The player controls Neku, the most self-loathing, apathetic protagonist to walk the face of the Earth, as he battles in a seven-day game against the mysterious Reapers. Fail and he faces being erased – dun dun DUNNNN.

The abuse that my DS’s touch-screen has taken playing “The World Ends With You” these past two weeks rivals the abuse it had received over the past two years prior to my owning the game. I’m sure that any day now it will crack open and ooze some kind radioactive material all over my hands, ultimately causing them to shrivel up and fall off, signaling the end of my gaming “career.”

“The World Ends With You” is Square Enix’s latest RPG made for the DS. Take “Kingdom Hearts” minus the Disney, throw in a dash of amnesia ala “Final Fantasy” and then slather the whole mess in more Fall Out Boy-cutting-oneself-angst emo-ness and you get the basic idea of “The World Ends With You.”

The player controls Neku, the most self-loathing, apathetic protagonist to walk the face of the Earth, as he battles in a seven-day game against the mysterious Reapers. Fail and he faces being erased – dun dun DUNNNN. Luckily for Neku, he gets the assistance of his skinny, wasted, stuffed animal-carrying partner, Shiki.

Neku, having the age-old storybook case of amnesia, knows nothing about “the Game” and must balance surviving along with finding out why he is here. The only people in town that can see or hear him are other players and the Reapers. The game consists of completing various quests given by Reapers and fighting monsters called “Noise.”

The controls for the game are interesting. In battles one fights as Neku on the bottom screen using the touch screen and stylus, and as Shiki on the top screen using the directional pad or A, B, X and Y buttons.

I must say that this gets more confusing than the two-character split-screen game “The Adventures of Cookie & Cream.” It’s almost impossible to focus on both screens enough to receive an optimal battle score influenced by length of battle, damage done and damage taken.

One almost always needs a table to properly support the DS, otherwise it often falls out of your hands while you’re trying to control both characters. It’s far easier to put Shiki on autopilot.

The fights are longer, but it reduces the stress of dropping the game in an over-crowded airplane flight and squirming around to reach for it while your characters take the pummeling of their life—I hate turbulence.

Neku’s various attacks are done by slashing, drawing and taping on the various things on the DS touch screen, as well as occasionally blowing or shouting into the microphone. Each attack has limited use before it needs to cool down, so developing a good rotation is a must. Neku can only do attacks called “Psychs,” which correlate with the various pins that he is wearing. The number of pins that Neku can wear at one time increases as the game progresses, making attack rotations easier.

The visual style of the game is a mix of “Jet Set Radio” stylized characters and the dark, foreboding mood created in “Kingdom Hearts.” It’s appealing on the two small screens and is a visual style that matches the attitudes and ideas of the characters.

The music in the game is interesting and different but really doesn’t match the emo theme created by the visuals and storyline. They are Tokyo poppy and have a much lighter feel. They aren’t the sweeping orchestra preformed ballads of “Final Fantasy,” but are just as interesting and thematic, nonetheless.

Overall, “The World Ends With You” is the RPG that the DS really needed. It’s an engaging game that uses all the various functions of the DS in mostly non-gimmicky ways. If you can stomach the emo theme, which you most likely can if you’ve played other Square Enix games, this game is worth owning.

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