I just want to say I really enjoy it. That surprises me. I’d become jaded to the franchise since my distaste for you-know-who, but when I started playing it, it immediately made me forget that, and made me realize why I loved the KH franchise. Starting KH 358/2 took me back to when I was anxiously waiting for KH2 to come out and the overall enjoyment I had playing it (I had some gripes about it, but for the most part, I did enjoy it). I’m unsure of the mission based/structure of it, but overall, the game is a fantastic reminder as to why I enjoyed the franchise.
I’m the opposite. I disliked KH2 because it not only basically scrapped any mention of the love story between Sora and Kairi (cue that one VG Cats comic), but also replaced it with a barrage of TOTALLY HETEROSEXUAL MALE FRIENDSHIP SRSLY GUYZ between the evil bishonen sausage brigade and Axel/Roxas, Sora/Riku, which kinda dragged ass.
While I admit Days is better, and I actually liked the GAME part… I just can’t look over the fact that it revolves around Roxas falling in love with a transgendered Sora, who then is not even transgendered at all, all while Axel behaves like a sad puppy and the salty ice cream is forever imprinted into my head as a metaphor for fucking. I mean, what the FUCK people? How did we go from “Love triangle between childhood friends” to “Male fragment of a guy falls in love with female-but-progressively-male fragment of the same guy”? Also, remember Axel in Chains of Memories? The game blew ass, but he was a cool motherfucker. How badly do you want to turn him into clingly obviously gay rejected lover? Speaking of which, any intention in ever dealing with the whole “Nobodies have emotions?” deal? Because it’s pretty fucking clear that they DO, and yet somehow it was perfectly cool for Sora to spit on them at the end of KH2.
I admit I didn’t get far in the game, because it failed to catch my interest for several reasons.
First, the characters. I’m sorry, but Organization XIII was too boring to hold my attention. They are literally nothing more than reflections of humanity, and their personalities are all pretty much boring, muted, and incompatible. Roxas was boring to watch in the beginning and failed to capture my interest because he was even more of a zombie than any of the senior members.
Second, the Mission format. I didn’t really get too far into it, but I dislike games that are set up like that, where gameplay and story seem to be absolutely separated. Say what you will about how battle and such draws away from a game’s story, but you can mix them way better than I felt this did.
Third: this game felt pointless. I don’t feel like playing this game would give me any real important information. Even Chain of Memories, as simple as it was, was a link between the two games that offered some information that made the two more connected.
Oh, and the fact that I wasn’t exploring any new areas at all, I hated having to equip levels, and so many other things that just added up to a less than stellar game.
Thought it got repetitive. I’d argue that it’s worth playing once, but that’s it. Didn’t care for the whole mission format crap.
Also disliked the fact that you had to waste several days for tutorials. Like they couldn’t wrap everything up in one or two days.
And yeah, aside from some background info, the game really didn’t serve much of a purpose.
I finished it, but the entire game felt like a chore to me. JRPGs are losing their appeal to me. I’m hoping Birth By Sleep is better.
Hmm… well to be fair, I’ve only just started it. I’m about 4 hours in, so the exposition is still happening. We’ll see if I change my tune.
I loved KH1 and 2, but I stopped playing this after a few hours because I just found it boring. The mission structure with little story between missions and emotionless characters just gets boring. I might try it again later in hopes that the story picks up, but I’ve heard that the story is just about a Mary Sue.