If one thing has become readily apparent a year into the DS's life, it's that many developers continue to be uneasy with its defining features. The least among them threat either additionallscreen as window dressing, filling it with sparse design and at best a thumd-sized secondary function button, eager to give at least the appearance of proper innovation.
Creditably, it's apparent that Clover has truly taken the opportunities that the hardware provides to heart, and has integrated them into the design document, rather than exploiting them as cheap afterthought. More overtly puzzle-based than its predecessors, this time around Joe has been endowed with new tactile VFX powers : scratching an enemy rains rocks and pod lids down on them from the sky, slide replace zoom, as you swap the close-up above for the one below, and split shifts the top half of your current view a full width either left or right. And in the game's thoughful and deliberately designed moments , all of these touchscreen innovations work brillantly, with the latter the mose rewarding when it suddenly clicks that a seemingly just-out-of-reach exit can simply be pulled closer for easy access.
All DS game developers have had to grapple with the fact there simply is no smooth transition from traditional D-pad and buttons to touchscreen control, escpecially with ankward stylus fumblings, and Double Trouble plays a dangerous game in integrating the two as tightly as it does. In standard combat it can largely be written off as a non-issue for those not attempting viewtiful kills, but heated boss battles in particular continually run the risk of devolving into whimpering, desperate thumb-smudging paroxyms. In most cases, cheaper strategies and slow-motion feints are still easily at hand, but with text cues for tactile attacks weaving and bobbing around your foe, it can feel like taunting punishment for less dexterous hands.
Trying as they might be, though, these maddening moment are far enough between to be only a minor blemish on an otherwise fantastic portable action game. Double Trouble retains all of the style and pose of the originals, its cardboard cutout environments are an espacially perfect fit for the DS's lesser 3D capabilities, and it manages to maintain a steady rhythm between action and puzzle, with neither threathing to overshadow the other. Like Battle Carnival, Double Trouble is definitely no substitute for the real thing, but it is a very viewtiful facsimile. [7]
