Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days

I like to keep busy in the new week till Thursday. Sooo...what can I do?

Well, I have meant to talk about Kingdom Hearts 15 HD ReMIX. I've been playing heavily for the past couple of weeks both for the review and partly because of rabid fanboyism. I'd planned to make them video reviews if I can but I'd like something to do now...

Oh! I know.

[size=+1]Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days[/size]​

I dislike this game a lot. I seriously see it as a pox when it could have been something really interesting. It's a frustrating and limited waste and I really wished it was better.

OK, a couple of things about the name of this thing. Yes! For those not in the know, that is actually what it's called! Assumingly to refer to the central narrative device of the game as it plays out a little like a diary. Well, it's more formal than that. Umm...More like surveillance footage. So, the days thing is talking about the time span the game plays out over. I'm meant to pronounce it "Three Five Eight Days Over Two" not "Three-Hundred and Eighty Five and a Half". But I'm not doing that because it's arse-backwards awkward either way.

So, I'm calling it Kingdom Hearts DS. Not to be confused with Dream Drop Distance which is on the 3DS. That would be Kingdom Hearts 3DS. All clear? OK? OK.

Hmm...Story or Gameplay first...

The Gameplay is almost entirely the same as Kingdom Hearts. This. Is. Bloody. Incredibly. Fantastic.

Seriously, I'm kinda impressed that h.a.n.d squeezed a fully 3D rendered version of the old action RPG gameplay I'm used out of the DS hardware. Granted, the DS is more powerful than you might think and it can handle 3D rather well. Think of Pokemon! Or Starfox. Heck, it was even shipped with a really decent port of Super Mario 64. That looked great, ran smoothly and even added new stuff while keeping the old!

For better and for worse...​

Still, it was all very impressive. It looked decent and kept the gameplay the same. I was very impressed with it all.

Combat is all very simple. To swing your weapon, you push a button. To string a combo, you hammer that button like it was dispensing Skittles until whatever is in your way is dead. That's the basics but the larger potential for combat in these games has always hinged on when you attack, whether you use magic or choose to use one of your special abilities or special moves. Your also given free movement to run around to avoid attacks or jump over them. Battles can get frantic, letting enemies gain the advantage if your not careful. This has always made Kingdom Hearts a tough, intense RPG that can demand some serious stones to fight some of the nastiest bosses you might have ever seen.

I mean, you will never be as fearful of or irritated with a Disney character ever until you meet Ursula in proud mode in Kingdom Hearts. Trust me!

The DS is able to replicate this almost flawlessly. You can lock on, choose different menu options and run around freely. It's clunky as your replacing camera controls with stroking the bottom screen and you're using a d-pad instead of an analogue stick to move around but it's otherwise perfectly fine.

Pictured: Moments from dealing out an arse-whoopin'!​

The RPG parts are some of the odder bits of this but not necessarily bad. I seriously don't know why every game in this series tries to be experimental if it's set between the main instalments, but this one tries it too. It's not as maddeningly confusing as Chain of Memories but it's hardly normal for RPG's.

OK. Imagine if an RPG system was created out of the inventory system from Resident Evil 4.

Sudden urge to try and fit a Green Herb in there? Yeah, me too.​

Everything that relates to your character's stats and equipment are represented as panels. Everything! Even each level you gain is a panel that has no effect until you attach it to your character. Everything is like this. New weapons, items, abilities. You have special tiles that have an area of the grid designated to them and will only allow certain tiles inside them. Abilities or weapon tiles will boost or alter that tile in a particular way while there are also tiles that will multiply the effect of anything attached to it. Like level, items or casts of a certain spell.

It feels more like I'm programming a character than anything else but it is an interesting departure. You see, you earn more pages within your character's ability space that will unlock more and more space to lay down more tiles. There is the frustration of not having enough tiles to give you enough power to fight something effectively but there is a pleasant little meta-game about maximising your space for the best effects. I genuinely enjoyed this bit. I don't know what's up with me but I did enjoy sitting down and fiddling with this to see what directions I could push my stats. It's not exactly hard to grasp as a system and there was a small triumph in gaining more space to lay down panels and make your character even more powerful.

So, yes: like most Kingdom Hearts games, the RPG bit is actually pretty engaging, interesting and challenging.

Deep breath! We're going to dive into all the bile I have for this game and make our way to the gallstone at the bottom! Ready? I'm psyched! Are you psyched? I'm psyched! Here we go!

