I've been tracking The World Ends With You since we were all calling it It's a Wonderful World, because the exaggerated urban designs and early trailers teased something interesting. It still does, but hands-on impressions coming out of the first outing for a playable English build aren't so great. Stephen Totilo at MTV's Gamefile has the skinny on it:
Picture this set of challenges for a single battle: The sharks and jellyfish are attacking. The lower-DS-screen character is armed with a few attacks of his own, selected from a much larger armory. Tapping the screen makes him shoot fireballs; slicing at the screen launches spikes of ice. The top-screen character is under attack at the same time. That character's fighting moves are triggered with button presses on the DS directional pad, a series of taps that move a cursor through a small field of playing-card icons. Highlighting the best sequences of cards generates better attacks. Both the bottom and top screens require the player's viewing attention. The player could set the DS to control the top-screen action for them, but wouldn't that be against this game's future-is-now experience?
