Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days Review (For the DS)

Kingdom Hearts, to put it simply, was, and is, one of the greatest action/adventure game series ever made. Created by the designers of the Final Fantasy series, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is an action-packed game full of suspense, credibility, and much, much more. The storyline itself is incredible, with many plot twists, as well as various scenes with excellent graphics to display the events.

Starting off with a character called Roxas, who is also a "Nobody", you soon discover his amazing abilities, and are able to wield a sword-like weapon called the Keyblade. In the intro, you are given small amounts of information about the "Organization XIII", which is a group of 13 nobodies, including Roxas.

As the storyline progresses, another nobody called "Xion" is revealed to the player. More missions as handed out to your character, Roxas, and more worlds, and a more diverse range of abilities are gathered.

The gameplay, as stated before, is action-packed and full of suspense. Using the Keyblade, you can deal combos to enemies, called the "Heartless", as well as several types of lesser nobodies. You can also use magic once you've reached a certain point of the game, and magic such as fire and it's evolutions (fira and firaga), blizzard (evolutions Blizzara and Blizzaga) and thunder (evolutions Thundara and Thundaga) become available. Healing items such as potions to restore HP, ethers, to restore magic and other various items. Cure (evolutions Cura and Curaga) is also another type of magic, though it is a healing type, not damage type.

Bosses are encountered on various "missions". Each "day" of Roxas' life, missions are issued, and you can play them, pick up items, earn rewards and abilities, and so on. As you accomplish these missions, you can also find that they may be a bit too easy, and you can try challenge missions in the menu when you press "Start".

Not only this, you can also play as any member of the Organization XIII, as well as Mickey, Sora, Riku, Donald the Duck and Goofy in Mission/Multiplayer Mode. You can replay any mission you've gotten a certain symbol in, and you can also link with other players who also have the game, and play missions together.

In Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, there is a system called the "Panel system". You have an amount of panels which you earn or pick up in missions, and you may equip them to enhance your abilities, allow the use of magic, or to equip items. However, you have a limit to how many panels you can put in, but you gain more panel space as you progress through the game.

Graphics are also excellent, pushing the DS' capabilities to its full limits. Scenes are also very well done, almost the quality of a PS2 scene. Gameplay is also very well done, the characters and enemies slightly pixellated, but that is to be expected with most DS games, especially since Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is in 2nd Person View (I think).

All in all, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is a game well worth playing, and the other Kingdom Hearts games - Kingdom Hearts 1 (PS2), Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix (PS2 and in japanese), Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (GBA), Kingdom Hearts RE: Chain of Memories (PS2), Kingdom Hearts 2 (PS2) and Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix + (PS2 and in japanese) - are also good games to play.

The Kingdom Hearts series have intense and amazing storylines that will keep you occupied for days on end.

Hope you enjoyed my review, and are interested in playing the game!