The mission system ****ing sucks.

I meant that expletive because it's so utterly soulless and empty! Fitting for the Nobodies but not good for you or me: the player in this situation and the poor schmucks that paid for this game. Or didn't. Well, I did but you might not have. Or shouldn't have. I don't know...

Speaking of getting confused, I should establish something for non-fans: what a Nobody is. Yeash...Kingdom Hearts stuff always sounds bizarre to explain.

When a person looses their heart (which seems roughly the same as losing your soul), they will no longer exist as a person. Instead, the darkness within their heart (soul) manifests into a monster called a Heartless. Some hearts can be considered 'powerful' (which seems to be linked to force of will. Or maybe desire to continue eating Cheatos, I don't know! It's a little vague) and this can make the body that was left behind to attempt to animate itself again through shear force of will. They become half-beings. Emotionless, cold and only comprised of body and mind with no heart at all.

They are Nobodies.

I want one of these coats so damn much. They look so damn cool.​

They're characterised (sort of) by organisation and logic. Unlike the random monsters the Heartless are, the Nobodies are meant to be able to plan and direct their actions accordingly. Which brings me back to the missions.

Pro-tip: A mission based system should not feel like a job!

I am so serious. There's no life to this. It's the definition of monotonous. The initial tutorial is over long and is way too hand holding. Other tutorials have let you just experience a bizarre but enjoyable environment to safely learn the ropes with just the barest minimum of explanation. Kingdom Hearts DS cannot shut the hell up! I get the idea that your character - a Nobody called Roxas - is being babysat and shown the ropes by the older Nobodies but good lord! Where's the interest here? It's so dull! There's no sense of adventure to this. No mystery. No style or anything to hold your attention and make you want to play on like in the main instalments when they start showing you the ropes.

Here, you check in and then attack things then clock out. Nothing requires a lot of thought from you because there wasn't much in there to begin with. You kill things, you go home, you listen to the dull Nobodies mutter on about Chain of Memories or how soulless they are except they're not in any noticeable way.

*sigh*

In order to pad the ever-loving crap out of the missions, they add extra stuff over the top. You can get extra items by completing extra missions. And it's just extra dull stuff, if a lot harder. There's nothing much here I genuinely want to work towards. More powerful weapons or extenders to your available panel spaces are handy but it's just a slog to get them, I could not be bothered at all.

Now, I'd be happy to play though the missions if I was invested in the story. I actually only finished because I had spent money on this game and that purchase had to be validated somewhere! It turns out, Nobodies are boring! These mysterious, chilling, mischievous and calculating creatures have all the charisma of a turnip with a face drawn on it. They don't do anything! They don't have much to say that seems worth listening to! You don't see them drawing or reading or messing around with each other. They don't interact or argue. They don't play with cards or work on some piece of art. No one tinkers with something in your sight.

Not even impractical chairs can help this.​

They don't even attempt to push the idea of these people being half beings very much. Where's the confusion at suddenly finding themselves emotionally caught short? Why not have the characters interact with normal people and have them wonder why this man in the black coat isn't ecstatic to see dalmatian puppies? Why not show the cold soullessness of the Nobodies by having a mission revolve around rounding the contents of a village so that they can be sacrificed to the Heartless for the Organization's needs while these 13 solid gold bastards watch in nothing but what they approximate to be triumph? Why not start to push the idea that Roxas eventually develops a sense of guilt over what he's done as a result of Sora's memories (Mild Spoiler Warning: Sora being the main character of the main instalments of the series and is who Roxas was created from)?

All these 13 characters do is sit around in a blank living room talking about how much work they've got to do! I know that they're meant to be soulless husks of people but COME ON! The only character to give any interesting character interaction is Axel? Just, AXEL?!

Pictured: Axel spouting his catchphrase "Got it memorized?". Sadly, the most charismatic of Organisation XIII. Just imagine what the others are like...​

The guy that asks whether you still remember his name like he's trying to check everyone he meets for Alzheimer's in the most condescending way possible. He's the emotional attachment we have with the Organisation here. He chats to Roxas, befriends him and brings him sea salt ice cream (which sounds baffling to me. Surely anything frozen that contains salt shouldn't remain frozen for all that long).

