Review: Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
I was a huge fan of the original Kingdom Hearts. The three act storyline was "simple and clean", more or less comprehensible, and featured a handful of likable original characters interacting with Disney characters. I also played both Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and the hidden bonus game, Kingdom Hearts: Reverse/Rebirth. Those games introduced The Organization, but were still very much Disney-feeling and hyper focused on Sora, Riku, and Kairi. In Kingdom Hearts 2, things started to feel a little different. The Organization was now at the forefront of the plot, and the Disney elements were somewhat put on the back burner even more. I felt Kingdom Hearts 2 was a step forward in gameplay, but a step backwards in story. The new characters introduced were not quite as compelling as the original Destiny Island trio, and questions left over from the first game (Kairi's past, the origin of the keyblade, the identity of the voice that guided Sora, the contents of Kingdom Hearts) remained unanswered.
So, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days is the the first real Kingdom Hearts sequel to make it to the US in a long time. It's the first game where Sora isn't the primary protagonist (not counting Reverse/Rebirth, where you play as Riku traveling through Sora's memories). Instead, you play as Roxas, a boy who doesn't exist. He's a Nobody, which is basically a human that somehow escaped going to that non-existing place that video game characters go to when they blink off screen. Kingdom Hearts 2 also vaguely hinted at a relationship between Axel and Roxas. And though you spend the first three hours of KH2 playing as a 'digital copy' of Roxas, you only see the real one for a few moments. So is Roxas's relationship with Axel interesting enough to carry an entire game? Is Roxas, himself, interesting enough to carry a game? Is the gameplay any different this time around? Read my review to find out!
Story
To answer the questions posed in the last paragraph: No, no, and no. This game is not fun. I really cannot believe how bad this game is. Lets start with the story. As I said, it focuses entirely on Roxas and Axel's relationship. The whole point of this game is to show you what Roxas was doing in the 358 days since his creation near the end of Kingdom Hearts, until he leaves The Organization in the middle of Kingdom Hearts 2. So what was he doing all that time? Nothing! HE WAS DOING NOTHING!
Disclaimer: The actual game looks nothing like this trailer.
Just like Project Runway: The Models of the Runway, every scene consists of characters sitting around talking about what a bad premise for a story they're stuck in. The gameplay is 'mission based' (more on that later) and the story treats missions like 'work'. Roxas laments having to go to 'work' (which is supposed to be the fun part--y'know, the gameplay) and then the pay off for clearing a mission is getting to hear him whine about work to Axel while eating 'sea salt ice cream' on the clock tower in Twilight Town. Believe me, a few hours into this game and you will hate that sea salt ice cream. They won't shut up about it. There are literally over a hundred cutscenes JUST of them eating ice cream on that damn clock tower. That's not an exaggeration. The same cutscene, over a hundred times. They just reuse the same animations and awkward laughter sound clips and change the dialog from one pointless conversation to another.
And I don't mean "pointless conversation" as in "they're talking about things that are thematically important and I just don't get it." They're literally talking about nothing. They're nobodies and they have no memories, so all they talk about is how much work sucks. The "theme" of the story is supposed to be "enjoy the little things in life; there's more to life than just what you can accomplish, there's also hangin' out and eatin' ice cream!" Except it fails to illustrate this theme because the "little things in life" cutscenes are painful, boring, tedious, uninteresting and unnecessary.
From Kingdom Hearts 2, you would think there would be more to Roxas and Axel's relationship, but there's actually less. KH2 seemed to imply they were best friends that had been through thick and thin and, hey, maybe they were even heavily-implied yaoi lovers or something? Nope, they just ate ice cream a lot. Axel meets Roxas on day one and they're already best acquaintances, and they remain exactly like that for the rest of the game, without a smidgen of growth. At one point a girl joins their clique--is she going to pull a Yoko Ono and break up the band? Nah, not really. Any possible thing that could happen to their relationship doesn't happen. The big reveal about Roxas and Axel's relationship is that they both really like ice cream. Like, a lot.
There's also almost a complete lack of Disney in this game. It took five hours to see a single Disney character, and it was just Aladdin and Jasmine talking about sand. Organization XIII is a 'stealth operation', so the character's aren't supposed to interact with the Disney characters. This means there's a lot of unnecessary cutscenes of Roxas 'overhearing' a conversation between other Disney characters, and then awkwardly talking about it as if it's any of his business. And he doesn't actually learn any of their names, which means he refers to Aladdin as "that guy" and Apu as "that monkey" and Lumiere as "that talking candelabra".
