Finally don't care

During a few conversations on Twitter, I realised that I no longer cared about future Final Fantasy titles being released.

I used to be a day one purchaser (from VII onwards when I had my own cash and knowledge of the series), so where did it all go wrong? I guess it started with XI, a little, when I knew I wouldn't be buying a MMPORPG, even if it did pretend to be Final Fantasy. Then XII was released and became the biggest Final Fantasy dissapointment to me since playing Final Fantasy II, right after finishing Final Fantasy I. I thought XIII might manage to draw me back in but all that seems to be is a long tutorial in sparkly destruction. So, unless it's remakes or things linked back to older games, I consider myself done with Final Fantasy.




Fortunately, Squeenix still get my money because of Kingdom Hearts, a franchise I really like, though I know it is sometimes childish. There's a "new" (been redesigned for DS, tweaked, new features etc.) game coming out soon called Kingdom Hearts Re:coded, which ought to be good, then that'll be followed up by Birth By Sleep, which has been anticipated since Kingdom Hearts II came out many years ago, then Tetsuya Nomura says he's also working on two other KH titles so they should keep me going really.

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Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days Review - DS

 Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is a DS RPG telling the story of Sora’s Nobody and Keyblade wielder, Roxas spending his time within a strong group of Nobodies who call themselves The Organization (often nicknamed Organization XIII) who have the intention of completing Kingdom Hearts to become real people once again, and fills in gaps during the GBA adventure Kingdom Hearts: Chain Of Memories as well as adding in multiplayer missions.

I previously blogged a few spoilers about the story here so if you just want to leap straight in to my pre-playing thoughts check that out.

StoryThe game starts from Roxas’ seventh day within The Organization and a new character, named Xion (pronounced She-On) who can also wield a Keyblade and collect hearts by defeating Heartless. There are some great unexpected twists within the story, though I was disappointed that the group who went to Castle Oblivion (the world played in Chain of Memories) are slain early on eliminating story missions alongside them.

Gameplay This is the first game of the Kingdom Hearts series to feature multiplayer and has a mission mode system for playing with friends. Alas, as none of my friends play Kingdom Hearts I haven’t been able to capitalize on this aspect of it. The main mode is the Story Mode where Saïx hands out varying missions to aid The Organization. Gameplay on this feels very much like Kingdom Hearts II, with the exception that you have a specific goal in mind when visiting each world. New types of Heartless appear to challenge you, and some such as the Dustflier are a real challenge.

Also introduced is the Panel System, which determines what you take with you on each mission, and what weapon and magic you carry. By gaining experience, your levels also fit on here too. You can find various Gears for your weapon to add on to your panels and then store these panels to use in multiplayer to give you an edge. Once you find a system that works, there’s little point in messing with it, until you gain a better Gear.

Graphics The graphics are okay for a DS, but in a similar fashion to how the cutscenes stunned me on the GBA for Chain of Memories, I am floored by how great it looks when we’re getting over forty minutes of beautifully detailed cutscenes, though after the start of the game, there’s a large gap before you see any more.

SoundtrackUnfortunately, this game heavily borrows from previous Kingdom Hearts titles for it’s music, only having a few original songs for new characters and the like, so it gets knocked down here.

Replayability Whilst playing through Story Mode again would be a waste (unless you gain extra achievements for finishing on Proud Mode) Mission Mode allows you to attempt previous missions and try to completely fill the mission gauge to gain all the extra things but unless you are a fan of the series you probably won’t want to 100% complete it.

Story: 7/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Graphics: 6.5/10
Soundtrack: 4.5/10
Replayability: 5/10

58%

• 0 – 19% Unplayable - why the hell did I even buy this?
• 20 – 49% Poor – Certain elements of the game hold it back
• 50 – 69% Average – More good than bad, but you might need to be a fan to really get in to it.
• 70 – 84% Good – A nice franchise or single game, that just misses out on being great because of a few flaws.
• 85 – 89% Excellent – You could play this for ages and be happy
• 90 – 100% Fucking Excellent – You should have this game and play it every single day.

Want me to review a game? Comment and let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

facebook vanity

You may be aware that facebook now offers up usernames for users, or vanity URLs as they have been called a lot. I thought I’d check and see if certain famous characters have been claimed by anybody as often happens when usernames first become available. If you do claim one, or know of one that’s gone, let me know. Let’s see, well know characters first.

• Batman – Nope, nothing
• Superman – No-one’s got this one either
• Wonder Woman – Nope, no luck with superheroes.

I’ll try some Pokémon now.

• Pikachu – Really, no-one has Pikachu?
• Magikarp – For some reason this directs me back to the homepage. One last try.
• Ditto – No luck here either. Maybe one more.
• Oddish – Finally, A HIT! I expected a friend of mine to have this, but he wasn’t as lucky.

Kingdom Hearts folks. Hmmm…Organization XIII?

• Roxas – Got one first try!
• Marluxia – That’s been claimed too.
• Luxord – That’s been claimed as well.
  I’m sure all the Kingdom Hearts characters names that can be claimed have been done.

That’s all I can be bothered to do. What’s your vanity URL, anything good? Seen any decent ones? Let me know.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days – Xion *spoilers*

So I couldn’t wait and ended up reading about Xion and a bit of the 358/2 Days storyline. So, as it says at the top, there’s spoilers in this.

So, Xion is a puppet created from Sora’s leaking memories by Xemnas. She resembles Kairi because of Sora’s strong memories of her. Then when Roxas defeats her, he absorbs her and is thus able to dual wield keyblades. Thus being why Sora can dual wield when Roxas is willingly absorbed by him.

Just…no. It sounds very stupid. However, were I describing that Roxas is the body & soul of Sora, born when he lost his heart to the darkness by choice. Or that Naminé is born of a blend of Sora & Kairi’s body and soul when Kairi’s pure heart restored Sora and is able to mess around with the memories of Sora and those close to him (i.e. party members, Riku, Kairi). These things do sound foolish in practice, but when you’ve played through, they do make sense.

Then, I learned that at some point, Xion (being created of memories and taking on many different forms) appears as Ventus from Birth By Sleep, which always seemed like the more interesting game to me. So now I’m pondering on how Sora, Xion, Kairi or Xigbar (who sees her/him as Ven) is/are related to a Keyblade Master of ten years past before any half of them even existed (Sora & Kairi were just kids, with Kairi still being at Hollow Bastion).

If you’re not confused, congratulations, you know your Kingdom Hearts stuff.