As soon as you hear the name “Final Fantasy”, you know it’s a Square-Enix title but what about “Subarashiki Kono Sekai”? You’ll have to have been reading your favourite gaming news media to know about this one. From the team behind the “Kingdom Hearts” games, SE’s latest RPG on the DS revolves around young Neku Sakuraba, a boy who one day finds himself part of the “Death God Game” in the busy streets of Shibuya in Japan. To survive the game, he’ll have to complete missions successfully over a 7 day period or be “erased”.

SE’s latest RPG contains many interesting features that set it apart from the traditional way these kind of games work. The first most notable feature of all is the “Cross Slide” dual battle system where you can control two characters simultaneously, each on a different screen of the DS. You control the bottom screen with stylus only and the top screen with either the D-Pad or XYAB buttons. It takes some getting used to so it’s no surprise the game allows you to set the top character on auto if it’s too much for you.


Control two characters at a time with the “Cross Slide Battle” system.

In battles, you fight monsters known as “Noise” by making use of a deck of “Badges” that you equip beforehand. Some of these badges take time to “Boot” before you can use them and even then, you can only use them so much before they have to “Reboot” and recharge. It’s a good way of giving players a bit of strategy. Only Neku can use these badges however and instead of tapping them to select which one you want to use, it all depends on how you use the stylus on the touch screen. For example, for the “Sword” badge you have to slide your stylus across enemies to slash at them or with the “Fire” badge, you have to slide about the ground to draw lines to fire. There are also the usual elements to give the battle system an extra degree of complexity.