All of the Disney 'plots' are lazy hodgepodges that don't even make sense in the continuity. Beast is mad about Belle not coming to dinner--but wait, didn't that happen BEFORE Roxas was created, since Belle was in her ball room gown in the first Kingdom Hearts? And didn't Beast travel all the way to Hollow Bastion without a vessel to SAVE Belle because they were already in love? There are also many points in the game where characters say things to Roxas that don't make sense to say to Roxas, and are really being said to the audience. At one point Hayner, Pence, and Olette (or as I call them, Team Uhg) tell Roxas to look for something at "the usual spot" and Roxas doesn't know what they're talking about, and doesn't ask for clarification. A person who hasn't played Kingdom Hearts 2 (such as the character Roxas) wouldn't know where "the usual spot" is, and even though I remembered where that spot was, the thing I was looking for was still pretty hard to find. If you were doing a massive sweep of the entire town and didn't know "the usual spot" it would be nearly impossible to find.
Okay, can we talk about the hoodies? Every character in this game wears a hoodie. And they all act like it. It's all "sigh..." this and "heh?" that. And it's not just the 13 members of Organization XIII, there's a %$@#ing Moogle in a hoodie. They also add a 14th member (their name seems pretty arbitrary to me, as they only seemed to have 13 members for a few days, and they even explicitly say that there weren't 13 founding members, only like 6 or so) who keeps her hoodie down at all times. For some reason Roxas sees her as Kairi-with-black-hair (because of course she has to have black hair in this game) but everyone else seems to see her as just a girl with her hood down. This is supposed to be really interesting, and it's not.
Every character is sad, whiney, cliché and unnecessary. The story elements of this game are like fingers on a chalkboard. I can't imagine anyone finding this enjoyable except for maybe a hardcore Roxas fan. But there are no hardcore Roxas fans, because he didn't even have a line of dialog in Kingdom Hearts 2 (unless you count the Roxas clone, who was a completely different character). Or rather, there shouldn't be any intense Roxas fans, but I imagine there are, somewhere. People who saw his character design in the Kingdom Hearts 2 instruction booklet and doodled poorly rendered dramatic portraits of him for Deviant Art. Those people may enjoy this game, but I'm not one of them, and the game's requirement that I am is annoying.
Gameplay
The gameplay consists entirely of recycled elements from previous Kingdom Hearts game. They didn't create a single original 3D model for this game, unless you count copying and pasting Kairi's head onto an Organization XIII hoodie and changing her hair color to black. I'm sure that the Dire Plant heartless from Chain of Memories wouldn't appear in this game if it weren't for the fact that they already made a 3D model for it for Re: Chain of Memories.
Okay, to be fair, they designed three new rooms for the Cave of Wonders, and I think Beast's Castle didn't feature an attic before. But that's it. Every single area is a room from a previous Kingdom Hearts game. Every enemy is an enemy from a previous Kingdom Hearts game, or a color swap of one.
The combat is exactly like the first Kingdom Hearts; it's not quit as polished or fancy as Kingdom Hearts 2. There's a menu, and you navigate it with the X button. You can either tap X to cycle through each possible command, or hold X and use the D-pad to move through commands. You can set macros, etc. Spells and items basically work the same. There's really nothing different about the combat, except that you're 'collecting' hearts from the heartless you defeat. Basically, this acts as an alternate form of currency. You get more hearts if you 'chain' heartless. A slowly shrinking circle will appear around your target, and you have to deal damage to make it expand, and defeating an enemy will reset it to it's most-expanded. If it shrinks all the way your chain ends. You gain more 'heart points' for enemies defeated in a chain. This is the only fun aspect of the game.
Speaking of 'alternate currency', let's talk about the hoodie moogle's store. There are four alternate forms of currency. Four! There's heart points, munny, gold badges and silver badges. There are literally four separate stores to buy things from, which is unnecessarily complicated. And the stores don't even stock that much. They sell out of everything but potions and ether after one or two repeat purchases, and you can buy everything up within the first few missions. There's also a "synthesis" thing if you're into that, but it doesn't go very deep.
The most unique (but not necessarily fun) aspect of the game are the 'panels'. This is really the only part of the game that feels like a new experience. Basically, instead of having an inventory, equippable armor, equippable skills, etc, it's all compressed into a single grid where abilities and items are equipped as 'panels'. Each panel takes up a square in the grid. Even levels you get from leveling up have to be equipped to a square on the grid. Most panels take up a single space, but occasionally panels will take up multiple spaces and can be combined with other panels. For example, weapons can have a few open spaces attached to them (and be shaped like Tetris blocks) and you can only put weapon-compatible-panels inside those spaces to power the weapon up. This system gets tedious because you have to reorganize your grid after every mission (to refill potions and compensate for new levels and unlocked grid squares). Trust me, it's less fun than it sounds.
