If a game can be more throughly enjoyed by watching a cutscene compilation than by playing it. It's a failure. No matter how good the story is.

The story is good. The best in Kingdom Hearts certainly. Not only good by its lonesome, but it makes Kingdom Hearts 2's story better. The best kind of prequel.


But actually playing the game is boring and tedious, and maybe that was the point? To drive home the whole "job" aspect of this game. But even if it is, it dosent make it good.

Just watch the cutscenes on the collection.

Somehow this game is simultaneously the most heartfelt and heartless Kingdom Hearts game you could really play.

On one hand there’s a cohesive narrative, plot, and cast that feel tangible and fun to experience (almost sort of feeling a bit like they just borrowed stuff from the new Persona games ngl) but also very much grounded in the reality that the DS basically was the “iPhone” before the iPhone made people think for some reason it could replace consoles like the 3DS or PSVita even if it’s part of the “PS2 games on DS” trilogy the developer was secretly making (see FSR and KH: recoded)

Continuing to re experience the entirety of the KH series. While I like the movie version of this just fine, I’m glad I’ve played the game itself. That repetitive structure of doing work for the organization really adds to the vibe of the story. Roxas is my favorite character in the series and honestly Jesse McCartney kills it as him. When he gets angry I’m impressed at how well he works as Roxas. This story adds a lot to KH2, but I think it’s important to experience it as a prequel and not as a primer for KH2. I think KH2 really wants you to feel coldly about roxas at first. The story in hindsight especially after this game enhances the experience and makes replays incredibly effective. Nomura is really good at making it feel like everything was planned, despite the fact that it definitely wasn’t.

358/2 also encapsulates the general tone of the series really well with its key moments.
The “who else will I have ice cream with?” Line is clowned on. That’s not unfair, it’s a silly line. However with the proper context it has a far different impact. Roxas was essentially a newborn learning how humans functioned and interacted. He didn’t know what friendship was or what friends did together. The ice cream hang out sessions make up the bulk of his time becoming friends with Axel and Xion. It’s not that he thinks it’s the only thing friends can ever do; it’s the only thing they’re able to do at all. He’s not concerned about who he will have ice cream with from now on. That sentiment is synonymous with not having any friends left at all.

However, it’s still kinda funny. It’s a goofy series with stilted bizarre dialogue and story moments that make me laugh despite how seriously the game will take it. Through all of that though, I still completely buy the performed emotion of it all. That’s what this game encapsulates within the series. From the outside looking in it’s near impossible to empathize and grasp how anyone can have a genuine emotional investment in the story. It’s one of the few game series that I believe can never be understood without playing all of it. It’s almost like the act of making friends - which is fitting because that’s the whole purpose of the series in a way. You can’t read off someone’s personality traits and interests and automatically care about them. You need to spend time with them and actually get to know them.