Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days NDS comments

After years of inactivity, the Kingdom Hearts series returns. This time, anxious players get to experience Roxas’ story of his days in Organization XIII leading up to his awakening in the intro sequence to Kingdom Hearts II. Certain hallmarks of the series return, like fun combat, good production values, and an intriguing story. But what used to be a key advantage, the connection with Disney, has proven extremely limiting to Square Enix. Every single world in 358/2 Days has already appeared in Kingdom Hearts, and the Disney characters don’t serve much of a purpose in the game. Do we really need to be introduced to Genie again or investigate why Beast keeps a woman in his castle?
Wisely, the developers have focused most of the story on their own characters in Organization XIII. The tale of Roxas, Axel, and Xion is a touching one, and should be experienced by any fan of the series, though it could have been told much more concisely. You’ll spend way too much time chatting and eating sea salt ice cream. When it ramps up towards the end, however, it helps make up for these dull moments.
The melee combat and upgrade system work very well. As you complete the game’s bite-sized missions you’ll consistently earn useful goodies that can be applied to the innovative Tetris-like grid system. Placing things on your ever expanding panel unlocks new keyblades, combos, leveling multipliers, defensive maneuvers, magic, and more. Bashing the heck out of the wide variety of enemies satisfies in a classic way and the lock-on system does a good job of keeping foes in view. For some reason, the lock-on goes out the door when it comes to magic. You’ll get steamed as a precious fire or ice spell drifts pathetically past its intended target, and then you’ll just stop using magic altogether.
The short mission structure is tailored for handheld play. Indeed, there are plenty of fun missions and challenging boss battles, but things get repetitive fast. You can replay missions to collect all the items, replay them with special challenge conditions, or replay them in mission mode with or without friends. Fortunately, you can skip many extraneous missions and still be powered up enough to beat the game. And that four-player co-op? It’s local, you can only replay missions you’ve already beaten, and you can’t trade any items. Single player is up to snuff, but multiplayer is a clear missed opportunity.

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