The missions themselves are nothing special. They usually consist of killing a bunch of heartless, staying out of a Disney NPC's "vision range" (which is not fun) collecting emblems (also not fun) or investigating. Investigation missions are the worst, and they seem to happen way more often than they need to. They consist of walking around the level and finding things that are 'interesting' and examining them. But the controls are so frustrating, sometimes it feels impossible to get the 'examine' command to show up, even when you're staring right at the thing you're trying to examine. And it's also hard to tell what's "interesting" because nothing is.
Oh yeah, there's also a multiplayer mode. Kind of. I'm only mention it out of obligation, because there's not really a multiplayer mode. It's multi-pack multiplayer for an action RPG on the DS without online play. Which means there is no multiplayer. Unless you can convince your friends to buy this game at the same time as you, and they somehow enjoy it, then, sure, there's multiplayer. You can all have a wonderful time goin' on missions as your favorite members of Organization XIII together while riding on the bus to Sakura Con. But for the majority of the people who purchase this game, there might as well not be multiplayer.
Graphics and Sound
The sound effects and music are ported over from previous games, as are the levels. The 3D graphics, while technically impressive for a DS game, actually look terrible. The levels, camera, and combat system, are designed for a big TV screen. On the DS screen, they look tiny and pixelated. Sora's 2D sprite in Chain of Memories looked way better than Roxas ever looks in 3D in this game. It feels as if this game was designed for the PS2 and was ported to the DS without any consideration for the smaller screen size. It makes it harder to see certain crucial things, like tiny emblems, texture's you're supposed to "investigate" or character faces. And the levels all feel so wide and barren. Even though every other Kingdom Hearts game is known for being visual candy, this game looks messy and bad 100% of the time.
Overall
Woof. This game was such a chore. And I loved every single other Kingdom Hearts game. I played this for eleven excruciating hours and only seen three Disney 'worlds' so far. Now that I've written this review, I don't think I want to go back to it, ever. I certainly played it longer than I would have, for the sake of reviewing it. And I may have even played it out of some sick sense of completionism--the same reason you finish a really big gross Subway sandwich.
But this game is not fun. It was never fun, at any point. Also, nothing ever happened in the story. Certainly not anything I didn't already know from the other games. I kept playing a few more hours of missions, hoping some turning point in the plot would happen that would change my mind. Maybe there's some big twist at the end, but I'm not going to keep force feeding myself garbage to get there. You'd be better off just looking up the ending on YouTube.
Each new day would have a title like "Secrets" that implied something would happen in the plot, but then it turns out someone just says the word 'secret' and that's why the day is titled that. Nothing ever happens. For a story that is so hamfistedly trying to tell me to enjoy the little things in life that exist outside of my daily routine, no other game has made me feel this hopeless. It made me not care about the Kingdom Hearts franchise at all; it shows me that they can't really make their rogue's gallery of original characters that interesting, which makes me lose all hope for future Kingdom Hearts games, as they all seem to feature more and more original anime characters with colorful hair and lame stories. The fact that this game was even green lit in the first place makes me totally lose all trust I had in Kingdom Hearts series as a quality brand, and it'll probably keep me from buying any other Kingdom Hearts games in the future. This game is worse than bad, it shouldn't exist.
4/10
Bradamantium
Posted to Hot Stuff, Reviews, Video Games on 7 October 2009
· Comments (35)
Other stuff like this: action, action RPG, DS, Kingdom Hearts, kingdom hearts 358/2 days, RPG, squareenix
The game starts off slow, but you certainly can not say it sucks based solely off of the first couple hours. There's a lot more to it than just the first three worlds, and the story only really starts to develop after like world five. Normally I agree with the reviews here, but this time, I strongly disagree. Judging half a game with a biased point of view like this is a waste of time for anybody reading it.
I haven't played it yet, but might I suggest that your seemingly intense dislike of anything KH2 related (at least that's what is coming off in droves from what you wrote) and the knowledge going in that this game focussed on Roxas and Org.13 should have clued you in that you weren't going to like this game and that it wasn't a particularly good idea to review it.
