Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days Analysis | The Best and the Worst

As far as the “reusing entire worlds” criticism goes 34:30 I feel like most people gave 358/2 Days a pass because they managed to put nearly all of a PS2 games explorable worlds on a cartridge the size of a cheez-it. That’s what shocked me the most playing the game as a kid. It felt like a console game sized world on the go. I loved this game growing up and it was actually my favorite in the series at the time. As much nostalgia ad I have for it, I do think your critiques do display the many shortcomings of Days. Keep up the good work! 👍

43:41 damn Jesse nailed that scene. Probably his best work in the series.

That section at the end really hit the nail on the head for me. I have a love for this game because of the exact time in my life that ive played it. I was going through an abusive time in my life and as a confused teenager wondering what the point to his life was and why he had to deal with the suffering in it really helped me connect to this game. Having a few hours a day to escape away to this game and play a few missions even for a bit got me to resonate with the story a lot. Growing up and being in a better place I never touched the game again but I remeber it fondly for the perfect storm of helping me through tough times. Nostalgia is a core part of this game and while it doesnt hold up im so glad I played it as a kid.

I am SO CONFUSED with the opening but I'm here for it.

46:00 “Musique Pour la Tristesse de Xion,” is one of my favorite VG tracks of all time. What an amazing piece of music.

This game uses a magic system with number of spell casts based on equipped spells? Days truly is the Dark Souls of Kingdom Hearts games...

goddamn it, you got me crying. that ending was beautifully written

So, I dont agree with the argument that the game is bad on purpose. But KingK brought up a good point in his video. That the tedium of the gameplay makes it feel like work. And he liked the game in spite of its issues.

I really like the Ariel based keyblades. When you finish off a combo they do more damage than the higher power ones and feel more fun to play with. The thing I've noticed is people really hate the combat because they end up picking a slower clunkier keyblade that does more damage instead of a more fun with higher combo potential that technically does more if you pull up a full combo. When you have a good area-based keyblade along with a bunch of air dash is equipped it actually makes the combat surprisingly fun fast-paced and like you have a lot of control over the combos and your ability to dodge bosses mid combo. People are stubborn in instead of experimenting they just pick the keyblade with the higher powerstat and wonder why it takes so long to kill everything and why they have a tough time getting there combos to hit.

When playing through the series, I tried to explain the nostalgia thing with Twilight Town to my friend since I never grew up with it but she did. And the world and music still made me feel nostalgia. Then, hearing the song you used in the middle of the nostalgia bit floored me as someone who also grew up with it. And I followed along with every bit following that explanation. I was not ready to cry during this video.

I disagree with the idea that you should watch the cutscenes instead of playing the game itself. The cutscene movie will ruin your experience with the story because the gameplay is a crucial part of the storytelling. And by that, I don't mean that "the game is boring, just like how Roxas is bored". Whether or not a game is boring is subjective and is always going to be a complete non-argument in whether or not a game is good, mediocre or bad because an individual's subjective feelings and preferences have nothing to do with a game's quality (I think Dark Souls 3 is boring as piss, especially as a 100%, but that doesn't mean that the game is terrible. I just don't like it very much, even in co-op, which is how I have the most fun in the Souls games). I mean that the missions, the combat, etc, put you into the shoes of the characters very well. A notable example of this is the mission where Roxas decides to give Xion his keyblade so she can relearn how to use it, foregoing more practical combat in favor of picking up a random stick with magical powers off of the ground and using that to fight instead. You then proceed to cast fireballs with your wooden stick for the rest of the mission while you fight alongside Xion collecting hearts in Beast's Castle, which puts you on the backfoot but allows you to see Xion learning how to use the keyblade on the go. It's a mission with a lot of great character moments built off of some previous missions and their respective story moments for that plot thread, and thanks to it and multiple other missions tied to the plot thread of Xion forgetting how to use the keyblade, the plot thread in question ends with a good payoff that develops the characters and drives the story forward in an interesting way that would not have occurred if the events of those missions did not take place, because Xion can never be humiliated by Riku if she doesn't figure out how to use the keyblade again, their bonds never become even deeper from this thread and so the rift between them that is created at the end of the game cannot be as large, etc. This mission, like many other ones, is absent in the cutscene collection, and because it was cut both from a cutscene and gameplay perspective, various payoffs and twists in the story aren't as effective as they really need to be in order for those story beats to work as intended. Too many times have I seen or heard people watch the cutscene movie as their first experience with this game's story and simply not care about anything that's happening in the story, including Xion's death. The gameplay allows you to get closer with the characters and it works as a way to bring you into the key character conflicts and development, as well as the plot, which the cutscene movie outright fails to accomplish because you're not experiencing the story so much as you are spectating select parts of it without any emotions other than perhaps complete boredom and disinterest. The cutscene movie doesn't convey the story in a way that allows you to connect with the characters, even if you're someone who loves the story from the original game and first experienced it on the DS or in an emulator. I think anyone who's interested in this game should play it at least once on their preferred difficulty of choice for the story alone if it's their first time through. After that it's up to them whether or not they want to replay the game from time to time. Personally, I enjoy the game despite its issues, so I don't mind replaying it occasionally. A couple years ago I actually bit the bullet and 100% completed the game on Proud Mode, though I did use save states for a couple of the more ridiculous challenge missions. I think I'd sooner do another 100% of 358/2 Days over another True 100% of BBSFM, if I'm being honest.

