The gaming nation may have relocated to Liberty City, but another pixilated metropolis is accepting new citizens in Square-Enix’s insta-cult-classic RPG, The World Ends With You. But rather than relying on a thinly-veiled NYC, World is set in real Tokyo’s trendiest district Shibuya.

Having been there myself, and been jaw-dropped by the futuristic appearance of the area’s signature Shibuya Girls, the 'hood is halfway to a videogame already.

You play Neku, an angsty teen graffiti artist who never removes his headphones (his awesome playlist includes hip-hop, techno and J-Pop) and suddenly finds himself in an alternate-reality Tokyo. The mysterious Reapers have trapped Neku—along with fellow teens Beat, Rhyme, Shiki, and Joshua—in some sort of game-within-a-game that must be won by week's end or they will all be erased from existence. Luckily, in Shibuya wearing the coolest clothes can help you survive by boosting stats. Keep an eye on who's wearing what. Different styles and brands are more popular in different areas, though winning battles in an unfashionable outfit or lame accessories will make you a trendsetter.

Being so fixated on being cool should have been the kiss of death. Videogames, no matter how widely played, are still found firmly in the geek column. Mario games have never professed otherwise and even if Mass Effect and Halo 3 would like to be considered cool, they’re hampered by their hard sci-fi settings. Even Rock Band and Guitar Hero rely on classic rock, not cutting-edge tunes.

GTA IV “seems” cool—and, OK, the soundtrack totally is—but its immigrant crime saga ain't hip like, say, a Tarantino picture and when fashion designer Marc Ecko aimed for the cool kids with his much-heralded graffiti game Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, it simply never caught on.

In fact, among the only truly hip games I can recall off the top are No More Heroes, which knowingly mocked its own hipness, and the old Sega game Jet Set Radio and its sequel, which also partly took place in Shibuya and clearly influenced the stylized art design of World Ends With You. What these games all have in common is that they are unabashedly, unapologetically Japanese (even NMH, despite its California setting).

Generally, pop-cult products that specifically aim for hip and edgy miss by a country mile. So maybe it's because Japan’s fashion-forward street culture is so foreign to North Americans that these games can avoid coming off like a try-hard Mountain Dew ad. Or perhaps the Japanese are kinda cooler than us. Tough call.