@Kuro
Just to clarify, I played it for 11 hours, not a couple, and I got to the 5th world, not the 3rd. (I said the third Disney world... The first two aren't Disney-themed). 11 hours of homogenous gameplay is enough to get a fair assessment of the enjoyability of a game, in my opinion. As I said in the review, if you're only playing the game for the ending, you're better off watching it on YouTube, neither the gameplay nor the story building up to the ending are enjoyable, IMO. And, "biased point of view" is a pretty easily-slung insult in the gaming community--but come on dude, as I said in my review I'm a HUGE fan of Kingdom Hearts. I own plastic figures of Sora, Goofy and Donald! My message board signature was at one time sprites from Chain of Memories! I don't see how any part of the review could be used to infer a bias against the Kingdom Hearts franchise, if anything I have an intense bias towards it.
@Nexus
I didn't intensely dislike KH2, I loved it. I didn't think the Organization were interesting, and neither were Roxas. But that's mostly because they were barely fleshed out in KH2. Each character had very little screen time other than being introduced for a few moments before a boss fight. This game was a great opportunity to flesh out those characters, and I was excited about it.
Sorry then for misunderstanding, but it really sounded like you hadn't liked it.
As for the characters, I agree that most weren't given too much of a backstory, but I think that what they had was pretty damn terrific.
I really felt for Roxas in KH2 and I equally symphatised with the Org.13 guys. Their struggle to become more than 'Nobodies' really gripped me.
And really, it's not like you got much backstory on Ansem in the first game. That was all fleshed out in KH2.
Biased against the Organization, not the game. Maybe I should have been clearer. If you go in thinking they are all bland, that's all you'll think, period. By ignoring what was done to further all of their characters, you ignore the very point of the game, in my humble opinion. It wasn't about adding something new so much as it was about explaining what happened, and why they all went about achieving their respective goals. After playing this, I went through the parts of Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II that had confused me before, and they made quite a bit more sense. The characters were explored quite a bit more than you seem to give the game credit for.
"Every character is sad, whiney, cliché and unnecessary."
I really don't see how you can see them all that way, especially given the dialogue of this game. Everybody has their own mannerisms and their own ways of going about something. I can only think of one or two characters at most who could be seen as cliché, and none that can really be called whiny.
I admit I haven't given this game a lot of play because the tutorial makes it so painful to play it becomes almost unplayable. The whole thing doesn't have the magic or soul of the kingdom hearts games. Roxas and Organization 13 have been given too much attention for how shallow their characters are. BTW reference to Project Runway: The Models of the Runway was one of the most amazing analogies I have ever read.
That's one beautiful trailer.
I REALLY must say I disagree, A LOT.
I really liked the gameplay and it WAS very different then KH1, Magic and items DID work differently!
The plot seemed to mostly be about developing Roxas and Axel while setting up for Birth by Sleep and explaining some of the less explained aspects of KH2(Such as the whole Riku turning into Ansem thing)
Also, There was no "Digital Clone" Of Roxas, That WAS the real Roxas! The reason he had different memory's was because Namine was moving them back into Sora!
Roxas was in the Matrix pretty much.
And to be honest, I think Roxas was a much more interesting Protagonist then Sora, Sora was all "I MUST HELP EVERYBODY! I NEED TO!!! RAAAHH!!! RIKURIKUKAIRIKAIRIDONALGOOFY!" But Roxas uses logic "Oh, they're talking about sandstorms, I honestly don't care since it has nothing to do with my goal of killing heartless"
And the plot really didn't have any sort of "appreciate the little things" message, it was just about Roxas and Xion and what happened between COM and KH2.
Also, the way the game works isn't like the others where you do a bunch of stuff in Agrahbah then you move on to Wonderland, in 358/2 you do a mission in Agrahbah then a mission in beasts castle then another in twilight town then back to agrabah then wonderland then twilight town then beasts castle then never land ect, getting to 3 worlds isn't far into the game AT ALL.
I can't believe it took you 11 hours to get that far! You didn't play far enough into the game to give a proper review of the plot(Which was REALLY involving by the time you get to day 117 or so, which isn't that far in since it skips a lot) And there are gameplay elements that you didn't even get to! Such as the Bonus bar!
I thought this was a hilariously bitter review. I only owned a PS2 so I really had no idea what was going on with everything they introduced between KHI and II.
As a result Org XIII still means nothing to me and I'm at a complete loss as to who 3/4ths of the original characters in KH are. (Especially that one new character that as a plot point looks a lot like Roxas but isn't and I don't actually remember enough elements to set their character designs apart.)
I do love the idea of a moogle in a hoodie though. As design elements go it's just enough to keep it from being too Matrixy even if it is a bit ubiquitous.
I agree with orandexlion that this review was... bitter, but I will say thank you for playing those eleven hours to try to give us a decent review. Your effort is appreciated~!
