Released April 2008 for Nintendo DS systems, this game sold 43,000 units in the first 2 weeks at ~40$ a pop.  Previously known as Subarashiki Kono Sekai on its release in Japan.  Its clear how it it takes major influence from Japan's modern day culture including its people, music, clothes, food and design. This one was made by SquareEnix and developed by Jupiter (According to Gamefaqs).  Jupiter is known for a previous game Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memory.  This game is a bit difficult to get a hold of, but once you do, it is an excellent game.

Story:

You character Neku Sakaruba starts off at Scramble Crossing in Shibuya Japan minding his own business.  The semi-emo protaganist suddenly gets a message on his cell phone.  The message reads “Reach the 10-4 building. You have 60 minutes. Fail and face Erasure. - the Reapers".  He immediately assumes that this is spam and deletes it, but the message does not disappear.  A timer appears on his hand counting down from 60 minutes, behind him is a large screen that reads “You have 7 Days!”.   You confused yet?   Well prepare to be even more so.  These “tattoo designs” spawn some creatures and Neku is forced to run.  THEME SONG! (OMG can't skip. believe me I tried).  He runs to the left and reaches a new area where the pedestrians are absorbed by the “tattoo designs”.  A woman runs up to him and demands that he form a pact with her.  He does and Neku can fight off the creatures, the Noise. A few tutorial battles occur and you discover the woman's name, Shiki Masaki .  Then you head over to the 10-4 building and fall asleep. 

Game Play:

Now, I bet you are saying,”What the hell is going on?”  Well, I can't say much.  But I can say this, you need a partner, erasure is bad, the time does not mean real time, and there are so many twists and turns.  I can also describe the battle system.  This is not easy to do, but here goes.  The game uses both of the screens, the bottom is Neku's, the top is your partner's.  Neku uses pins with different effects.  For example, one pin lets you create fire on the ground by pressing the stylus empty space.  Another example is a slash across the enemy, Neku moves in and attacks.  There are numerous pins and they all have a specific brand (brands will be covered later).  The ways they are executed also vary; shouting/blowing into the microphone, slashing across enemy vertically/horizontally, tapping the screen, drawing circles, etc.  When I played, I rarely changed the pins I was using, the set I had let me take down any opponent. Brands play an important part in battle. The brands allow some pins to become stronger.  For example, in a certain area,”Pavo Real” is the brand in the top slot.  The strength of a “Pavo Real” brand pin will be increased or decreased depending on the pins' position in the ranking.  The ranking is shown in the phone menu.  At some points in the game, the brands of the pins is EXTREMELY important. 

Battle System: 

In an area known as “Pork City” (Japan is weird), Neku can only use pins that fit the requirements set forth by Pork City i.e.  If the requirement is Pegaso, then you can only use the Pegaso brand pins in battle.  Off the top of my head, other brands include but are not limited to: Tigre Punks, Jupiter of the Monkey, Pegaso, Pavo Real, D+B, Lapin Angelique.  Your partner uses the Directional pad or the ABXY for lefty's.  Shiki has to match cards, the 2nd partner plays Hi-Lo, 3rd matches card suits.  The real problem with the battle system is that you have to constantly switch your view between the top and bottom screens.  Fortunately, you can let the computer take over for your partner and let you worry about controlling Neku.

Overview:

The game is basically linear.  The gameplay goes like this; Wake up somewhere-> get the mission-> do the mission-> fall asleep.  One other interesting aspect of the game is that it lets you choose your difficulty and level.  By changing the level, you lose Max HP but the spoils from the battle become greater as will the experience.  Changing the difficulty makes the battles a lot harder, but the spoils and experience increase.  This game is deep and it has a very high replay value.  Replaying the game lets you unlock secret reports that reveal information about the game.

Review:

Despite the battle system that pisses me off to no end, it is still an excellent game and I HIGHLY recommend picking it up. This game gets a 4.99 out of 5.

Zero Punctuation Review: most halarious 

To those who pick up the game, use this site for more data about the game and it shows all the pins.