Very aptly put, and the ending kinda reflects a lot of how I feel about this series in hindsight in a post-KH3 world. Days in particular is a title I sunk a lot of time into back in 2009. Only having experienced it through the cutscene compilations and the Everglow timeline videos since then, I decided to go back to revisit the DS version last year out of sheer curiosity. Only be crushed when I remembered how dull it was to actually play. It's frustrating because I think it has one of the strongest narratives in the series up there with KH1 and the castle segments of CoM but the cutscene compilation itself also doesn't replicate the full experience, particularly in reference to the significance of the final fights with Saix, Xion and Riku. Also the "it's mundane on purpose" thing is absolutely a post-hoc cope argument. It's the game design equivalent of "It's supposed to be dumb and not make sense"

So apologies in advance for the long ass comment, but I'm just really passionate about Days and, well, Video Good. But feel free to skim through this one or ignore it entirely lmao I've been working on an extensive analysis of this game and I definitely appreciate the depth that you went to actually critically talk about this game in a fair way that doesn't immediately dismiss it for being itself, and honestly most of the gamplay criticisms you have are really fair. A small nitpick I have is that you mentioned you can't customize party member behavior, when you actually can! I always hated that idea about the gameplay "being boring" being, intentionally or not, complementary to the story. I think this idea started floating around more after KingK's video essay on Days, but regardless of that, I just don't agree with it for a very simple reason- I actually don't find the gameplay boring at all? While I can see why someone could get bored with it, I think exploring the panel system and its possibilities, especially with magic, makes the game super fun to blast through. Like, I often see people talk about how they HATE the panel system, how it makes magic useless because you can barely use it and whatnot, but I think you're the only other person I've ever seen point out how like- ethers are a thing, and you're supposed to carry out a diverse cast of magic spells per mission to make most use of those restoring items. Another thing I think makes this system really fun to play around is studying enemy behavior, how spells affect different enemies, and optimal ways to defeat them. You'd be surprised how much personality some of these mobs have if you observe them or read their journal entries, and how many creative ways there are of taking enemies out. So you know how you mentioned that you can't use spells while one is still being cast? While that's true, you can mix and match status effect caused by previous spells with different ones for maximum damage. Using a fireball on a frozen enemy, or casting thunder on and air-tossed enemy is so satisfying. Using thunder on a cornered enemy and seeing their HP get shredded is the best. Sure, none of this is exactly grounds for "best game ever", but I think so much of Days gets overlooked- there's more to its gameplay than the average person would give it credit, and I think it's a system that's worth exploring and screwing around with. Hell, when you say you heavily disencourage lv1 runs of this game, I totally disagree. A glass cannon mega powerful mage setup with Roxas, with so much more room for carrying out magic doublers and lv ups, all the skills and items you'd possible need- that's super fun to play around with! I think the part I most disagree with you on this video is when you mention there's no reason to play it with the HD movie existing. I think even aside from the gameplay stuff, so much of the heart, and humor of the character interactions gets lost and abridged in the movie, so much of the more subtle nuance of the themes gets lost in translation (and imo, even the tone of certain scenes and lines got butchered in the movie, as well with how certain scenes are framed in a camera sense). Overall, even with the disagreements, I do appreciate that these are clearly your very earnest impressions and opinions and not just the same old parroted ideas people have of the game without even giving it a chance. Was a great watch!

I do remember as a kid people were complaining about how many times places like Agrabah and Olympus were reused.

Jesse Mccartney nailed the role of Roxas, man gives me chills with some of his lines lol

Speaking of nostalgia, I got rather jiggy to your included Battle for Bikini Bottom OST

I haven't replayed this game in a long while but it will always hold a special place in my heart as my intro to the KH series after renting it from Blockbuster as a kid those were the days

I monthly check for new entries in this series, love what you do. Thank you <3

Love this game and I've replayed it for the story more than the gameplay not that I think its terrible or boring as others, for me this is impressive for a DS game. I see a lot of younger streamers now playing KH and some opt to just watch the movie, I always say play the game, the movie does not do it justice at all. One point that is really fascinating is that the Nobodies do have hearts, Xemnas lied to them.

Just found your channel recently; the deep dive has been super fun. The videogame video-essay YouTube ethos is fairly saturated, but you're doing really really great work. Keep it up dawgy & this channel will be huge.