What I think you must understand is that this is a fanservice of the most epic proportions. The sea-salt ice cream, the characters involved, the hoodies, the everything are all geared to the fans of the series. It is for those who have spent hours upon hours upon days of time in the (extremely large) fandom. Although I have yet to play the game, I've spent time laughing with my fellow kh fan friend who played it and can let me in on all the fanserving goodness. I love it, and maybe it will not be the best executed game (and the repeat music/maps is EXTREMELY lazy), I will certainly enjoy it.
(But yet again, thanks for the time~)
Haven't played the game yet, but I expect what RepressedSerendipity says is true. Total fan service.
Also, I think it's only fair to set expectations realistically. The game is set between KH and KHII, so we know what happens before and after Days. It really couldn't do anything earthshaking in terms of plot. If it did, you'd end up having to ask yourself, "Why wasn't any of this mentioned in KHII which happens after all this chronologically wtfbbq?!?!"
Anyway, I appreciate the review, but I'll still get the game, if only to see the justification of emo Kairi :P
I totally get where you are coming from. A+ for framing it using the gameplay/story continuum because that's exactly the tug of war we're seeing as the franchise get's spread so thin--despite the better game mechanics of sophomore entries.
I was not a superfan of the earlier games (loved both 1 and 2, though it matched how you described them), but I absolutely feel like the franchise is being milked, and not in the good-for-growing way. Rather, each possible vantage is being squeezed out and smeared into its own game--and despite the first DS jewel, the rest have seemed less and less significant.
HEY... I like hoodies :(
They're comfy... and I've seen screenshots of the hoodie moogle; it's cute!! -u-
Anyway, it's a shame that KH: Days doesnt seem to be that good. I was kind of excited for it when I first got got wind of a DS KH.
I have to say after trying to play this game myself, I totally agree with this review.
Thanks for having the courage to stand up to the die-hard love anything fans and to actually write what (probably) a large majority of people would think of it. No point in saying the game gets good after 11 hours - no one in their right mind should have to sit through 11 hours of torture to get to an enjoyable experience.
Hopefully enough reviews like this will push square to take what was good about the 1st one and focus on that.
I'll not understand why, when they have so many great characters from disney to use that they would choose to make up new characters? If they want their own new stuff why even have the disney characters?
If Square relies on Disney to carry this game, who would enjoy it? The plot of a largely Disney game would be rather lackluster. You can't make any feasible plot out of a mixing pot of Disney-only characters. Original characters are what Square Enix, who, if you forgot, is the company behind this game, are most well-known for. You can't take the company who made at least one game that a large majority of people adored, and expect them to settle for Disney characters and worlds alone.
Whatever, this review is spot on. This game is boring and depressing.
Maybe you'll like it if you're an emo teenager who actually enjoys not having fun, but the other KH games were charming and colorful. This game is a chore.
Good review.
I totally agree with this review. Bought it on the day it came out; sold it the next morning.
Pitiful, soulless, repetitive and, most unforgivably, BORING!
I really liked KH1 it made me cry at the end! KH2 had better game play but the story became very hard to follow. I bought KH Re: Chain of Memories expecting another sweeping epic and it turned into a terrible dungeon crawler. Seriously as much as I want to love the whole series the hackneyed plot wasn't enough to keep me playing through the terrible game play! Same goes for this new DS game. I really want to love it but this isn't the same beast I fell in love with oh so many years ago.
This review deeply offended me and I can't believe it was posted on one of my favorite sites.
There's nothing wrong with Subway sandwiches.
I'm a huge Kingdom Hearts fan and got this game on day one as well... and i must say that I agree with most of this review.
It just feels like a rehashed kingdom hearts game to keep up somewhat happy while they keep working on the others. The story isn't all there and the characters aren't as compelling. Normally when i buy a KH game I can't stop playing them. This game I have to make myself play just to say I finished it and with hopes that it does get better later on.
I must say that the combat system is much better than the card system in CoM though. And the few new heartless that they introduce are a nice addition.
Wow...just wow. You do NOT review a game after playing through the beginning and giving up. You just don't. This is lazy reviewing at its finest, folks.
If you don't like that the game starts off slow, fine, write that in the review: it's an important flaw to know about. But you KEEP PLAYING, so that you can review the WHOLE GAME. I don't read this site too often, but I've always had a high opinion of it...but now, geez, I don't know. I've never really seen such a complete lack of effort put into a review before.
This is one of the worst reviews I've ever read. Why? You didn't finish the game, and you didn't even try. Give me one good reason why I should ever listen to your supposed professional opinion regarding games again.
