Incredibly boring

User Rating: 5 | Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days DS
I got Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (What an odd name) back in Christmas 2009, and I liked it, though I never finished it. I spent months where I didn't play it, only to have a week where I did play it, and it's not because I had so many games, the reason was basically that it was so boring, but I'll get to that in a bit.

Story
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
358/2 Days takes place over.... well 358 days. It's a midquel of sorts, taking place between Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2. You play as Roxas, a Nobody (people without hearts), who's joining a group of powerful Nobodies called Organization XIII, who's seeking to restore Kingdom Hearts, in order to regain their hearts, and their sorely needed on Roxas, because he has the power of the Keyblade. While in the Organization, Roxas becomes friends with one of the members Axel, and a new member called Xion, however things turns out to get very complicated...

And by complicated, I mean it's very, very complicated. If you haven't played the previous Kingdom Hearts games, you'll be lost in confusion... not that'll help much, since the series has always been pretty confusing. Not that you'll end up caring about anyone anyway. The characters are a bit cliché, with Roxas in particular being pretty stupid (not gonna spoil anything, but there is one scene where some person is disappearing due to him and that person fighting. The person have some emotional speech and all the Roxas says is "did I do this to you?"). The overall story arc is cliché too, though I do like how it leads into Kingdom Hearts 2.

The story is just one gigantic fan service, filled with eating-ice-cream-on-clock-tower moments and the like, and they're the only ones who'll enjoy the story.

5.0

Gameplay
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gameplay wise, it's still the Kingdom Hearts you've come to know and love, though the limitations of the Nintendo DS control scheme means a few changes. The most annoying is that you'll have to hold X, and then move the d-pad, in order to select items, magic and such, and it's not exactly the best thing to do, especially when you want to use magic at flying enemies.

But that's like only one bad change in a small sea of good changes. While you still gain experience, you have a panel system, where you place blocks with level ups, magic and so forth. It actually works really well, and is a welcome addition to the series, and welcomes a lot of customization for your character. There are also rewards given for completing missions again, with some special rules, like stronger monsters, etc.

Multiplayer is another addition too. The game features co-op multiplayer, which is separate from the story mode, but works well never the less.

It isn't a lot of changes, but it does make the game fun, and it shows that the Kingdom Hearts series can actually do well on the DS.... at least for a while. As the game goes on, it becomes pretty boring. This is mainly due to the fact, that you'll be visiting the same worlds over, and over again, and it's not even original worlds either, it's worlds that has been featured in past Kingdom Heart games, which is disappointing, and grows repetitive really quickly. Couple that with the enemies getting tougher, bosses' life bars growing and repetitive mission objectives, and you have a game that starts out really nicely, but gets incredibly boring. later on.

Which is especially bad when it's a long game. It takes around 30 hours to complete it, and by the 15 hour mark, I was deeply bored of the entire game, which is the reason why it took so long to finish it.

4.0

Graphics
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The game looks pretty good at least. The characters have a somewhat cartoony look, but they look pretty good, and the frame rate does keep it nice and smooth, though the frame rate did go down once or twice.

Sound
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sound on the other hand, isn't as good. The music has been shamelessly re-used from the past Kingdom Hearts games, and they grow repetitive really quickly, especially as their 1 minute loops. The voice acting doesn't fare much better either. The delivery is off at times, and the dialogue is a bid corny, especially Roxas's dialogue. But at least, it's the only portable game where you'll hear Christopher Lee, and that's always a plus.

5.0

Overall
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There isn't a lot to say about Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days really. While it does have one or two new things that's good, the game gets really boring as it goes on, and for me, that makes it a bad game, especially with a crappy story.