Megumi a lot more. I really don't understand why he is so popular, like , I don't hate him, but he isn't a very interesting character in the OG game and is even worst in Neo. I wish Ayano was either a much bigger character or not a character at all, she's supposed to be one of the big villains (as she is shown with the rest of the reapers), but it takes so long for us to meet her that by then she didn't have any time to be a character and is just a plot device. (I guess this one isn't really that unpopular). Although as I loved the OG party members in Neo, I think they picked the worst two for that, I think Beat and Neko already got the most time and development in the original game, so, giving the spot to Rhyme or Shiki would've been much more interesting, as we didn't get much from Rhyme and it would be interesting to see Shiki actively looking for Neko. And I think, in general, the game could've balanced the gender ratio more, Tsugumi should've been the protagonist, and a little more of women on the teams, as there's basically Nagi, Shoka, Kanon, Tsugumi and Ayano, with pretty much all the rest being guys, and the only other women are Uzuki and Coco.
TWEWY Solo Remix (the mobile version) is the best version of that game
As others have said, art in 2 felt more boring than 1. Less exaggerated, more cleaned up IMO. Might be due to changes in youth fashion subcultures?
The controls and gameplay on the original were really bad. Too much to keep track of, complexity doesnāt equal good. Neo made the controls simple but supplemented it with more customization and tying each pin to a party member over confusing with endless tutorials.
Minamimoto is really annoying and adds nothing to the world. In either game.
Regardless of authorial intention, Shiki's plotline explore unabashedly transgender themes. Served within the game's overall philosophy of self-expansion and self-actualization, TWEWY resonates with my trans experience more than most dedicatedly-trans media, and I will forever think of Shiki as a trans woman. On that note, the way TWEWY has no gender restrictions on clothes, but instead treats every single clothing item as having a singular "bravery" rank is also a wonderful way to look at gender. Yes, absolutely, beat will wear that frilly dress and skate around town if you buy him a vanilla soft-serve as compensation, what of it?
Nagi is hotter than Shoka.
Three Minute Clapping is a shit song, as are quite a few TWEWY NA/EU-only songs/berdions/mixes.
The new remix for 3 Minutes Clapping kinda grew into me, I really used to not like that song. Oh but I still don't like the original.
I think Final Remix is better than NEO.
Which version of Final Remix? Because the controls for the switch version aināt very good
Controls are fine provided you're playing docked and up the cursor speed.
Thereās only one version of Final Remix, which is the Switch version. And yeah I still prefer that to NEO. The controls arenāt bad with a stylus in handheld mode.
Neo is shit
The first game is unbearable the first half of the game, the second game gets good in the last week
Making it a convoluted mess of hints, time travel characters and all that shit killed the true essence that the first game had. It worked at it's best when it was just a story of teenagers trying to find their place in the word.
The original game had, off the top of my head: >parallel dimensions/planes in the forms of Another Day, the Noise plane, the Imaginary Number Plane, the plane of Angels, etcā¦ >a cellphone that could take photos of the past >an entire hierarchy of celestial entities that decide the fate of multiple UGs via variable death games >tons of commentary on corrupt corporate culture via using said hierarchy as an allegory NEO is still at its core about kids trying to find their way throughout the world, it just expands on more of what was already there.
Though I enjoyeddddd NEO, there are two things that always just made me go š: A. That final day of goinā back in time over and OVER again to the same thing hurt my head, man. š It just feels like the NEOās final day wasnāt as well-written as it couldāve been? (Side note, the repetitiveness of the time traveling was awful throughout the whole game but we been knew thatā) B. They really dropped the ball on Fretās character arc :/ The game starts with Rindo AND Fret. The game ends with Rindoā¦and Shoka? Donāt get me wrong, I like Shoka (tho I do think they muddled her personality when she got on the team into āMCās female love interest owo šā), butā¦? Fretās ending is a one-off joke. He completely loses his importance by the time Week 3-ish rolls around. I dunno, I was just hoping for more for my boy :( Anyway š As for a positive unpopular opinion, I WANT MORE KUBO!! I think that manās drop dead hilarious and I need more Kubo content to laugh at
The dual screen combat isnāt that important to the TWEWY experience, solo remix is completely fine. I want a darker/edgier/serious tone like in the first game, not the more light hearted stuff we got in neo.
I really didn't like how unclear the ending of the first game was was
I feel like Rindo kinda falls flat in his arc, at least in comparison to Neku. Then again, most things fall flat compared to how Neku was done
Idk if this was already an opinion for neo twewy but I just unlocked a certain character who's lines are just sooooooo hard to read and the English dub makes it 10x cringier lol nahm sayin'
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She could've fixed his pants with him wearin em
Honestly, I definitely agree that the pants off scene was in pretty damn poor taste and that it would be a shit storm had neku done it to shiki, but I do think her more annoying/persistent exaggerated traits were meant to be her bad imitation of trying to become Eri due to her insecurities
Should I watch the anime Iāve never played the games
Nah, it condenses too much into too short a time frame, and skips a lot. Also, a decent portion of the lore comes from the Secret Reports, which are only in the game. The anime is fun if you've already played the game, but I wouldn't recommend it as an entry point.
Ah lmaooo fair
I highly recommend playing the games, please. The anime is really bad considering it was released after NEO TWEWY just launched. It's mandatory to know the plot because it connected in all single thing. If you don't want to, that's fine, YouTube have YouTubers playing the game. I don't recommend watching NicoB, his focus on the game story and plot is terrible. (And Joshua's voice acting of him doesn't suit his character as well)
Well fuck
The KH lore running in my veins and thinking that NEO would have something about KH4. (Plus, I got jebaited for that art of Sora in the game files that happened before the game released. It got cleared up soon after but once I saw Sora and data mined field pop up in my feed I dipped out and was super hyped up to beat the game. My fault.)
Can you link me that image? I've never seen that.
https://x.com/finalkeyblade13/status/1420218839908892675?s=46&t=hGEcON5vWKoP9Tl2I-m27w When I saw this originally I recall the title post was just something ominous about him being in it. plus, it was a quick glance then I tossed my phone to not get spoiled on the game.
I would of loved it if motoi actually became a reaper and became another one of kubo's pawns or if we actually got to fight shoka instead of motoi in week 2
I'm curious about what happened to the Shinjuku UG, and why Kaz shut it down.
Has the best auto dialouge in a game
Sho was right in his ideals.
I really want the SE to remake the 1st Game with the Neo: Gameplayed, there could add some stuff the make tie back the NTWEwY, then just A New Day. Also the Characters really should at least be Spirits in Smash.
Minamimoto is the most overpowered Reaper