While I was sleeping… this game happened
So what's wrong with KH 358/2 and what's right about it?
Presentation and Storytelling:
The story takes place right after the original Kingdom Hearts and before Kingdom Hearts II. It is a story about friendship, love, and betrayal. You will take a role of Roxas, the protagonist of KHII, as an organization member and work for them for 358 days. During that time you will find out what happened to Sora, the main protagonist of the series, and how they will make him recover. You will also have interaction with other characters along the way, but let's not spoiler too much shall we.
The story is very good for the most part but it suffers from a very slow and annoying progression and sometimes you feel confused and lost.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2's presentation is phenomenal; from the main menu of the game to the cut-scenes it's all beautiful. Even the in-game segments of the game feel like an old-school RPG game.
Score: 8/10
Despite the good story and the beautiful presentation of the game, the slow-progression storytelling can be a pain while playing the game and on top of that making the playing falls in confusion doesn't help either.
Characters:
There are a lot of characters in this game. There are the organization's character which is 13 characters. The world's characters but they take no main role in the story, they only play a small role of the world they live in and that's it.
You will also meet some old friends from previous entries like Riku, Pete, Diz and Namine and they have big part of the story except for Pete which is put just for comic relief.
The whole story focus on the three friends, Roxas, Xion and Axel " from KHII"
As the story develops slowly, so does the characters' development. I think it's because of how the story is told. You'll have hard time figuring out what's got into some characters and why they're doing this and that.. and so on.
Score: 9/10
Gameplay Mechanics:
The gameplay doesn't add up features to the KH mechanics. It's the same gameplay as KH fans know and love, Hack and Slash role-playing style. However, there are minor new changes in the gameplay.
You still level up by experience points but there is the new feature which the panel. There are slots for each magic, weapon, items and even the Level you gain for experience. There is nothing such as specific slots for magic or weapons, you have to organize everything according to your liking. That's good at the beginning but as you move on, you will have hard time putting everything you want and that's
in-battle gameplay, it's simple and it's like any other Kingdom Hearts games.
A is the action button. Attack, open, talk, and examine.
X is the command menu button which lets you choose commands from the menu.
Y is for blocking and dodging enemies' attacks
B is for jumping.
R locks on enemies and readjusts the camera.
L is for magic/item shortcuts + all buttons.
The gameplay in general works fine but the camera is flunky and controls are so clunky. Truth to be told, putting a PS2-level gameplay mechanic in a limited hardware was a touch challenge for Square Enix and the game is suffering from it.
Aside from the story mode, there is the mission mode that lets you go solo or with friends. You will have missions from the story if you collect the unity badges from the story mode and you will have the multiplayer's missions as well.
Score: 7.5/10
Graphics:
When you first look at the game, it's gorgeous. But you will notice downed resolution in the game because of the 3D engine graphics that was used for it. The in-game segments are nice, but the CG scenes are beautiful and it shows that DS was pushed to its very limits with this one.
But what I'm not happy about is the worlds. There are no atmospheric feeling put to them because they are simply recycled map from KHII. I think the graphics are Kingdom Hearts 358/2's strongest points here although it doesn't help much for any newcomer to enjoy the game.
Score: 8/10
Replay Value:
There are a lot of missions that you can go finish before and after you finish the game, but most of them are defeating heartless and collecting hearts. Repetition is annoying in KH and most of the bosses are the same ones, even the way you destroy them is the same which doesn't let you experience a new thing. Also, you can go collect items for your ultimate weapon but you can unlock it even before you finish the game. There are new accessories that you unlock too so, but for me that's not very satisfying.
Score: 6.5/10
General PROs and CONs:
+ Amazing, well-told story
(-) unfortunately, slow progression is repetitive.
+ beautiful CG scenes.
(-) recycled maps.
+ Combat is good
(-) annoying most of the times because of the camera and locked-on targets.
Score: 7/10
Overall:
I enjoy the game but only from story wise. It is so emotional and it really has tons of hearts, but fans of the series should step up to play it slowly and AVID fans, you don't wanna miss this game because the story is unbelievable.
Overall Score: 7.5/10