Day 4... AND 5!

I'm condensing these into one entry, despite the fact that a LOT happens at this point in the week. Writing entries for every day is harder than I thought it would be, but I do want to finish both this journal and the game. I'll maybe try and keep most of my future posts shorter, and write up my conclusions at the end...

Anyway, it's time for Neku to go shopping! Even though I have already been shopping as much as possible, this is sadly not enough to save him from getting called disgustingly un-trendy by The Prince. Maybe his love of being invisible to the RG makes some sense after all. I mean, I also hated talking to most people as a teenager. I imagine getting called a spicy tuna roll unprovoked wouldn't have helped with that.

That aside, the trip to 104 is a fun way to introduce the brand chart! Which is another really neat TWEWY mechanic! I like how it incentivizes you to keep constantly changing up your style/build to keep up with the constantly-shifting trends. Even though I'm pretty bad at remembering to do so when I enter a new area, it's still cool. Overall, TWEWY is really, really good at meshing the world and gameplay mechanics together. Being good at TWEWY means dressing on-trend, picking out the perfect combo of pins, frequenting the mall, grabbing snacks as often as possible, and doing your best to stay in-sync with your friends. If we ignore the whole supernatural death-game element, it's basically the same as trying to be cool in high school. Except for the fact that highschool is way more difficult.

Speaking of difficulty, Day 4 is the first day where I haven't managed to grab the secret report, because the boss noises are just way too difficult. I was really surprised when fighting one suddenly replaced my partner with Joshua (I guess since it's a boss from his week), so I'll be coming back to this fight after giving him better stats and getting used to playing as him again.

For now, though, it's still Shiki's week. And I fucking love Shiki. She becomes significantly more pushy during Day 4: making Neku go shopping, yelling at him about dressing more stylishly, and, who could forget, making him take his pants off in the middle of the street so she can fix them. Maybe this is her being a little more comfortable with him, or maybe it's that she's just super passionate about fashion? I also think her and Neku's conversation in 104 is very sweet: he's genuinely super impressed by her skills and her drive, and his rarely-used smiling sprite shows up when she talks about her dream. Cuteeee.

There are also some cute moments with Beat and Rhyme on Day 4, before things very abruptly take a turn for the worse. I actually did not think I would be this sad over it the second time through, but it's really sad! Using the dual screens to show the parallels between Beat trying to save Rhyme and Rhyme trying to save Beat is SUCH a good touch, too. As always, the original DS version of this game >>>>>>>>>>> the ports (I haven't played any of them)

Neku also makes a brief comment on Rhyme's erasure making him feel similar to "that time", and then wondering what he's thinking of, since he still has no memories. As far as I remember, "that time" is never explained in the main game, so we can only extrapolate from the postgame chapter, where his alternate-universe self says a close friend of his died. It's actually wild how little backstory we get from Neku. Whatever "that time" was, it clearly affected him deeply, and Rhyme's "death" immediately makes him regress back into full "I don't need friends" mode.

At this point, Mr. H shows up to save Beat, and mentions he still has "a part to play". I remember minimal details about what Mr. H actually does in the game, so I'm left wondering just how much he orchestrated Beat's future actions. Maybe the secret report would give me a clue, but alas. A question to come back to later, maybe.

I haven't even really touched on Day 5, yet, but I don't have too much to say on it right now, tbh. Shiki does make some wild comments about how much Eri gave her "purpose", right before this week's Game Master Chef shows up to tell her she's full of shit. Gotta love toxic codependent girl friendships...

Anyway, I'm out. This is subtracting from my arts and crafts time.