So after the amazingness of Kingdom Heats 2, Square Enix had to make a follow up that was just as good. I mean, I'm talking about a follow up to Kingdom Hearts 2. The video game sequel that was praised by everyone and even won a ton of awards like best video game of the year, best video game sequel and best video game story. And did this game succeed in being a good follow up? Uh... sorta. Is it as good as Kingdom Hearts 2? No. Is it as good as the first Kingdom Hearts? No. But's still another great Kingdom Hearts game... kinda. To be honest, this is probably the lowest of all the Kingdom Hearts games because it does have a fair amount of problems. I hate to say that, but yeah, this game does have noticeable flaws. But, before I talk about that, let's go over the story first. What's the story? Again, there's another amazing opening that shows the Organisation and some info about them all.
It takes place during the time Sora was asleep inside the pod to get his memories fixed. While that's going on, the story really focuses on Roxas, Sora's Nobody. And it follows him through one year of being around and being with the Organisation. The story is about him going around doing missions. But also introducing a new member to the Organisation as number XIV and her name is Xion. Though something is going on with her. At first she always has her hood up and you don't see what she looks like but then one day she does take her hood down and she looks like Kairi except with black hair instead of red. She's also getting strange flashes in her head about Sora. No one except a fair few know what's going on. Roxas and Axel befriend her and they start hanging out, but as more days pass, more things are revealed and more things are jeopardizing their connections. And the missions they're doing are to mainly collect hearts for Kingdom Hearts, which is what they're after if you know what went on in Kingdom Hearts 2. And, apparently, the reason these things are happening to Xion is because some of Sora's memories are inside of her when his memories were scattered. And, I'm going to stop there. So first off, I'm going to go over some of those flaws I mentioned about a second ago. First off, everything in this game is a mission. And some of them are really good and some of them are really bad. I would say the worst kind of missions here are the recon ones where you have to do a lot of things and remember a bunch of things and gather a lot of information and other things like that and answer a lot of questions from other characters. And that can be either very difficult and really annoying. I'm not the only one saying that. Some other people say the same thing. We all agree on the same thing there. I would say though that that really only happens at the beginning of the game in Twilight Town and it does happen in other worlds throughout the game, but it's mostly in the beginning. Another is some of the bosses. Some of the bosses here are some of the most despised in the series. For example there's Leechgrave which is the most despised because it's so strong and hard to beat and unfair.
I have beaten it a lot since I first did, but that's really because I'm on a high level and that kinda helps, but it is definetly a really unfair boss. Another is Ruler of the Sky, which is the longest to beat in the whole series because he flies around all the time and you can barely hit him at all.
And by the time he stops flying, you can only hit him so little because he sends so many attacks at you. And the worst one in my opinion is Dustflyer.
I hate this thing. He so strong and he has so much health. You can barely attack him and he has so many strong attacks that can kill you really fast. And that meteor attack he has always annoys me. Another problem I have is some of the gameplay. Sometimes it can be good and cool and fun to use, especially the Limit attack. But then it can get kinda wonky and weird and hard to use. A lot of the Heartless are also very stupid and hard. Especially the Emerald Serenade Heartless, which does nothing, and I mean nothing but fly around and you can only hit him twice before he gets away from you again really fast and he usually has so much health. You will have to spend so much time on this Heartless. And especially when there's a ton of them. There's not a lot of them at once, but when it's there and you have it fight it in a big place like Wonderland where it can go everywhere and you can barely catch it, is beyond annoying. Also there were a few issues in the plot that either didn't need to be there or didn't make any sense. And some of the character's motivations aren't very good either. But, with all those problems out of the way, let's get to the good stuff. While I said that some of the gameplay isn't great, most of it is and most of the bosses are really good. Especially against Xion and Riku at the end. That was amazing. Speaking of the ending, it was cool to see Roxas with the Oblivion and Oathkeeper Keyblades and using them for a few seconds. And the story is mostly really interesting and very creative. And when you're able to go back to the missions previously, it's great to go and collect all the things you weren't able to before and complete it the whole way. The worlds are well are great too. While they are from Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, they're still good and a lot of things you have to do at these worlds are pretty interesting. Especially the part with the don't get spotted parts where you can't let yourself be seen by a character from that world. And the whole dynamic with a lot of the characters is pretty good too. Especially during the ending when Roxas is being torn apart with having to face the truth of what's going on with Xion. And I like how there is a real friendship between him, Xion and Axel. I think the three of them work well with each other. And the whole thing with Roxas also having to look for her for a few days is cool too. And the characters themselves, while not at the best here, are still good. Roxas, while a bit too naïve, is pretty good. Xion is a nice new edition and pretty sympathetic. And Axel is of course always great. You all already saw what he did in Kingdom Hearts 2 with wanting to see Roxas again and here it's shown really well why. I also like the conflict that Xion is in because she has a choice of going back to Sora and having the memories in her be given back to him. It seems very interesting and I thought it worked. Especially the scene with her and Riku on Destiny Island talking about it.
I really like that scene because it explains so much and makes it interesting. And like I said before, the whole scene where Xion dies is really sad. Maybe the saddest moment in the whole series. Watch.
That always gets to me. And I kinda like how we understand what happened during that one year Sora, Donald and Goofy were asleep. I thought it was nice to know what happened. And the storyline of how we get there is mostly good. I actually recently got all the specials in the game and I unlocked Sora as a playable character in the Missions choice where you can play as the Organisation members or Riku or Donald or Goody or King Mickey or Sora and I recently unlocked Sora. That whole Mission thing is also great in my opinion and seeing the whole cinema thing where you can rewatch the cutscenes was really cool and rewatching them while learning other things in the game is also interesting. I actually only really finished it a couple of years ago because I was stuck on one thing and I realised I could do one thing and that helped a lot. So in the end, I really like and enjoy Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. It's not perfect, but it's still another great Kingdom Hearts game if you take away some of the fighting parts. And while there are some other flaws too I'm sure, it doesn't take away the fact that I really enjoy this. And yeah, that's my review of Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. Definitely go play it if you haven't and look forward to my next Kingdom Hearts review which will be Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. I'm most likely going to post it tomorrow. Thank you all for reading and please comment down below to tell me what you thought of this.
No comments:
Post a Comment