Full disclosure: My best friend works at Rose City Games. That being said: I was able to test this game pre-release and loved it enough to get a copy on Switch. Here we go.
You'll like this game if you are looking for a solid visual novel with characters who actually come off as real teens (see very below for more on them). You'll like it if you want beautiful artwork (Lord Gris is kinda-sorta fantastic) and you'll like it if you dig a good, chill soundtrack. I also need to point out that the battle system has all the potential to be something crazy good; properly adrenalizing a match-em-up puzzle format is no easy task.The music is great. My dirty hipster-heart wants it on cassette. Well done, Andrew Matteson.
The art, again, is beautiful and you should be throwing money at Lord Gris (https://www.instagram.com/lord_gris/).
More stuff now:
The World Next Door is, at its core, a visual novel. There's more story than puzzle combat - though Rose City is rumored to be adding a much needed VS mode. Crazy stoked about that! You'll spend the game getting to know Jun (best girl, if you were wondering), and her cast of ephemeral homies (kids still say that, right? Homies? Moving on). Writing believable teenage characters tends to be a challenge, but Alex Atkins and their crew do a wonderful job of making honest to goodness humans...monsters...people. Anyway...
The Nitpick:
You meet a LOT of characters and while they're well drawn and get some okay dialogue, they tended to feel like an "almost." I'm specifically talking about the non-main characters, the bulk of the student body littered about the world. They're all well designed. They all felt a tad hollow. On the high side, they made me want to get to know them more. I never really felt like they were a proper part of the world but that's asking a lot to have each and every one of them fleshed out. There simply isn't the time and resources to create side/back stories for each of them, which kinda-sorta leads into my next critique.Items. So what? Good gravy do the items not matter (for the most part). One of your characters is a pyro (Horace is best boy, if you were wondering). Spoiler: he gives you a lighter at some point. It does nothing. As far as I can tell, it doesn't boost your fire magic, nor does it unlock a new ending, nor does Jun (that's you) light up and take the edge off. I wager that most of the items you get are there for sentimental reasons, rather than functional, but this is a game and I have a lizard brain; item = buff or item = something else happens. Outside of the key items to progress the game, your items don't really have a function. Yes, you could argue that advancing the story of a random side character who in no way benefits you is a function. It's not.
Aki-dearest... It was random. Kinda cute. Sure. You'll see.
There are a couple of minor differences in the endings. Yes. Plural. And they're fine. They're a bit abrupt. One makes more sense than the others. It's evident that there are plans for a sequel in one of the endings, with some sudden some-such being shoehorned in, and I have my qualms about some of the story direction here and there, but it's not enough to make me even remotely dislike the story. Mainly because I love the main characters.
And there it is: the characters. I really like the tweaks in formula for the combat. The art makes me legitimately happy. I truly love the characters. I care when they have lines of dialogue, it effects me when they screw up (and they do, boy-oh). I want to get to know them as people and see where their adventures take them. I think there's a real opportunity here for the Rose City team to expand this universe, especially if they build that universe properly around their characters. But not around Nana. You must kill Nana with fire! Thank me later. It's not that she's a bad character, it's that I swear I hear her outside of my window, beyond the turn of every corner. She's just there...waiting... But everyone else is great! I said that you don't really get to know all of the side characters, and that remains true, however what little you get does feel real, albeit short-lived. Your main characters are well thought out and believable and while I might not love everyone equally, that is simply due to not agreeing with them as characters, rather than not thinking they were well written. I still find myself wanting to know more, wanting to dive deeper into the World Next Door universe because of these characters above all else. 
