Late to the Pain: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (NDS)
The last time I played this game was years ago, before the release of Birth by Sleep. I played like 2 hours of it, and it was so terrible I simply could not continue. Early last week, for some reason I simply cannot explain, I was compelled to find the box, open it, remove the cart, put it back into the DS, and load my save. I knew it was a terrible idea, but I still had to do it. Something inside me demanded that I go back and complete the only KH game I have yet to complete.
So I suffered through all the pain, and I completed it today. Yes, it still sucks. Without a doubt the worst KH game ever made in terms of actual design and gameplay. There is so much to say about how bad this game is. Every single system in the game is designed to be grindy, repetitive, and worse of all - boring.
The actual theme of the story is centered around the concept of experiencing a boring and monotonous life where a person simply does the same thing day after day without asking much, and then having a quiet moment of sitting at the top of a clocktower eating ice cream with his friends. The gameplay and overall mission design of the game completely encapsulates this point. Props to the team, they nailed the feeling they wanted. Too bad that feeling sucks balls.
The panel system in the game seems to get a lot of praise from fans who played the game (probably the only thing which gets any sort of universal praise in this game), but honestly, I think the game fucked up on this too. While the actual customization options are great, especially towards the end of the game, the path to opening enough slots to make this system meaningful at all is really painful and boring.
It feels like a Korean MMORPG where the entire point is to motivate the player to do as many boring missions as possible to get enough Slot Enhancements to actually use the customization system. It doesn't help that all the interesting forms of customization also requires materials dropped by certain enemies, and early in the game you have such a limited backpack that you might be tempted to grind missions repeatedly for materials because you can't carry all of them in one go.
The controls are also really terrible. The idea of making a KH game which plays like a KH game on the DS is a noble attempt, but there's a reason why no one really plays 3D action games on the DS - because it is fucking painful to use the d-pad to play games designed for analog control. Most of the bosses in the game were an experience in true pain - the physical sort of pain where your hands cramp up and hurt like hell after beating them.
But physical pain isn't the only sort of pain this game provides. No. Far from it. This game is very generous when it comes to dishing out the pain. There is also emotion torture, where for the first several hours of the game you honestly wonder if you will be seeing any sort of Disney content at all. After the 10th visit to the same 4 areas in Traverse Town doing tutorial type content, the trauma really starts to get to the player.
This experience is not limited to the beginning of the game though, it is repeated over and over throughout the game for every single Disney world you eventually visit. The same rooms, the same areas, the same enemies, the same tasks, over and over and over. It's like subtle brainwashing in motion. This game is really more about going through the motions rather than really enjoying a proper game.
To sum it up, I would say this game feels like a 5 hour game in terms of actual content, wrapped in a 30 hour game package. The majority of everything is filler, and while there are some good ideas and some interesting boss battles, it all gets so diluted into this goo of repetition and grind that it becomes impossible to really appreciate anything in it.
Verdict: Only recommended to Kingdom Hearts 2 fanboys and fangirls who want to hump Roxas all night. Everyone else should stay the fuck away.
The last time I played this game was years ago, before the release of Birth by Sleep. I played like 2 hours of it, and it was so terrible I simply could not continue. Early last week, for some reason I simply cannot explain, I was compelled to find the box, open it, remove the cart, put it back into the DS, and load my save. I knew it was a terrible idea, but I still had to do it. Something inside me demanded that I go back and complete the only KH game I have yet to complete.
So I suffered through all the pain, and I completed it today. Yes, it still sucks. Without a doubt the worst KH game ever made in terms of actual design and gameplay. There is so much to say about how bad this game is. Every single system in the game is designed to be grindy, repetitive, and worse of all - boring.
The actual theme of the story is centered around the concept of experiencing a boring and monotonous life where a person simply does the same thing day after day without asking much, and then having a quiet moment of sitting at the top of a clocktower eating ice cream with his friends. The gameplay and overall mission design of the game completely encapsulates this point. Props to the team, they nailed the feeling they wanted. Too bad that feeling sucks balls.
The panel system in the game seems to get a lot of praise from fans who played the game (probably the only thing which gets any sort of universal praise in this game), but honestly, I think the game fucked up on this too. While the actual customization options are great, especially towards the end of the game, the path to opening enough slots to make this system meaningful at all is really painful and boring.
It feels like a Korean MMORPG where the entire point is to motivate the player to do as many boring missions as possible to get enough Slot Enhancements to actually use the customization system. It doesn't help that all the interesting forms of customization also requires materials dropped by certain enemies, and early in the game you have such a limited backpack that you might be tempted to grind missions repeatedly for materials because you can't carry all of them in one go.
The controls are also really terrible. The idea of making a KH game which plays like a KH game on the DS is a noble attempt, but there's a reason why no one really plays 3D action games on the DS - because it is fucking painful to use the d-pad to play games designed for analog control. Most of the bosses in the game were an experience in true pain - the physical sort of pain where your hands cramp up and hurt like hell after beating them.
But physical pain isn't the only sort of pain this game provides. No. Far from it. This game is very generous when it comes to dishing out the pain. There is also emotion torture, where for the first several hours of the game you honestly wonder if you will be seeing any sort of Disney content at all. After the 10th visit to the same 4 areas in Traverse Town doing tutorial type content, the trauma really starts to get to the player.
This experience is not limited to the beginning of the game though, it is repeated over and over throughout the game for every single Disney world you eventually visit. The same rooms, the same areas, the same enemies, the same tasks, over and over and over. It's like subtle brainwashing in motion. This game is really more about going through the motions rather than really enjoying a proper game.
To sum it up, I would say this game feels like a 5 hour game in terms of actual content, wrapped in a 30 hour game package. The majority of everything is filler, and while there are some good ideas and some interesting boss battles, it all gets so diluted into this goo of repetition and grind that it becomes impossible to really appreciate anything in it.
Verdict: Only recommended to Kingdom Hearts 2 fanboys and fangirls who want to hump Roxas all night. Everyone else should stay the fuck away.
