The following post qualifies as You Should Know This Already for the Kingdom Hearts series of games. If you want to avoid spoilers, avert your eyes.

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Very few characters in the Kingdom Hearts universe can be said to be tragic. For the most part, everyone tends to eventually get their happy ending even if there are some odd paths they must take. There are two notable exceptions to this, however. The first is Axel. In Kingdom Hearts 2, although he is generally shown as an antagonist, he contends at every turn that all he is attempting to do is bring his friend back. He even goes so far as to give up his existence in order to protect the mere vessel in which the only remaining pieces of his friend resides.

The second tragic character is that of Roxas. He, like Axel, is a Nobody--the remnants left behind when a powerful person is turned into a heartless. In the first Kingdom Hearts game, the main character, Sora, is temporarily turned into a heartless in order to save his girlfriend. Sora eventually gets better, but the transformation leaves behind Roxas as a Nobody of unique pedigree. Chronologically, players first see Roxas at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts 2 where he is, in a sense, the tutorial character. Eventually, Roxas gives up his being in order to restore Sora's memories that were lost during the events of Chain of Memories. In this 7 day prologue, basically all we learn is that Roxas must be destroyed in order for Sora to be destroyed. Over the course of the game, we learn that Roxas had been friends with Axel and a member of Organization XIII. He'd fought Riku and won and at some point left the organization for reasons that aren't made clear.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days fills in the time period beginning with Roxas' "birth" and continues through until the events of Kingdom Hearts 2 proper begin. In this, players see his interaction with Organization XIII and find out various things that were left as open questions in KH2. Moreover, players are given a chance to see the real tragedy that is Roxas' short life. I would say that, because of the relatively large amount of information given, this game is "required reading" for fans of the series.

Gameplay wise, I generally enjoyed it. There are some interesting ideas floating around in here. I was especially fond of the "equipment" system--though to call it such would be highly misleading. Essentially, everything your character can do is decided by what "panels" he has equipped. Panels are Tetris-like blocks of various sizes and shapes which get arrayed into a grid which increases in size over the course of completing missions. Everything you want to have accessible to your character--keyblades, magic, special abilities, even levels--must fit within the available grid. This leads to you playing a sort of packing problem game as you gain new abilities and slots.

I found the controls a bit clunky. This is especially noticeable near the beginning of the game before you have access to all of the available movement powers. Trying to platform using the rather poor D-pad on the DS is rather frustrating.

Ultimately, I had the game on preorder and thus paid full price (less a $5 pre-order discount). I do not consider my money wasted. If you're not a fan of the series (and thus a Commie Mutant Traitor), there probably isn't much for you here. If you've not played the other games in the series, expect to be very lost. They explain some of what is going on, but sufficient context to truly understand is lacking.


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