I've been waiting for this title for a long time and I finished it in 2 days (358/2 Days, talk about irony). Okay, so, here are my thoughts about 358/2 Days.
Gameplay:
2 words. Freaking Awesome. Exactly what I would expect from a Kingdom Hearts game in the DS. You want Action? You got Action. You want RPG? You got RPG. You want Action RPG? You got Kingdom Hearts. The combos are simple yet incredible, the system is clever and creative. I witnessed many new keyblades, spells from Final Fantasy franchise that never appeared in any other Kingdom Hearts game such as Regen, limit commands that seriously save your ass and new heartless. There are some flaws in the gameplay, such as the camera like many of you have noticed (which was not much of a problem for me, due to the lock-on feature), the lack of freedom due to the missions, the lack of sidequests and the fact that there is NO ANALOG, but I wouldn't consider them as big ones. If Days has serious flaws as a total, it's not because of its gameplay.
Graphics:
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days probably has the best graphics out there for the Nintendo DS. It offers a whole 3D world with some 2D objects, with not that complex graphics compared to the PS2 games of the same franchise, but hey, find another game in that genre for the Nintendo DS that has camera moving, lock on and almost as good graphics and I will correct this paragraph. When I saw the game file I was surprised. I always thought that the DS could only handle 128mb cartridges, but apparently I was wrong. Back at the waiting period, when I thought that the game would be 128mb, I was worried that the game would only focus on the graphics. Fortunately I was wrong. It offers AWESOME graphics, AWESOME animation and generally AWESOME enviroment for the long awaited game. I only wished that there were more FMV's and cutscenes because all of the mission thing gets a little tiring after some time.
Sound:
This part gets a perfect. Yoko Shimomura amazes once again. Except for the remakes of the KH1 and KH2 soundtrack for the worlds you visit, she included a whole new soundtrack for Neverland and for the character themes, like Axel and Xion. I could spot a flaw here, which would be the few scenes with Voice Acting. You cannot ask for everything though in a 256mb game.
Storyline:
I will be a little harsh here, although I didn't understand most of the dialogues. When you are waiting for a game that fills up the story gap of your favourite character you expect something more. The storyline actually shows you almost every day of Roxas' life that starts in his bed, into the room in which the organization members gather and, after talking to Saix to get his mission, he gets a partner (or sometimes he doesn't) and he goes to finish that mission. That's likely all you do in 90% of the game. Many found that boring but I think it is pretty decent. I mean, how would you get to enjoy the best Action RPG in the specific platform if you are not forced to do some missions?
What I disliked about that is that when you are in a Disney world that Sora has interfered before you actually have to sneak your way around from the main characters of each world so that when Sora asks them about Organization in KH2, there won't be a gap in the story (because they answered that they didn't have scene anyone with a black coat). And except from that, many of your first missions in each world is to gather information for the world you once entered. Those two give a realism in the storyline, which previous titles of the franchise were lacking.
Now, the 10% part is the part that I enjoyed like hell. You get a cutscene like every 50 days of storyline from Castle Oblivion, Riku, the King, Namine and DiZ etc, which (most likely) explains what happened in the 1 year that Sora was sleeping in the Capsule from the aspect of the Organization. The last few days were amazing, because they are the days that Roxas gets to know most of the things that are hided from him and about Xion and of course, the bitter and sad ending that we all know from KH2. At the end I just felt that I shouldn't have played the japanese version so that I wouldn't get spoiled about the story, but it's pretty much not as good as I expected. Let's hope that the dialogues that we didn't understand give us some more information about Days, as well as "secret" links to Birth By Sleep. (I was excited like hell when I saw Ven)
Difficulty:
I played it on Normal Mode (not easy, not Proud) and it was somewhat difficult. You deal EXTREMELY little damage with attacks (takes me like 20 combos to kill some enemies) but what saves your ass is Limits and magic. The healing items/magic are easy to find and you are most likely never going to run out of them but still, I don't want to imagine how difficult it's going to be in Proud mode. If I need 100 Combos to kill a boss in Normal, I'd prefer not to know how many I need in Proud.
Overall Impression:
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is now one of the top games in my DS list and I hope that it goes to No.1 when the English version is out. As for the comparison with the other 3 games of the franchise. It's on number 3, just above Chain of Memories.
Summary of Flaws:
-No Analog.
-Not that decent camera and lock on is not easy to use with the DS buttons (Double Press R)
-Few FMV's, Cutscenes and Voice Acting.
-Not that impressive storyline for a Kingdom Hearts game.
-A little step over challenging difficulty.
Rating:
Gameplay 9.8/10
Graphics 9.5/10
Sound 9.9/10
Storyline 7.5/10
Difficulty 8.5/10
Overall 9/10
