This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to receive It's A Wonderful World in the mail from Play-Asia and have spent a small amount of time with the game due to real world issues conflicting. I'm going to refrain from mentioning anything regarding the game's plot and not mention enough gameplay mechanics, since that's to be mentioned in a later (full) posting of It's A Wonderful World impressions, I will make mention of some key things a majority of you may already know.
It's A Wonderful World is a very heavy stylus based DS game that makes use of both screens on the DS in a very interesting manner. The upper screen is used primarily as an artwork display of where you are in the game. In battle, the upper screen is used to show your partner and displays the attacks available to him/her by making use of the d-pad. Yes, that's right; when engaged in battles, Neku's attacks are all stylus based. By equipping badges you earn from defeating foes, you provide Neku with different physical and elemental attacks. All of your partner's attacks are inputted by directional commands on the d-pad. Your partner can attack automatically on his/her own whenever you're too focused on fighting with Neku; but a majority of the time, you have to monitor both Neku's attacks and your partner's attacks.
Also, the same amount of monsters shown in Neku's screen are also shown in your partner's screen. For example, when Neku defeats one of the two enemies on his screen, that same defeated enemy will disappear on your partner's screen and vice versa. Since you only have real time control with Neku, moving around the battlefield with the stylus is a necessity to avoid Neku being defeated.
Check back for full impressions very soon.
