NintendObs Thinks: Recommending Neo The World Ends with You.
An anti-review if you will. My first here on NintendObs Dailies.
A few weeks ago I fell really ill. Though it also was a flu-like illness, it wasn’t the ‘rona, it was something that always happens to me if I don’t pay attention when the spring or summer begins and all of a sudden temperatures in my area go from shirtless hot in the daytime to blanket cold in the nighttime. Since it was the end of July I refused to turn on the heater at night out of principle. Wrong move: I ended up having to turn it on all day long for nearly two weeks as a result. I was coughing and coughing with this dreadful feeling in my throat that finally went away, and given my medical background the sickness gave me depressing thoughts the kinds I never wanted to face again.
Neo The World Ends with You really helped me go through this. And to some extent it’s actually a lucky coincidence that I fell that ill before playing the game because… I realized I actually don’t play that much. I prefer working on this Substack to playing videogames honestly, work over play, simply because to me leisure feels best when I feel like I deserve it. I mean, relieving my stress just feels better when there is an actual stress to be relieved. This time however, I had to flip it around. In order to make my recovery better, play had to become work to keep my spirits lifted, and work had to become play in order to remain grounded in a sense of meaning. (And of course, because I’m adamant about keeping NintendObs Dailies true to its name no matter what happens with a new article every single day.)
Without this experience, I probably would have not finished the game with an 80% completion rate in two weeks. Without this context, I know for sure I would have not been playing an average of 10 hours a day of a videogame ever at the peak of my illness, something gamers more dedicated than me can do easily in their off days. It sure was not how I expected to experience my game of the summer but in retrospect, I’m really glad I did, and I’m really glad it is Neo The World Ends with You that I chose to play. Beating this game that night and day when I finally got better is something I will always cherish and never forget. So before I get into the game itself, this is where I’m coming from. From a game that I not only enjoyed to the fullest, but a game that pretty much also saved my morale when it was most attacked.