Following the announcement of NEO: The World Ends with You today, many fans took to social media to voice their excitement. The announcement of a sequel to The World Ends with You after 14 years is quite the surprise, to say the least.
Still, there are some social media users discussing aspects about the game that fans of the series aren’t too pleased with. A quick search for “Persona 5” on Twitter shows there are many people who saw similarities to Atlus' acclaimed title in NEO: The World Ends with You’s trailer, and some are disparaging Persona 5 fans.
A substantial group of Twitter users noted some of these details following the announcement, even making Persona 5 trend ahead of the new The World Ends with You title. This was in-part due to some users replying with condescending or disparaging memes aimed at those who were noting similarities between the two JRPGS.
In reality, comparisons between NEO: The Worlds Ends with You and Persona 5 are fairly superficial. Twitter users have pointed out aesthetic details like the way people in crowds fade in and out as the player walks by, or how the models have nondescript faces. Other users point out the similarities in location, as both JRPGs are set in Tokyo and heavily feature the Shibuya shopping district.
While it’s true that there are a handful of comparisons between the two that can be made, The World Ends with You plays very differently than Persona 5. From the brief glimpses shown in the announcement trailer, it looks like NEO: The World Ends with You won’t follow a traditional, turn-based JRPG gameplay style. However, it’s only natural that some fans will see the trailer and make comparisons to Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, which surpassed sales expectations across the board, sending the series from relative obscurity to near-mainstream popularity.
Fans knew that some sort of announcement surrounding The World Ends with You was on the horizon. Square Enix hosted a website counting down to the game’s announcement, and now that a trailer has dropped, fans of the original are no doubt watching it countless times to pick up every detail.
Still, it seems quite the storm is brewing among fans on Twitter. While some Twitter users claim NEO: The World Ends with You copied Persona 5, in reality certain aspects of the game’s aesthetic may have simply been inspired by Persona 5. Regardless, fans of The World Ends with You have a lot to look forward to with this new sequel and an anime adaptation of the original title coming next spring.
NEO: The World Ends with You will release on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in summer 2021.