Written by Neilie Johnson, 10/27/2009
Played on:
DS
I'm such a sap. There are a lot of people out there who can't stomach the sentimentality inherent to so many Japanese RPG's, but I gotta tell you—they get me every time. The themes of love and friendship that permeate the Kingdom Hearts series to me are particularly affecting and when I hear Kingdom Hearts II's theme song, Utada Hikaru's “Sanctuary”—well, I just turn to mush. The latest title in the series, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, comes to us only on the DS, which might suggest to some gamers, a lessening of the series' emotional conviction. Not so. Despite the smaller format and diminished interactivity, 358/2 is just as moving as previous Kingdom Hearts titles have been.
Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 (which by the way, has to be one of the weirdest, least-descriptive titles in history) is about Roxas, a seemingly amnesiac boy who's been recruited by the shady Organization XIII. Unbeknownst to Roxas, he—like Pinocchio—is not a real boy, but a Nobody, a doppelganger of Sora, the hero of the first Kingdom Hearts game. As such, he has the benefit of Sora's abilities but can't remember why. The Organization, bent on tapping into Roxas/Sora's innate power and talent with the Keyblade, takes him in, assigning a more senior member named Axel to train him. This chance meeting quickly results in a serious “bromance” between Roxas and Axel; a relationship that becomes more tender than most Western audiences are probably comfortable with.
The gameplay in Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 is much like previous Kingdom Hearts titles with a few notable changes. It's still an RPG/action/platformer but the emphasis here is definitely on the first two. Whereas other Kingdom Hearts games offered a lot in the way of environmental exploration, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 does not. In fact, it goes out of its way to prevent you from going too far afield of your goals by literally blocking unnecessary avenues and sections of the environment. While some players might welcome this, others will be disappointed in the game's diminished feeling of interactivity. Related to this is the utterly linear feel of the game. No longer do you have the feeling of freedom and doing things in your own time; while you might receive multiple missions at once, the calendar-day story progression makes the game's linear structure inescapable.
Other than the linearity and lack of interactivity, the most obvious change to the gameplay is the “panel” system which thoroughly changes the RPG mechanic and not necessarily for the better. Before, you could select skills, equipment and magic spells and as long as you stayed alive and had enough MP, you could use them as often as you liked. In the panel system, you have an inventory with a set number of slots within which you can equip potions, spells, abilities and levels. Wait—did you say "equip levels and abilities"? Yes kids, yes I did. The most bothersome thing about the new panel system is that if you want to use abilities or level up, you have to eat up valuable inventory space equipping level and ability panels. Of course, there are other panels that multiply these, supposedly saving space but that doesn't prevent the system from being clunky and annoying.
Adding insult to injury, spells are also treated like items and so if you want to use magic, you have to equip consumable magic panels. This turns out to be a real problem throughout the game since it's fairly difficult to equip all your levels, have a good range of abilities, be well-equipped and have enough magic. Worst of all, you have to prepare everything before going out in the field. You can't change panels during a mission and the result of this is a high frequency of instances where you're asked to go to a new place with unfamiliar enemies, only to realize you don't have the type of magic needed to kill them. All you can do then is withdraw from the mission, go back to your base, re-equip and start over.
Countering these annoyances somewhat is Kingdom Hearts: 358/2's storyline. The game occurs fictionally between the first two Kingdom Hearts games and explores the origins of Roxas, the hero of Kingdom Hearts II. While working faithfully for Organization XIII, Roxas tries to discover his identity by interpreting the strange dreams and flashbacks that increasingly plague him. He's befriended by his mentor, a Nobody called Axel and in turn the two of them befriend a mysterious new member of the Organization, a young Nobody named Xion. Much of the game is spent watching as a devoted friendship develops among the three that reflects the friendship of their real-world counterparts, Sora, Kairi and Riku. Actually, too much of the game is probably spent watching this, since nearly every mission (and there are a lot of them) is followed by a cutscene showing the trio sitting on the Twilight Town clock tower eating ice cream.
This fictional repetition mirrors a repetitive mission structure that in spite of the game's RPG element, gets fairly tedious. Until the last ten percent of the game, most of what Roxas does is take missions from high-ranking Organization member Saix, perform them, eat ice cream, and return to base. He does this again and again, with his objective almost always being “kill Heartless” or “kill the giant Heartless”. Once in a while he's sent on a recon mission which in gameplay terms means you run all over an environment until you see a question mark indicating you can examine something and then you do. A mission meter lets you know when you've slaughtered enough Heartless or found enough clues, and gives you the option to return to base early or earn extra rewards by staying a little longer. It's a shame the missions aren't more interesting since that's really all there is to do. There's a strangely pointless Hercules arena mode that occurs now and then but the game has no traveling or gummi ship-building mini-games and buying stuff from the Organization's special moogle vendor isn't especially fun. Even boss fights are fairly lackluster and don't seem to have the design quality or interest of those from the previous games.
A big part of the fun of other Kingdom Hearts titles is the interaction between Square and Disney characters. While many familiar Disney faces make their appearance in Kingdom Hearts: 358/2, Roxas and company are stealth agents and have little interaction with them. They spend their time hiding behind pillars or on rooftops, eavesdropping on characters like Aladdin and Jasmine or Belle and the Beast. The effect of this becomes yet another way in which the game fails to feel interactive.
These things keep Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 from reaching its full potential but the news isn't all bad. The graphics definitely suffer from the DS downgrade, but overall, manage to retain the Kingdom Hearts feel. Much of the in-game art appears to be reused from other Kingdom Hearts titles, but the handful of new cutscenes are of very good quality. In general, the AI is good too—of particular note are a category of Heartless called Defenders. These have a peculiar swarming behavior I've never really encountered before that makes fighting them interesting and challenging. Aside from decent graphics and competent AI, the sound also is pretty good, though it exists in abbreviated form with the majority of in-game dialog being accompanied only by single sighs or chuckles. The best of what's done right by the game is the story which movingly addresses questions of friendship, loyalty, morality, free will and self-sacrifice as well as providing an effective narrative bridge between Kingdom Hearts I and II.
What Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 amounts to is a strong narrative hamstrung by mediocre gameplay. While holding its own in terms of graphics, sound and story, it loses ground by minimizing exploration and interactivity and trying to reinvent the RPG wheel. Committed fans of the series may wind up ignoring the restrictions and tedium to experience the story, but other gamers will likely think they have better things to do.
