As a bright and uniquely designed story-driven 2D side scrolling platformer, World’s End Club brings a different and almost innocent take on a post-apocalyptic world. It is up to twelve grade-schoolers to figure out what happened to them and to the place they once knew as Japan. World’s End Club was published by NIS America and developed by Tookyo Games & Grounding Inc, both comprised of former employees from the likes of SEGA and Spike Chunsoft. Most notably the writer, composer, and illustrator of Danganronpa are a part of this team as well as the director of the Zero Escape games. With these minds together it is definitely not hard to miss some of the similarities from the Danganronpa series present in World’s End Club. However, there are differences between the two, a few of those differences being the story, design, and gameplay.
The game begins in the late 90s with a bus full of twelfth grade-schoolers known as the “Go-Getters Club”. They were on a field trip to Kamakura when it is suddenly interrupted by a meteor crashing into Tokyo and blowing the kids away. You awaken later in an underwater theme park and controlling the young boy known as Reycho. Soon you and the eleven other students are forced to play the Game of Fate. When things look tough the game is suddenly canceled right in front of you and soon Reycho and the others are forced out into the real world.
Everything is not the same as it was and there are clear signs of it on land and in the sky and it’s up to you and the others to figure what happened to everyone and to Japan. Also, everyone can see the girl, right? However, during your journey to discovering what happened, you will come across times where you have to choose your path and those choices will affect the ending. In addition to choosing your path, you will also come to discover interesting abilities that your friends have and how to use them to get through overgrown plants, destroyed buildings, crazy-looking enemies, and more.
The story relies on Reycho making choices that decides what path his friends take on their journey and those choices affect the story path. Each choice you make will change the ending you receive: one bad ending and one true ending. How you get there depends on the choices made. The story is deceivingly simple however: if you play both of the storylines you’ll realize the plot twists and the connection of everything that is explained in the true ending.
Play both storylines, each part takes maybe 10-15 minutes to complete and it allows you to play with all the uniquely designed characters as well as see what happens with the choice you didn’t pick. I was pleasantly surprised at a few cut scenes that really show how close and how strong this ragtag group of grade-schoolers really are. They are strong, they preserve. They also have a theme song and they have no problem singing it, so prepare yourself for a short musical.
Another pleasant surprise is how easy the gameplay is for World’s End Club. Essentially, it is a 2D side scroller with platforming, puzzles, and boss fights weaved together to create a story that you’d never guess what was coming next. You have basic controls, movement, jump, and the unique ability of your character that is activated by the A button. Simple right? However I do want to add a warning here. There are a few enemies within the game that are vibrantly colored, spasming enemies that may cause eye fatigue. Also, if you are touched by enemies, falling debris, etc. you die. There are no health bars or no shields, so with one hit you start over from the last checkpoint. Don’t worry though, there are frequent checkpoints through the game.
Each of the characters are designed differently and loosely based on their character’s personalities. There’s a gloomy older brother figure, an airheaded older sister type, a mousey type, small tsundere, and even an androgynous all-female musical theatre hopeful. Each character not only have their own special ability that will help you through the story, but they each have their own stories that connect them to the bigger picture and to one another. They have to overcome their issues to work together to make it through the post-apocalyptic world they are thrown into.
There are so many hints at memes such as being a silent protagonist, ridiculous suggestions such as “peeing on the floor” to innocent questions of “Who do you like?” The world truly has ended so these aspects give a sense of trying to be your normal self while dealing with what’s in front of you and learning about the truth of what happened.
World’s End Club can take up to 10-15 hours by playing both endings for each choice and finding the hidden items that are thankfully easy to find. World’s End Club is nearly if not completely voiced and the voice actors did an amazing job bringing each of the characters to life. The gameplay is straightforward, but there were a couple of times where the controls were not quick to respond or you had to angle the character right in order to interact with an item. These moments were far in between each other. The story is interesting enough to make you want to play both storylines to figure out what is really going on and also not end the game on a bad note.
If you’re looking for an easy-going, fairly quick, and feel-good game, I recommend picking up World’s End Club for the Nintendo Switch and become a part of the Go-Getter club!