So many missed opportunities here to expand on the personalities of these powerful and dangerous characters within the lore of this series and pump you up to fight these guys the first chance you get. Or at least stave off insomnia for a while longer.

Oh! And let's end on the story itself.

The major selling point of this story is that it revolves around Organisation XIII; a powerful collection of Nobodies that call the shots for all the other nobodies. They typically have 13 members but this game centres around Roxas (who is able to wield the legendary weapon 'The Keyblade') and member XIV, Xion (who also uses the Keyblade). They become friends and kill things because the Organisation says so. The reason it says so is because it's looking to harvest hearts from the Heartless to create one massive heart known as 'Kingdom Hearts', which they believe will grant them some form of release from their current status as half-beings.

Now, given that the characterisation of the Organisation is pretty weak outside of just making them big baddies and ensuring that each one has a few traits (even though I only really remember that Axel seems sort of cocky and Demyx seems largely inept), you can be forgiven for not really caring all that much about their major plan either way.

The evil half-beings are constructing the spiritualistic equivalent to the Death Star? Meh, I'm sure someone'll sort that out at some point. I'm just grabbing this red coin behind that grand piano over there.

And then! And then, all of your efforts to play through this game are given one final kick in the teeth. Ah-hem!

Spoiler: Spoiler Warning!

It turns out, Xion has been stealing Roxas' ability to use the Keyblade and that she is actually a sort of puppet that the Organisation, who want to keep around to ensure they have a powerful weapon around for their own ends, without risking it falling out of their hands. Roxas and Xion duke it out and Roxas destroys Xion.

Except that destroying Xion somehow erases the memory of her from every one, effectively ensuring that all events of this game never, ever happened. Because no one remembers. So it might as well be that it doesn't exist. And it makes the whole exercise pointless! Any impact on the universe of this series gets removed. It's ironed out so that some retro active alterations to the rest of the story doesn't have to be made. It's not clever or poignant because I couldn't have cared any less about Xion. Or anyone else in this game! It just serves to explain, vaguely, how Roxas ended up where he did at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts II. That's the most lasting impression this game has, apart from giving a basis to Axel's apprehensive attacks on Roxas.

It's ultimately unfulfilling, empty and heartless. Pun semi-intended.

While the plot did make a mess of my opinions on it, I do think there was a way of salvaging all this. What is it? MAKE ME GIVE A DAMN ABOUT ANY OF THEM!

You know what I like about the anime series of Bleach? They give a backstory to every villain they think would benefit from having some grievance their villainy is helping them working through. I haven't seem much of the umteen hundred shows but my example here are The Bounts.

Yeah, I watch anime occasionally. I should be watching more Full Metal Alchemist but I'm kept kinda busy.​

Believe it or not, these guys are effectively soul vampires but the story I remember was actually interesting and carefully measured. We learn that the Bounts are humans but they are able to absorb human souls. This allows them immortality and special powers that are channeled through Dolls, a sort of summoned companion that fights for the Bount like a trained hawk. Each one is unique to the user. We drill into the lives of these people and learn how distant from society they become. They either hide from shame simply because they are living for two long without ever aging or have been cast out for their abilities. We learn that the powers they wield are dangerous, even to themselves. We learn they are driven towards their goals. And we learn that they have even convinced a powerful Shinigami to work for them.

Why do I mention them, because I feel like they are just like The Organisation XIII except done well. Except with a decent attempt at characterising these people as possibly sympathetic. If that's not the case, then you understand their motivations. Even if it's just because they're angry and looking for vengeance. The Organisation had that potential and I don't believe it was ever really capitalised. And I find that truly disappointing for an entire set of characters I have spent attempting to fight.

Kingdom Hearts DS has one other feature that it can boast from the depths: multiplayer. You're able to connect other games together and play as any Organisation XIII character you want. Then you can tackle missions together and fight to your hearts content. This is the best thing this game can offer and is actually quite decent. After all, if you're going to play something that's like a slog, you should share the load. There's a decent amount to do and you can play as any Organisation member.

I can only hope the HD version on Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD ReMIX will be better than this. It's a real waste. Like usual, the RPG elements are interesting and in a better RPG, I could see this being something of a truly shining mechanic. As it is within this underwritten, lifeless game, I'll never forget it at least. In short, do not play this. You can skip it. If this series was an anime, this would be a filler arc. Stay away unless you want to take the RPG engine and transplant it into something worthwhile.'