Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days Review
Kingdom Hearts is back in town once again courtesy of Square Enix and Disney's creative minds, this time with Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days on the Nintendo DS. It's been quite a while since Kingdom Hearts has served up some new plotline and this time Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days pits players against the heroes whose roles they normally play, for a little change of scenery, and in true Action RPG form too. Taking advantage of the platform to boast both single player and multiplayer story modes, this is definitely not the stereotypical spinoff carbon copy.
Players take control of Roxas, the latest recruit in the diabolical Organization XIII, whom Kingdom Hearts veterans will remember controlling for the six-hour-plus tutorial phase of Kingdom Hearts II in 2006. Quite literally a newborn Nobody with nothing but a name and a severe case of amnesia, Roxas is quickly picked up by Xemnas, given his acronym-derived name, and accepted into the ranks of the Organization as number XIII. The story follows Roxas' ascent from, as partner Axel calls him, a listless "zombie" into one of their more formidable warriors. The timeline runs in the background of the events that take place at the end of Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, bouncing back and forth between The World that Never Was, as well as various Disney worlds where XIII conducts investigations and missions. Long time Kingdom Hearts fans will note events, like several members' departure for Castle Oblivion, as timestamps in the pre-existing Kingdom Hearts plotline, which does a nice job of rounding out the universe. In addition, a marked twist to this story, as players will be able to tell simply from looking at the cover, is the emergence of an as-of-yet-unmentioned rank XIV in the Organization, a young woman named Xion.
