Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days - review

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, a game for the Nintendo DS, is the fourth story installment for the Kingdom Hearts series. It follows the story of Roxas, which (if you had played Kingdom Hearts II all the way through) is Sora's Nobody, or basically a form of Sora that doesn't have a heart. Event-wise, it takes place during the year in-between Kingdom Hearts I and II, Starting at nearly the same time as Chain of Memories.

Although the story is about Roxas, it focuses on three individuals in particular: Axel, Roxas, and Xion, all members of Organization XIII, which is a group consisting of the most powerful nobodies amongst all the known worlds. The focus particularly is about their friendship and their attempt to maintain it, regardless of the other forces at hand.

The story itself is one similar to any of the other Kingdom Hearts games: it starts off simple, mostly just figuring out how to play; but it becomes very long, especially if you want to do all the side missions and stories.

From left to right: Axel, Roxas and Xion.

Gameplay follows the pattern similar to other Kingdom Hearts games, too. 3D environment, lock-on, use magic and different keyblades to defeat foes.

Differences from the other games in the title series make this a new animal to tackle, too. You don't just level up. It is in the game, yes, but it is treated differently. You are alloted slots, and everything that you would use in the game will take up at least one slot, depending on the power of the item. The items are called panels, and there is a panel for everything. You want to level up? Gain enough experience from defeating enemies, then put the level panel you obtain into a slot, as an example.

A big difference in game mechanics that I liked was the Keyblades themselves. Different keyblades not only looked different (obviously), but they were used differently. Some blades would have a small amount of hits per round but deal typically a great deal of damage, while others had long chains of hits per round, but deal little to moderate damage. Additionally, those chains would be assigned to use on ground only or in air only. You could attack either on ground or in the air regardless, but you could only do the chain on one of them.

And another difference, which I think was the biggest and best, was the introduction of multiplayer. Up to four people can play together on a mission, each person initially being able to play any member of the organization. Then, when you get to certain parts of the game or unlock specific parts of the game, other characters become available to play in multiplayer, from Donald or Goofy to King Mickey to even Sora himself.

A screenshot of the multiplayer system on the game.

Score: 4 out of 5

The game was good. Very good. I had no real complaint with the control scheme or even the panel system. Rotating the camera was semi-difficult at first, but I quickly adapted to that.

The story was also good. It answered most of the questions I had that had arisen when going through both Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II. Some other questions arose, but will most likely be answered by the next installment in the Kingdom Hearts series, known as Birth by Sleep.

The main issue I had was the amount of time it took to beat the game. I know, it had to complete a whole year within the game, but some of the missions were difficult, and if you wanted to do all of the side quests and unlock as much as you could, you would need to put in nearly triple the amount of hours. I am aware that Kingdom Hearts games take a while to beat, but I put a lot more time into this game than I originally intended.

Still, it is a good game. It is a must-have for anyone who is a fan of Kingdom Hearts, and will answer most of the questions you had about the series.


~Koubo