Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

[Just Crouton]

Having never played Kingdom Hearts beyond 5 minutes of Chain of Memories on an emulator, I bought this used at Gamestop months ago (either Christmas or on my birthday). I turned it on, and watched the cutscene that introduced me to 13 of the most uninteresting-looking characters (Tetsuya Nomura was lazy that week?) I've ever seen to one of the worst songs I've ever heard. Organization 13 is a really stupid name, especially for an evil organization. It's so plain. When I think "evil organization", I think the Legion of Doom, the Hellfire Club, the Inner Circle, or Shadaloo/Shadowlaw.

But now the game starts. Something about Roxas or whatever, yada yada. Then, there's the first mission. Great! I get to learn the battle system right away and start smashing stuff, but no. It's a tutorial on...opening a treasure chest...which, like in all RPGs that aren't Ultima, takes 1 button. Squeenix really thinks you people are stupid, huh? Oh, then we get a scene where Roxas and Axel eat ice cream...okay. Then,, a diary entry I don't care about, THEN a battle tutorial with help from the token "pretty" boy. Then, some other battle tutorial.

As much as I complain about the boring character designs (seriously, 2 of the guys just look like Sephiroth clones) and story, I LOVE the battle system. It's not as fun as in games like, say, Megaman Star Force or Final Fantasy 12, but it's a break from all the loldeep story-telling...even though it's supposed to be the other way around, Squeenix. Then, there's a magic tutorial with Larxene, who I can easily remember because she's the only one with boobs, and she's really annoying.

Then, there;s a tutorial on recon stuff, and I got sick and tired of all these mandatory tutorials, so I hired cubex55 to spoil the 1st 2 hours for me, and ..

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TgIisMQk30[/media]

The friggin' tutorials take up an hour of the game. I'm surprised the bearded man doesn't give you a tutorial on how to use the d-pad, or how to save.

These tutorials would've been better if they were fit into one intro mission and pops up when needed. Or even better, make them optional, give them a space on the menu, and throw you right into the game.

The music wasn't much to write home about. It just works. I wish the battle music was more [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AifWabjUQEg"]alive and thunderous like the Ys series[/url] than something that sounds like hijinks. This game's soundtrack would pull me into the game if it was done like Ys.

Oh, and apparently, this game's title is pronounced "Three Five Eight Days Over Two". Aside from a stupid name, the logo doesn't reflect this. Reading the logo, it says "358/2 Days", meaning a lot of people are likely calling it by that name because Squeenix are idiots for approving a poorly designed logo. At least when Turn A Gundam;s logo was designed with it's unique inverted 'A', the in-show logo had "Pronounced Turn A Gundam" on it.

Oh, and has anyone played re:Coded on DS? I was looking at it at Gamestop while I was buying this.

[Astro Dude]

I played and beat it. Got the secret ending too. But why is no one going to the Kingdom Hearts 3d thread?