Game

Well, here we are. At long last, the final day. By this point, Shibuya is nearly unrecognizable. I think it's pretty neat how over the last few days after the Red Skull pins are activated, the city becomes progressively more and more eerily still and quiet! At first there's still a fair number of NPCs wandering around thinking their own thoughts, but by Day 7, almost every person in town is just standing there, and scanning no longer gives you any interesting peeks into other people's lives, as they're all just thinking the same thing. Spooky!

In order to get today's secret report, I did a sweep of all the shops in search of the Samurai Helm. I finally found it at Ramen Don: Ken Doi hands it over while telling Neku to stay strong and not give up, implying that he was the one leaving all the mystery boxes all along. He also briefly gets possessed like the rest of the city, but then somehow shakes it off. How mysterious... If I had to guess, though, I'd bet this has less to do with any actual character importance, and more of a reference to the fact that he's designed to resemble Tatsuya Kando, the game's director. Either way, thanks for the cool helmet, dude.

This being the final day, there's obviously a LOT of plot developments. Konishi finally reveals herself after hiding in Beat's shadow for the past week, and also states her intention to become Conductor, regardless of who ends up as Composer at the end of the day. Then Neku and Beat completely wiped the floor with her. Her boss fight is still very cool visually, though! She's one of the few enemies in the game who has multiple phases. It's a little annoying to be essentially locked out of using Neku's attacks for the latter half of the fight, but having Rhyme's noise be the only thing that can give Beat the opportunity to attack is so good. ;-;

The dialogue in this game also continues to be hilarious, even as the characters are essentially right outside the final boss room. Major shoutout to Beat talking about Minamimoto making a "tabooty call", and also Shiki calling Neku EMBARRASSING for caring about her so much she ended up as his entry fee. I like them so much. Another thing that made me laugh is Minamimoto's death. Despite knowing it was coming, seeing him randomly crushed under a car after all that buildup is still funny. Also, really good foreshadowing that I totally missed the first time: the car and vending machine that hit him are clearly identical to the one's Joshua summons in combat! In my defense, Neku doesn't notice this connection either.

[This image is so funny I had to include it. Rip my king. I was sad I couldn't steal his hat a second time.]

After seeing it in ominous cutscenes all game, it was fun to finally get to visit Kitaniji's Dead God Pad. What a cool place. I really like how the fish in the floor follow you around. Also the fact that there are fish in the floor. I wonder who decorated this place? Joshua is, of course, the real man in charge, but it seems a lot closer to Kitaniji's aesthetic. I also wonder about the big foosball table in the middle of the room. Do the Reapers...play foosball together...? None of these questions have answers (and are also totally unimportant), but I do appreciate the design choices here! I also, again, completely decimated the boss battle. At this point I was beginning to get a little sad that I'd made the game so easy for myself, even playing at Level 1 on Ultimate difficulty. It was at least a bit cathartic being able to breeze through battles I'd struggled so much with earlier.

Kitaniji explains his grand plan to turn Shibuya into a "paradise" by eliminating "egotism", really hammering in the fact that he's a foil to Neku, who has by now learned to appreciate people's differences. I do like the fact that they both wear headphones; while Neku has his constantly on in order to block people out, Kitaniji wears his around his neck and instead forcibly silences the rest of Shibuya. He also goes on a bit of an extended metaphor about how the Conductor decides how songs will be played. To be honest, TWEWY's musical references are maybe a bit underutilized: before this, there's really no comment on the names "Conductor" and "Composer", and no other major characters seem to have that much of an interest in music, including Neku. Again, I wonder what he's listening to on those phones. Or is he even listening to anything at all...?

As he wraps up his monologue, he also crushes Neku's Player Pin, and is shocked when Neku is still immune to his imprinting. His dialogue here seems to imply he thinks Neku, as the Composer's proxy, is somehow divinely protected or something, and Neku seems equally confused...but hasn't he had two Player Pins this whole time? He and Shiki definitely bring up the fact that he has an extra early on in Week 1, but then quickly move on, and it never really comes up again. Presumably the extra one is the one Joshua dropped on him when he died. So... Joshua really was playing an insane long game here. Kitaniji never really stood a chance. I wonder what his entry fee even was? The game never specifies, which is a shame...

Anyway, just as I was resigning myself to the fact that I was now too OP for the game to pose much of a challenge, the final boss hit me like a train. Turns out I had become way too dependant on my partners (and, let's be real, their threads). Fighting alone is (very fittingly) terrifying! It's such a relief when your partners start passing you the light puck, and the fight starts looking significantly less impossible. Wow...that's good game design! It did still take me multiple tries, but I'm honestly really happy the final boss ended up feeling so engaging and rewarding to beat. The fact that it can trap you in a bubble if you're not careful is kind of brutal, but it did feel good to learn how to dodge the worst of its attacks!

And now, all that's left to discuss is the ending. And what an ending it is. I have, if it's not obvious already, forgotten a lot of TWEWY over the years, but the ending has always stuck with me. Something about "I can't forgive you yet...but I do trust you" is so fascinating that I've never been able to get it out of my head. Despite it all, Neku came out of this considering Joshua a friend. And Shiki, Beat, and Rhyme, too. Did you hear? He has friends now. I'm honestly failing to come up with much more to say, despite how emotional the ending made me. It's just a good ending. It makes me happy. The world begins with you...

When I started this playthrough back in March (!!!), I did not expect it to take me over 4 months and 130 hours. I regret nothing, though, since TWEWY really is such a great game. A bit more on that in my conclusion post...but for now, it's time to wrap this entry up, and take a look at my final stats: ESP'er Rank A, Noise Report 91.6% completed (88 types), 92.4% Pin Mastery (281 types), and 98.5% of the Item Collection (465 types). Again, I'm usually not much of a completionist, so this is yet another testament to how much TWEWY fucking rules.

Today's Secret Report: