Minor But Still - Tumblr Posts
I especially love what Bravery says about the male characters and their gender expression. Joshua's BRV and the requirements for his favorite clothing brand sit in the 40-60 range, whereas by the time you get Beat as a partner, he'll start at like... maybe 20. Which is pitiful compared to what the protagonist Neku will be at by then if you've been grinding properly.
(For comparison, Neku starts at 15 or so and none of his favorite brand's clothes crack a requirement of 40. Shiki, the aforementioned female character, starts at like 110.)
It's cool as heck to have this numerical gameplay stat so closely tied to their individual characters!
The way The World Ends With You handles equipment-gating ends up having some very fun implications.
First, equipment is level-gated, but rather than being tied directly to character level, it's instead tied to a levellable stat called Bravery (BRV) – which makes some narrative sense, since equipment in The World Ends With You consists of fashion items; in narrative terms, you're literally building the confidence to pull them off.
Second, equipment is also gender-gated, at least in theory – but since there's all of one playable girl in the original game (the sequel is better about this), rather than building in any special mechanics for this, the game just gives all of the "for girls" clothing inflated BRV requirements, and the sole playable girl a massive starting BRV score.
In practice, this achieves its objective, for the most part. The inflated BRV for girls' clothing means that even once a male character reaches the BRV level required to wear it, he'll usually have access to gender-conforming options with better stats.
... in the main game.
In the post-game, however, there are many more options for grinding BRV, and the stats for girls' clothing start to get more in line with their elevated BRV requirements, to the extent that many post-game optimisation guides genuinely recommend putting your entire party in maid dresses if you can grind out the BRV to equip them.
I thought that was something this blog's followership would appreciate.
