World’s End Club is the debut game of Too-Kyo games which comprises of ex-Daganronpa and ex-999 visual novel developers in collaboration with Grounding.
The game is a 2D platformer mixed with puzzle solving elements with a linear gameplay. It follows the typical death game plot but oriented to a younger audience. The artist of the game is TAKE who also did the art for Zaregato.
The story focuses on a group of kids that go by “the go getters” who find themselves on a cross country journey to find out why has Japan been desolated and in a post-apocalyptic setting. The story themes mainly focus on friendship and teamwork and how the characters grow as the overcome various challenges. Each character has their own issue but hope and friendship helps them to succeed. The story was inspired by The Goonies and IT. The music is cheerful and upbeat and the dialogue was interesting and entertaining. You can choose the voice acting dubs.
After each level is completed, you can choose where you want to go. The story impacts the game and you have to play multiple times to unlock all the characters abilities and reach the true ending. The characters have their own special abilities and you unlock more of them on each playthrough of the game. Enemies are one hit kills which can be super annoying. In the game, you can collect stickers which also adds into the replay value.
The graphics looked really good and the background designs were very nicely done. The animation on the other hand was somewhat repetitive. The control system was pretty straight forward and the user interface looked really slick
You can also interact with your friends during camp sessions in between levels and cutscenes during the game. The puzzles in the game were too easy and should have been more challenging.
The game was overall pretty decent start for Too-Kyo games.
It gets 4 out of 5 stars.
And oh happy anniversary to the site!!