The World Ends With You is now on iOS, or “Why You Should Never Get Excited About a Countdown”

Posted By: Michael Lacerna In: Gaming News, Handheld, Nintendo DS/3DS On: 27 Aug

The countdown clock on Square-Enix’s teaser website finally reached zero today and… well, I hope you’ve learned by now that these countdown websites never manage to live up to the hype, because Square just dropped one big, steaming anti-climax on the heads of The World Ends With You fans everywhere.

Fans originally speculated that the mysterious teaser site put up by Square — which played music from The World Ends With You and had the game’s distinctive, stylized version of the Shibuya skyline as a its background — would eventually reveal the first info on the oft-rumored sequel to Square’s cult favorite DS action RPG. Neglected fans of the game let their imaginations run wild with thoughts of a 3DS, Vita, or possibly even an HD WiiU sequel, but instead Square is giving us… a port of the original game on iPhone.

Now, I certainly don’t mind that more people will be able to play this under-the-radar modern classic, but it’s hard to not be disappointed when the big announcement that Square’s been teasing all week ends up just being a port of a 5 year old game.

The trailer leaves me with mixed emotions: at first I thought it would be great to see the game on an iPad’s retina display, but it looks like the developers just stretched the game from it’s original DS resolution without bothering to upscale the image or redraw the sprites. It might be nice to hear the game’s iconic soundtrack coming out of something other than the DS’ tinny speakers, though.

Anyway, the iOS version of The World Ends With You also reworks the battle system so that it all takes place on one screen, rather than the simultaneous dual-screen combat that the original game featured. I don’t have an iPhone or an iPad, so I haven’t been able to try out this version myself, but I am very curious to see if the battle system still works on a single screen. If you purchase the iOS port, please let us all know how it is in the comments section.

Meanwhile, I’m going to go figure out how to fix all the hopes and dreams of mine that Square-Enix just shattered. Maybe I’ll play TWEWY over again on my DS.

Source: Andriasang