Kingdom Come?

Continuing its quest to hit every platform known to man, the Kingdom Hearts series is now marching triumphantly onto the Nintendo DS with an interesting and awkwardly-titled, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. Is this game a full-fledged hero or just another heartless Nobody?

You play as Roxas, a human-like being known as Nobody. Nobodies lack a vital part of being human-- a heart. Which goes to wonder how Roxas and the other Nobodies have any emotion at all. Regardless, our young hero joins up with Organization XIII, a black-robe donning group wanting to revitalize Kingdom Hearts for the stated purpose of receiving hearts for every member. Could there be some ulterior motive for this plan, however? Kingdom Hearts on the DS shows Roxas yearlong escapades with the Organization, leading up to the events of Kingdom Hearts II. Most of the game is told through text cut-scenes, but occasionally a CG sequence, especially in the beginning and end of the game, are thrown in for good measure. These scenes may just tug at your heartstrings which can't be said for a lot of handheld games, especially DS game, out there.

The missions themselves fall into two categories-- reconnaissance and hunting for heartless. Reconnaissance has you investigating and examining various portions of the game's many worlds. None of these are particularly new to the franchise, and many veterans of past


The majority of your time in the worlds of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days will be spent between exploring, collecting treasure chests and investigating areas, and battling. Combat should be familiar to any Kingdom Hearts veteran, and it's simple enough for newcomers not to be overwhelmed. One button jumps, one button blocks, and one button attacks. Tapping on the attack button with a good rhythm enables combo attacks to be unleashed on enemies. The camera can be mapped to the shoulder buttons or just assigned to the right shoulder button for ease and to open up the left shoulder button for item and spell shortcuts. The X button cycles between attacking, items, and magic as there's no analog stick on the DS obviously. This takes getting used to, but again after perseverance, it becomes second nature.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is a mightily impressive looking and sounding game. The CG cutscenes are gorgeous to look at really showing that Square-Enix knows how to get the most out of any hardware. Meanwhile, the in-game characters and backgrounds are rather detailed, too. However, there's a lot of jagged edges to be found, ones that could cut through a brick in seconds. That said, it's still very astonishing the level of graphical detail and prowess this game has. On the music side of things, many tracks are remixed versions ripped straight from Kingdom Hearts 2. There's very little in the way of all-new music to be heard which is okay since what we already have is high-quality stuff. Overall, the presentation of Kingdom Hearts for DS is simply sensational.

Overall, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is a competent action-RPG that does enough to differentiate itself from its older, bigger brothers. The two modes, story and mission, allow for near limitless replay value with friends, and the story is one that you'll want to stick with up until the very end. There's enough variety to keep players interested, the presentation is terrific, and the action is fast and frenzied. For a game all about heartless, this game has got a lot of heart.
[SuperPhillip Says: 8.75/10]
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