Death's Door Prods

Square Enix Announces The World Ends With You: Solo Remix

Last week Square launched a site teasing a new The World Ends With You thing. Some people thought it was a sequel, but Square then squashed those dreams when they accidentally released a CD early that mentioned an iOS version of the 2007 JRPG. The album was quickly removed and the leak has been made official.

The World Ends With You: Solo Remix is a remake of the original game that released today, August 27th, on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. It will follow the same story of TWEWY, where a kid named Neku is forced into a challenge on the streets of Shibuya where he must fight for his life with the help of a partner, the first one being Shiki.

One of the more unique aspects of the original game was the combat system. Players controlled Neku with the stylus and touchscreen, tapping or dragging the stylus around to move and swiping or drawing to unleash attacks. Meanwhile, the second character was on the top screen and controlled with the d-pad or face buttons. If you used the correct sequence of attacks with the partner you would gain access to a Fusion attack which gave you some health back and dealt massive damage to the enemies on screen.

Since none of the iDevices have two screens, players will control both characters on one screen. Movement will be controlled by tapping or dragging your finger across the screen and attacks are unleashed by swiping or drawing. It also sounds like players will be able to just control Neku and have the partner AI controlled or take control of them both if they feel up to the challenge.

Fusion moves are also no longer charged by using the correct attack sequence. Players will charge up the Fusion attack by attacking enemies with Neku and his partner at the same time or by using certain items. Then, depending on your partner, you will play a little minigame to determine the attack’s strength. With Shiki, the first partner, players will match cards together. With Beat, the second partner, players will remove cards from a sequence to get matching suits. With Joshua, the third and final partner, players will tap the cards in the correct numerical sequence, being careful to avoid backwards numbers.

Every art asset and animation has been redone for this remake, as well. The game will be available in full HD on Retina display devices, like the iPhone 4.

The game’s original composer, Takeharu Ishimoto, returns for the remake. The remake will feature a 60 track soundtrack, including all the original songs, some remixes and some completely new songs.

Let’s not forget about social shit. Each player will now be able to construct their own personal avatar for their game. They will still be playing as Neku, but the avatar will be used for trading. Players will be able to trade their avatars with other players, resulting in your avatar appearing in their Shibuya and their avatar appearing in yours. If they’ve synced their Twitter accounts with their avatars, when you scan them you will see their most recent Tweets.

All that kind of stupid sound social shit aside, this does seem like a really cool remake. It will be interesting seeing how they adapt the combat system around only having one screen. You can check out the game’s official website here.

The World Ends With You: Solo Remix is available today on iPhone and iPod Touch for $17.99 and on iPad for $19.99.

Below, you can check out the launch trailer for the game.

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