World's End Club is a brand new death game going to the Nintendo Switch in May. First, however, curious players can browse the World’s End Club’s hour or so long demo ahead of its launch, which promises thrills, chills, mysteries, and more importantly, twists!
World's End Club was developed by Too Kyo Games, that is helmed by Danganronpa series writer Kazutaka Kodaka. In Japan, the title is being published by IzanagiGames. Globally, the title has been made by NIS America, noted for Disgaea, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel series, and visual novels like Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness. Excitingly, Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi (Zero Escape Series) is going to be teaming up for this brand new death game full of action, platforming, and plenty and a lot of twisty plot!
World’s End Club follows the Go-Getters Club, a group of charming teenage misfits hailing throughout Japan who find themselves held in a strange, underwater amusement park one day. Unfortunately for them, they will not make it to their class trip to Kamakura. Instead, they meet Pielope, a mysterious mascot character-esque who forces these to play a “Game of Fate.” So what's the kicker, you ask? Well, this “Game of Fate” is a bet on life- or death! The Go-Getters will have their friendships tested as they explore this colorfully horrific story and try to escape- or else!
From the beginning, World's End Club is a superb demo. Players have two difficulty levels to choose from: easy and normal. The game also was localized into 17 different languages for the subtitles. Each one is playable within the demo. They range from three dialects of English-American, British, and Australian-to many other languages such as Turkish, Korean, Cantonese, and many more. However, the voice acting is less robust: players get to listen to the Go-Getters’s voice actors in either Japanese or English.
Once you have your settings squared away, players are dropped into a side-scrolling platformer that's pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, this is when World's End Club begins to falter, because the controls aren't always responsive and feel a bit sticky sometimes. This could sometimes make characters glitch and repeat actions. For instance, if you don't jump far enough or keep the momentum, characters might glitch into climbing up and down platforms within the opening. That being said, I expect such things as this is patched out fairly early on. Thankfully, that isn't enough to hamper your curiosity as the plot takes over and the story supplies you with back to the very start of the way the Go-Getters end up playing a death game for his or her literal lives.
World's End Club is gorgeous, full stop. It's vividly colored and sometimes helped me consider the anime Akudama Drive, which creator Kazuta Kodaka also had a hand in. There's this neat seapunk aesthetic within the amusement park that serves as the setting for the time in the demo. It's a very cool backdrop for the time with Reycho, our silent protagonist, and the remaining Go-Getters Club.
The demo could be wrapped up in about an hour, give or take. And actually, which comes into play as you're on a timer once the game really takes over. Thankfully, World's End Club's in-game timer does stop should you place your Switch to sleep. So you won't return and discover your time in the “Game of Fate” prematurely ended. Instead, you can pick up your gameplay right from in which you left off. I really appreciated that as timers can occasionally hinder and harm a demo a lot more than help.
As much as I enjoyed my time with World's End Club, I couldn't help but compare this demo to Danganronpa, probably the most popular death game video game franchises globally. The comparison isn't helped because Danganronpa is directly tied to Kazuta Kodaka, who became quite well-known beyond Japan specifically for that franchise. It feels cruel to World's End Club a rip-off of the popular series, but in many ways, there's a lot of similarities. Chalk up to Kodaka staying at the helm, though don't hold it against him.
Thus far, World's End Club is a neat game with many charming elements, even if it's kind of straightforward. Fans from the death game genre will most likely guess some plot points pretty quickly. This might or might not be a letdown, with respect to the kind of player you're. Still, World's End Club has incredibly cute art, bright colors, along with a neat world to understand more about. Hopefully, the bigger story beyond the demo will be more robust to ensure that fans of titles like Danganronpa, 999, Gnosia, or perhaps games like A.I.: The Somnium Files won't have any buyer's remorse. I'm certainly eager to get a copy and find out the larger story personally.
The World's End Club demo can be obtained now, as the full game will release on May 28, 2023, for the Nintendo Switch. It is going to be available physically and digitally.
