NEO: The World Ends With You is the follow up to the cult classic DS game of the same name (minus the NEO). As Rindo, you are taking part in the “Reapers’ Game”. In order to avoid getting erased from existence, you must complete objectives in this 1-week competition. Utilizing the pins you get, you must fight the “noise” and level up in real-time combat to make your way through the game. With a gorgeous art style and some enjoyable mechanics, it is certainly a good time! But how good is it on the Steam Deck?
NEO: The World Ends With Optimization
The answer is a resounding yes! It makes sense, considering it is a Switch game first, but nonetheless, it is still a wonderful thing to see! The game doesn’t have many graphical settings, but it does work fantastically right off the bat! Without changing anything, and setting a TDP limit to 6, you can expect around 11W – 13W of battery drain for 4 – 4.5 hours of battery, temps below 65c, at native 1280×720 resolution and 60 FPS! It looks gorgeous and feels like a perfect fit on the Deck. There is some stuttering that happens during the game, which seems to be from running around or getting into combat, but this alleviates itself pretty quickly so it doesn’t impact the gameplay that matters.
Input Swapping
The game does start the game out with the A and B buttons switched. This means that hitting A will cancel and B will confirm. This makes sense as the ABXY layout on the Switch has it reversed. You can easily change the inputs in-game though, which I recommend doing. If you decide not to, it isn’t super jarring and not necessary, but it did make going through dialog and confirming things much easier.
Conclusion
NEO: The World Ends With You is a really fun game and if you’re a fan of the series, or JRPGs in general, this is definitely one to check out. I am happy to report that, on the Steam Deck, it runs like a charm other than the minor stutters here and there.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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