Kingdom hearts on DS? Is it Dog-Shit, or Distinct-Superior!?

It has been a while since I played DS (yeah, I did try out Scribblenauts, but somehow get bored and irritated by it soon). I guess I have been waiting for this game franchise that I have fallen in love with for a while now -- Kingdom Hearts. Even though it is on Nintendo DS (small screen, poor display, bad directional control, etc.), I still enjoy it very much thus far (after 4 hours). In overall, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days receives averagely 75 from all critics, which is considered reasonably well (even though I would hope it would be higher considering it is Kingdom Hearts). Allow me give you a piece of my mind here about this game.



Story: If you haven't played Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories or Kingdom Hearts II, probably the story is a bit hard to follow. Basically, it is about a secret organization formed by 13 "non-human agents" (I tried not to use the keywords here to avoid spoiler) trying to collect hearts for Kingdom Hearts. The story focuses on two main characters, namely Roxas and Xion (both of them are somehow related to our protagonist Sora from I and II). I won't spill too much information. In overall, it is about friendship, and about light and darkness. Yeah, it does sound a bit lame, but somehow quite thrilling.


Gameplay: It is an action-RPG, i.e., button smashing to kill them all. Since it is RPG, it certainly has some sort of depth of RPG. The Panel system is certainly a welcome feature for me. All I have to do is to equip the panel with a number of "decks", which can be a keychain, an item, an accessory, a skill, an ability, etc. In other words, it decides the strength of your character. As this panel can be "attached" to any character, it means you don't have to level up every character to play the multi-player game! COOL!

Graphic and Audio: It is DS, c'mon, don't expect a HD quality picture. However, even though it is on DS, yet it still looks great. It is certainly expected from Square-Enix. Their development never disappoints me. The audio quality is acceptable. The soundtrack however is all from the previous episodes -- so, no surprise there.

In overall, the game is good! I think I will enjoy it after so many "years" of no RPG.