"11 hours of homogenous gameplay is enough to get a fair assessment of the enjoyability of a game"
No, thewy aren't.
If you wanna be taken even remotely serious as a reviewer, you gotta finish the game. No buts.
I don't know any "professional" review sites who play through the full game either. Both because, given the length of these games, if they play from start to finish they'll never get out a review before their competing sites, but it's also unnecessary. 11 hours of gameplay is more than sufficient to get an idea of how the game is-- most people who dislike a title will have made that decision well before hour two. No review ever goes on and on about how awful a game is and then ends it with "This game sucked but the very last hour of hour 40 right at the very end fixed it all!" That's ridiculous.
Snarky aside, "remotely serious" and "professional opinion" all implies that we're actually paid for this and it's not a voluntary gig; hint, we all do this for free. You guys want to come along and pay the salaries for all the writers here and I'm sure we'd be more than happy to listen to your dictates on how much time we should spend on a game before we make an opinion of it. Otherwise the abusive commentary is uncool.
If a game is forty hours long and the first 39 all suck, I don't expect the last hour to make everything magically better. I do expect reviewers to actually finish the games they intend to review, though, whether you do this as a volunteer gig or get paid.
Once again, why should I listen to your opinion on games if you don't finish what you start? I'll say it again, this is one of the worst reviews I've ever read. Seriously, if you can't even be bothered to go beyond the third world in the game, why write a review? You don't understand the full experience of the game. You don't know the entire narrative, nor have you seen all of the challenges that the game has to offer. You're just making excuses because you're slacking and don't want to play it anymore.
That's utterly absurd. I know within the first half hour whether or not I'm going to like a game; most people do. I reiterate, no one plays through the entire game before they review it. It's unnecessary and it's not feasible. You play the game, give it a good effort, write about your perspectives. No one reading a review wants to see an exhaustive breakdown of all forty hours of the plot-- it will spoil the game, and if you want the game spoiled you can read a synopsis on Wikipedia. Eleven hours is significantly longer than I've ever spent on a game I disliked before I said I disliked it.
Nobody's making you listen to anyone's opinions, you choose to read and comment on this site of your own volition. I'm not "making excuses," I'm telling you how it is. If a game fails to capture you in the first couple of hours it's extremely unlikely that something radical will happen in hour five to change things, and it's even less likely that an average gamer will have made the effort to stick with it that long. I don't even have a Nintendo DS and my only experience with Kingdom Hearts was watching it over someone's shoulder. I think you have me confused with Bradamantium.
Reviews are subjective opinions from the writers' perspectives, they're not Biblical law. If you disagree, that's great, different opinions are absolutely allowed. You don't need to take that in the direction of being rude because you disagree, though.
PS: Penny Arcade didn't like it either. :P
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/10/5/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/10/5/my-friend-totoriol/
No one? Really?
Maybe you should read the paragraph at the end of this review, just as an example:
http://kotaku.com/5377853/kingdom-hearts-3582-days-review-crisis-hearts
Your excuses are wearing thin.
I think one of the reasons people are bitching about this review is because the first third or so of it seems to be criticizing characters, their motivations, the game's story, etc, etc, and there's no way that you can analyze that without having actually finished the game.
Imagine trying to give a character analysis of Atticus Finch, for example, after having only read the first couple chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird. Not that I'm implying the characters have equal levels of depth to them or anything, but the principal remains the same. For example:
"KH2 seemed to imply they were best friends that had been through thick and thin..."
And... if you had finished the game, you'd probably know how they got to that point.
And another example:
"For some reason Roxas sees her as Kairi-with-black-hair"
Like, that alone is a major plot point of the game. They spend A LOT of time addressing that later on.
Gameplay, graphics, sound, that kind of thing? You can easily review that after a couple of hours of play. Story? You kind of need to finish it before you start talking about plot points and character motivations.
First of all, Bradamantium, thank you for taking the time to play this game and give us your honest review. Your Project Runway reference, and mention of the Aladdin/Jasmine/sand stuff was killer, and really had some trouble with holding in the loud laughter. Very true stuff you said.
Anywho, Very little of what was said in the review regarding the mechanics of the game, the characters, etc, is false.
I agree with at least 60 to 70 percent of it.
Just to let you know, I am one of the biggest, Kingdom Hearts NERDS you will ever meet. Sure, I don't own collectable keyblades or figurines, but I do have a vast knowledged of the inner workings of the story, keep on top of the daily info released about kh news in general, and read and write fan fiction for god sake. I love this series. Period.
