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.

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.