13 Most Anticipated 2021 Video Games Ranked - Did They Live Up To The Hype?

Judging by its terrible sales, NEO The World Ends With You is the one game on this list you're least likely to have played. If that's true - ooh, you lucky so-and-so! You get to go in fresh on one of the most heartwarming, uplifting games of the past few years.

Sequel to the 2008 cult classic The World Ends With You, NEO follows the formula set out by its prequel. To wit, a group of achingly fashionable teens must navigate an alternate, monster-filled version of Shibuya to win the ominously named "Reaper's Game".

So far so anime, but NEO excels in drawing the player into its bizarre little world. Despite their almost off-puttingly trendy character designs, the playable cast of NEO are an immensely likeable bunch whose growing camaraderie and bonhomie provides the backbone to 2021's greatest feel-good tale. If you're not punching the air after felling the final boss, you need to check if someone's surgically removed your joy glands.

And thanks to the game's stellar combat, that fight (and all the ones preceding it) will be an absolute delight to play through. NEO's psychedelic, gloriously chaotic battles, backed up by the best soundtrack of the year, would warrant buying the game even if the story was just a text screen stating "GO THERE, HIT THEM".

NEO is an astonishing achievement - a sequel released thirteen years after the original that improves on it in every way, but remains true to the generosity of spirit that made the first game a cult classic.

And on that note...