I bought this game expecting a great deal more. While I enjoyed greatly the inside look at how things went down with the organization on a relative day-to-day basis, I hated how the characters we were pretty much hoping to see more of were immediately sent off to die in COM after the first "week." I know, I know, continuity and timing play a factor, and seeing as how we start the game alongside the beginning of Roxas, it's to be expected.
Anyway, with regards to the hours of gameplay/review quality/assessment stuff, most people can get a gist of how the game is going to go within the first hour or two on average (this of course depends on how long it takes someone to get to a certain point. I like to look at everything and talk to everyone so some things take me forever to accomplish.) KH2 opened with a tutorial with Roxas, which I HATED becuase I KNOW how to play the %&$*ing game! And the rest of the days as Roxas weren't too much more thrilling. But I kept playing because I knew it had to get better, what with Sora and friends and the rest of the worlds.
To be perfectly honest, the gameplay is something of a blur for me, since I mostly went through missions to get to the badly pixelated scenes to understand who the hell Xion was, what the hell went on with Roxas and Axel, and because I liked this new trio and REALLY wish they would've expanded on it MORE like I thought they would. There really were too many simple Ice-cream scenes!
I understand that the cloaks (that moogle was adorable), the ice cream ("Sweet but salty" and vise-versa really is something of an innuendo), and all the clock-towerness was put in to let us know why those things were so important in the series and in KH2. REgardless, I felt like those things were being forced down my throat at points.
As a KH-Mega Fan, I loved the story they gave us, and I CRIED just enough at the ending (though i really cried just before the ending, at the closing of "someone's" story). But as a Gamer, this game was really sub-par. I think even Square knows that to some degree. This game was fanservice, and was good and bad as a result in various ways. I also agree with someone else's point (sorry i can't go back and look for your name, I'm really tired.) that this game may have also been an added way to keep us preoccupied while Birth by Sleep is still cooking.
Anyway, sorry for the horrible rant ( i felt that Bradmantium deserved another defender along with kh fans too.), but to beat this already zombified horse, I am a kh fan, and I loved this game. I am a Gamer, and I wasn't that big a fan of this game. Take Care now guys!
P.S. I really like this site!
Sorry! ONe more thing before I forget again, and I don't know how the hell I forgot the first time at all.
RIKU's voice actor: still pretty damn good. 4/5 to 5/5
DIZ: glad they got him back 5/5
NAMINE': She is really pretty good! Like her more, the more I hear her. Brittany Snow was pretty good (KH2) but this new girl is really something In Re:COM and Days. 5/5
ROXAS: Pretty okay. NOt bad/ pretty nice at a couple of points/ but not overly great.4/5
AXEL: Still good, but definitely too many "Got it memorized" things this time around.4/5 to 5/5
XION: She did a pretty okay job at a couple of points, but SPOILERS>>>> near the end, she really needed more emotion, regardless of the state of her character; a little more emotion would've done wonders. 3/5 to 4/5(here and there)
KAIRI: No, NO, NO! I'm sorry, but no. She has maybe an okay point once or twice, and I know that she's voiced by the same girl that does XION but no. I just don't like it. Even Hayden did a lack luster job in KH2, though KAIRI was depressed and stuff at the time in the game. KH1 Kairi with Hayden was the best in my opinion.
Anyway, NEW KAIRI: 1/5 to 2/5 (out of pure PITY)
Sorry for the bitching, but I just thought I should get it out there.
;)
I'm miffed at the hostility towards mixvio. It's impossible for every single person to like a game.
Days has the same problem I had with KH2: there are a lot of plot holes/inferences that would be explained if I had played KH:CoM. I'm guessing I won't learn about what happened to the organization members that were already dead when KH2 started. I wonder what Days is like to someone who has never played a previous KH game.
All you need to know about me is that I'm the greatest Kingdom Hearts fan ever and that I found many issues with your review.
The game doesn't ONLY follow Roxas and Axel's relationship. The story goes into different relationships with different characters and spans out into many sub-stories.
When you said the game doesn't look like the trailer; think about it, the graphics and technology used in the trailer are too complex for a DS. The game would freeze at the beginning of the videos if you tried to put all of that information into a DS at once.
You didn't really pay attention to the theme. It was to tell the story, no matter how "boring", of Roxas' life in the Organization (which he happens to WORK for), not "to enjoy the little things".
You apparently didn't get very far in the game because you said that Axel and Roxas didn't go through a lot together. They had a lot of crap go down with Xion and they had to save each others asses a bunch of times.
(I do agree with you about the Disney aspect, they should have had more.)
