Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is the 4th game (5th if you count the ps2 remake of Chain of Memories) in the Kingdom Hearts series. It was released for the Nintendo DS, and follows the story of Roxas before and leading up to KH2.
The plot itself is an interesting inside look at Organization XIII and its members, which at the antagonists of the previous Kingdom Hearts games. The game begins a few days after Roxas has come into existence (during KH1), and follows his life for roughly a year after that point. As Roxas is adopted as member 13 of the organization, he has a lot of interaction with the other members and we learn the back-story of these characters.
The game itself attempts to play like Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 in combat and platforming aspects, unlike the previous hand held title Chain of Memories. The game also adopts a mission based system where Roxas must undertake missions in order to advance the date and progress through the day. Each mission has a different objective and can place in a number of the worlds that we’ve played through in previous Kingdom Hearts titles.
The DS top screen is the gameplay screen, and the bottom screen is your map and mission info. You can use the touch screen to move the camera around, but that’s about all the touch control there is.
Some missions you undertake alone, but for others you may be assigned a computer controller partner. The mission’s objectives themselves vary, but for the most part are seek out and destroy all heartless. The game features a mission progress bar to show how much of the mission you’ve completed, and when you reach a certain point you’ll be able to return to the castle and end the mission, but there are usually hidden enemies or other objectives that will fill that progress bar to full and get you more experience/hearts/items for completing the mission. Each mission also has a set number of chests to find. The game keeps track of how many you’ve found in the mission, but there are a lot of times when you can’t get the items because your backpack is full, which leads to some annoying item management action during missions.
Each day in the game has optional and/or required missions. You can advance the day by completing all required missions, but optional missions can be played at any time to help you level up. You can also replay any mission you’ve already completed if you want to hunt for missed chests or just gain more XP.
The new panel system is how you customize your character. It’s an interesting approach; you get a panel with a set number of free spaces and can load it up with anything you have. You can add items, so that you can easily use them from your menu, equip spells or enhancements to upgrade your keyblade. You can even equip new skills from here. Some items are linkable so you can customize them further by adding other things beside them. It’s an interesting approach.
Aside from the story mode the game also features a mission mode which can be played alone or with up other players over wifi. You can select from a multitude of characters to control in this mode including all of Organization XIII. The mission mode is much like the single player missions, except in multiplayer mode you’ll be working together or competing for the top spot against other players. In competitive mode the winner will get more rewards for completing the mission. This is a neat multiplayer concept, and if you have some friends with the game as well, I suggest you try it out. It’s nice that it’s in addition to the game and not just the same missions so it does extend the play time a bit.
While I really dig the story because it’s an important missing link in Kingdom Hearts lore, and the mission based gameplay because it’s great for portable gaming, the controls are probably my biggest problem with the title. You can customize two aspects of the controls. By default the X button loops through the (attack, magic, item) menu and submenus, you can switch this so that you can hold X and use the D-pad to move through the menu, but that’s a disaster in the middle of a battle. Also by default the right trigger will center the camera behind you and the left trigger accesses your shortcut menu. You can change that so that left trigger rotates the camera left, and right rotates it right. Pressing both together brings up the shortcut menu.
The game looks great for a DS games, but it is trying really hard to play like the ps2 versions of the games, and that just isn’t possible on a DS. The control pad moves your character, but even though it’s a 3d game it still feels like 8-way 2d movement. Unless you’re holding up, Roxas’ movements just aren’t fluid, and he doesn’t move like you’d expect him to. The best way to move around I’ve found is to just use up and use the right and left triggers to move the camera since Roxas will turn along with the camera. It’s kind of a pain, but it gives you the best control. However on a DSi with its lowered d-pad and smaller triggers any way you control this game will kill your hand after a while.
All in all Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is a great game, but it’s definitely not as fun as the console versions. If you hated the card based gameplay of Chain of Memories this is definitely easier to get into. The story is great, and the multiplayer is fun. The only problems I have are the controls and you’ll get used to them. If you’re a Kingdom Hearts fan than I suggest you pick up this game. If you haven’t played the previous games then I recommend giving those a chance first.
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