Thanks to NIS America for the review code
Title: Worlds End Club
System: Nintendo Switch
Price: $49.99
Release Date: 05/28/2021
Story
In this interesting platform/adventure hybrid from ex Chunsoft writers, you take control of a group of classmates who were almost forced to partake in a dangerous game of fate, only for everything to go off the rails, leading the class to instead seek out their own destiny and find their way back home. It really tries to pull you in with a Danganronpa-esque hook, and the clever diversion away from the usual tropes really got me excited enough to stick with this one for quite a while, at least to the normal ending.
You can definitely tell Uchikoshi had involvement in this one too, and it all combines together for a charming little story that manages to still stick out, even if I don’t feel it comes anywhere close to the narrative heights of other Chunsoft epics; Still, this is a game where the plot is definitely the main highlight, and the more unspoiled, the better.
Presentation
The first thing that came to mind when this was revealed for Apple Arcade years ago, was how all the character designs look shockingly identical to that of Pokemon designer Ken Sugimori. However, despite how it looks, Worlds End Club did not have character designs by him, but it does manage to still be memorable with a similarly welcoming artstyle, a far contrast from Dangaronpa and AI.
The game visuals look pretty decent for the most part too. You have the occasional CG cutscene, which look really good with the character models standing out very nicely, but you also have a bunch of well drawn key art that populates plenty of the dialogue scenes, and the cel shading does a really great job of making the game look good even here on Switch. Despite what appears to be a 30FPS focus, the game looked and played pretty good in handheld mode, enough that the framerate didn’t really bother me here. It also helps that the game in general is laid back enough that even the platforming doesn’t suffer much from this low framerate, which was a relief, though the later parts of the game do lead to the framerate dipping at points.
The music is pretty upbeat, typical stuff, and while some cutscene themes definitely pack that energy during the more tense cutscenes, the stage themes were rather forgettable to me. That being said, the biggest pro to the audio has to go to the voice acting. Every line of dialogue save for boxes in the top right corner of the stages, is fully voiced in English and Japanese, and for the amount of dialogue in this game, that’s pretty darn impressive, to say the least. It helped significantly in keeping me invested in the story, and was more of the push for me to keep on going.
The EN voices were pretty darn good, though one character ended up getting on my nerves before I caved and considered their odd voice a funny trait they had. Still, they were good enough I kept with those for the duration of my adventure.
Gameplay
Worlds End Club is broken up into three sections of game; first, the story portions, where lots of cutscenes and talking happen, and where you get the bulk of the juicy story. Then, the camp sections, where you talk to each member of the Go-Getters club one by one to find out their thoughts on the current situation and learn more about their backstories. And then, the interactive part comes from the “Action” stages. Oh boy. Here’s where Worlds End Club gets messy. See, these are the action portions of the game, which are usually surrounded by more of the nice story cutscenes to further the plot and then lead into a situation where you control one of the main characters throughout a platforming stage.
To say these platforming stages were dull would be a huge understatement; most of them are braindead easy and border on just being a straight line to the boss/final puzzle of the level, with nothing interesting to them. Often you get to use the character’s unique ability to progress in the stage, and some of them are pretty entertaining (such as one character who rolls a lot and is completely invincible while doing so) but outside of bosses I didn’t find them to compliment the stages well.
There are a decent chunk of these stages during the game, and they also do have a fair share of optional collectibles in the form of cute Bikkuriman-like stickers to store in a sticker book. They’re usually hidden in places that aren’t immediately obvious or through more obscure puzzles, but not even these are all that tricky to find, and since I was just rushing through the action stages to prioritize the story, I didn’t find it to be a big loss to be missing several of them during my journey.
You’ll repeat the usual loop of story, camp, and action stage, until you inevitably reach the normal ending of the game… Where you then get to go back and open up the branching paths you skipped earlier in the story. See, at several points there are moments where you as Reycho have to make a critical choice, and this changes the next set of events to lead to a completely different level; they eventually diverge into a single route before the next branch comes up, but your actions do make a difference and most notably, impact the endings you get before reaching the true ending, which requires doing a bulk of work to achieve.
I actually really liked how finding each new route did lead to you filling in the narrative blanks that existed before the normal ending, and it leads into the true ending rather well, but god, these platforming stages are bad.
There really isn’t much else to complain about with this! Just a really solid story with great presentation values, but hampered by straight lines of boredom that are either very short or take a really long time, maybe only redeemed every now and then by a solid boss fight or character trait. I know this was originally an Apple Arcade title, but there are plenty of wonderful platformers on Mobile platforms, so I just don’t get why the platforming here is so dull. It’s the biggest factor that dampens the game for me, and it does so by a significant margin by managing to be incredibly boring.
Conclusion
Honestly, I really wished Worlds End Club was a bit better in terms of the gameplay. The story is pretty darn good, and while not always great at making sense, was fun enough to keep me engaged for one go around. However, doing the alternate paths for that true ending meant more platforming segments, and those were just easily the worst part of the game.
The platforming isn’t abhorrent or anything! It just starts off incredibly average, and remains incredibly average throughout the entire adventure. The story will be the main thing keeping you hooked, but then you have to work for that true ending; and whether or not you want to deal with more tedious platforming stages to see the rest of it, is honestly up to you. I definitely want to go back and settle things once this queue is cleared, as I was hooked on the plot of Worlds End Club. Sadly, the cute stickers just aren’t enough for me to want to replay any of the stages or do the alternate conditions I don’t need to in order to see that true ending, and when the platforming gameplay is the main downfall of this title, it really stings.
Still, the narrative is strong and fun with those classic Chunsoft twists, so I still recommend fans of those kinds of stories give this one a shot. Just be prepared to maybe have a youtube video on in the background as you work away at those dull stages and see that true ending! Definitely a fun side game from Uchikoshi and co, and I’m happy I finally got around to it.
I give World Ends Club a 7 out of 10.