This game is about Org. XIII; of course EVERYBODY is going to have the cloaks. If you knew anything about the significance of the cloaks you'd know that everyone else is wearing them to confuse the lesser Nobodies (because the lesser ones can't distinguish faces, they only recognize the cloaks).
The Nobodies are using negative emotions to make fun of those with hearts. They despise them, therefore they imitate them in a degrading way.
Square kept the familiar scenery for the veteran fans' sake. Like you said, the "ugh" team referred to "the usual spot" and if you were new, you wouldn't understand.
Do you realize how limited your button selections are on a DS? Obviously you can't cycle through the menu with the left joystick BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ONE!
Sure the shop is complicated to understand, but you learn how to use it after the first few missions... if you decide to even give the game a chance.
The missions were better than you give them credit for. You have to challenge yourself to do the things on a DS that should only be possible for a PS2 or PSP. That is hard to do.
(I agree with you a little on the subject of multi-player mode. Then again, it's always nice to find new friends by stalking everyone that walks out of a game store with a copy of the game in their hand.)
Square is trying to familiarize all of the settings in the new games, so they're going to re-use songs and areas of the worlds in the previous games. They want the veterans to know where they are at. (Just as a side note, I hate when people try to come into the fourth game in the series and say "I don't know what is happening"; THAT IS THE POINT! Play the other games first!) The quality of the graphics are choppy because of the technology, as I have already stated.
Finally, your conclusion almost made me throw up. You sound like a stuck-up, self-righteous, anorexic, unintelligent bitch. When I first saw this website, I thought, "Hey, a gaming site for gay people. This might be cool.", but after reading your irrelevant work (seeing as you have no authority to the quality of this game because you only played it for a short time) and the idiotic responses that sided with you, I have been turned off by this site and I don't think I will be returning to it.
All you need to know about me is that I'm the greatest Kingdom Hearts fan ever and that I found many issues with your review.
The game doesn't ONLY follow Roxas and Axel's relationship. The story goes into different relationships with different characters and spans out into many sub-stories.
When you said the game doesn't look like the trailer; think about it, the graphics and technology used in the trailer are too complex for a DS. The game would freeze at the beginning of the videos if you tried to put all of that information into a DS at once.
You didn't really pay attention to the theme. It was to tell the story, no matter how "boring", of Roxas' life in the Organization (which he happens to WORK for), not "to enjoy the little things".
You apparently didn't get very far in the game because you said that Axel and Roxas didn't go through a lot together. They had a lot of crap go down with Xion and they had to save each others asses a bunch of times.
(I do agree with you about the Disney aspect, they should have had more.)
This game is about Org. XIII; of course EVERYBODY is going to have the cloaks. If you knew anything about the significance of the cloaks you'd know that everyone else is wearing them to confuse the lesser Nobodies (because the lesser ones can't distinguish faces, they only recognize the cloaks).
The Nobodies are using negative emotions to make fun of those with hearts. They despise them, therefore they imitate them in a degrading way.
Square kept the familiar scenery for the veteran fans' sake. Like you said, the "ugh" team referred to "the usual spot" and if you were new, you wouldn't understand.
Do you realize how limited your button selections are on a DS? Obviously you can't cycle through the menu with the left joystick BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ONE!
Sure the shop is complicated to understand, but you learn how to use it after the first few missions... if you decide to even give the game a chance.
The missions were better than you give them credit for. You have to challenge yourself to do the things on a DS that should only be possible for a PS2 or PSP. That is hard to do.
(I agree with you a little on the subject of multi-player mode. Then again, it's always nice to find new friends by stalking everyone that walks out of a game store with a copy of the game in their hand.)
Square is trying to familiarize all of the settings in the new games, so they're going to re-use songs and areas of the worlds in the previous games. They want the veterans to know where they are at. (Just as a side note, I hate when people try to come into the fourth game in the series and say "I don't know what is happening"; THAT IS THE POINT! Play the other games first!) The quality of the graphics are choppy because of the technology, as I have already stated.
Finally, your conclusion almost made me throw up. You sound like a stuck-up, self-righteous, anorexic, unintelligent bitch. When I first saw this website, I thought, "Hey, a gaming site for gay people. This might be cool.", but after reading your irrelevant work (seeing as you have no authority to the quality of this game because you only played it for a short time) and the idiotic responses that sided with you, I have been turned off by this site and I don't think I will be returning to it.
FINALLY someone told the truth! I love Kingdom Hearts (I have all the games and have replayed each one at least 3-4 times) but this game is complete shit. I gave up and looked up the final scenes of the game to save myself from having to slave through another repetitive mission or ice cream scene. Its just not worth slaving through such a crap game just for it to end on a depressing note.