OKAY, I said I would do a full report on Days, and this ended up getting kinda...long. 8D; No seriously, it's a massive herd of teal deer all frolicking on the teal deer farm. It's also got spoilers, so proceed with caution. But having finished, this IS what I thought of the game as a whole!

Graphics

This was kind of a sad toss-up, because the weird thing is, as a DS game, the graphics looked awesome. Fully-rendered 3D gameplay that didn't make the camera too difficult. (Like, a step above KH1 camera.) But as a KH game? The graphics were kinda lacking. One of the things I've always liked about the KH series is the modeling/textures on the environments. The different Disney (and other) environments are so rich and beautiful in KH games. Seriously, people can say whatever they want about the story or characters, if they don't like them, whatever. But I WILL defend the artwork to the death, because if you ask any gamemaker they can tell you that KH has excellent modeling and texturing. But all that richness kinda got squashed by the DS's capabilities...everything looked flat and a little desaturated.

I will say that I thought Neverland was the best world to play around in, graphics-wise, even if it wasn't as extensive as some of the other ones. Seeing Neverland at night was just really pretty, and I'm looking forward to it even more in BBS. *_*

There was also a lot less fully-animated scenes than I thought there would be. (What happened to that shot of Roxas meeting the Genie? I could've sworn that was fully animated!) And because of DS limitations, the animation was often slow and a little muddled. I'm pretty sure my Roxas Play Arts has more joints than cutscene Roxas did. 8( It's like...graphics-wise, Days was a DS game that was trying to be a PS2 game. Which isn't to say that the graphics weren't nice, because they really pushed what the DS could do. It just didn't really do the KH universe's artwork justice.

Gameplay

AHAHAHA GAMEPLAY. If my ranting was any indication, this was not an easy game to play through. Maybe it was the way I was trying to level/arrange my panels, maybe it was the strength of the enemies pitted against me, maybe it was the controls. But for whatever reason, there were quite a few pitch-your-DS-across-the-room moments. |D This might've made me unfairly take out rage on Roxas...I know a lot of times I kept thinking "COME ON, ROXAS, SORA COULD SMASH THIS GUY INTO THE GROUND! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!" or "GEEZ CAN I GO BACK TO PLAYING AS SORA NOW?" The playing curve was steep, and it wasn't until about the last quarter of the game that I felt like I had a good handle on actually killing Heartless and handling bosses. Once I did get to that point, then it was totally fun killing Heartless. But damn, it took awhile to get there! The only thing I can think of to counter this was to level up more doing missions, but this is way time-consuming to do in Days, and even when I did do a bunch of extra missions/challenges it netted me, maybe...two or three extra levels? Maybe this was an intentional thing? I don't know.

Speaking of, HOLY CRAP someone upped the difficulty level on all the enemies. Roxas should never be in a state where Dusks breathe on him and he dies. Aside from the bosses I screamed about (Antlion, Infernal Machine, LEECHGRAVE), there were some regular enemies that were just really really frustrating. I really am not kidding when I say I want to crotchpunch whoever thought of Armored Large Bodies. Those things were just a PAIN to get through, with not too much reward. And this game made me start to despise Trick Ghost-type Heartless, which I had found creepy but manageable in KH1. Even Horn-type and Flower-type Heartless, which are challenging but doable in CoM and pushovers in KH2, became HUGE FRUSTRATIONS in Days. Even those ginormous Shadows became an asspain, and this should not be happening!

I did like the reappearance of Wyverns and Wyvern-types, even though some of those bosses were also a pain. (But they were more tiresome than scream-into-your-DS-frustrating.) I've always really liked Wyverns, though. 8D; And of course, I always like new Heartless designs.

Part of this weirdness may also be because Days had status effects for some unknown reason. Why? In turn-based RPGs you can at least have the time and resources to remove status effects cast on you, and also benefit by using a status effect on an enemy. But in an action-based RPG like KH, you don't have time to deal with status effects. I just had to wait out a status effect every time Roxas got hit with one, because it was too much trouble to a) remember to equip whatever ONE ITEM gets rid of status effects, b) flip around to items to grab it, and c) use it. And it was impossible to inflict a status effect on an enemy unless you happened to be using a lot of magic. So really, status effects just became a nuisance. No more of those in KH, plz.

I thought the panel system of upgrading your magic and weapons was interesting, but it was kinda cheap that you had to equip levels. Why not just have a TWEWY system where you level automatically, but can set your level to whatever you want otherwise?

I keep coming back to it, but again, it feels like Days was a DS game that wanted to be a PS2/PS3/PSP game. It was all use of controls that would have felt great on a PS2 game, but didn't quite work to all of your advantages on the DS. I mean, obviously it is possible to make a great-playing RPG for the DS...look at TWEWY, or the remake of FFIV. I just think they could've thought outside the box a bit and used what the DS was capable of in battle, rather then trying to squeeze PS2 controls into DS buttons.

Obviously, the big advantage in the DS would be the multiplayer function, which I didn't try for this. But the frustrating thing for that is that it doesn't support wifi. I know that it's a heavy-duty processing game, and if I can barely send a Bidoof to a friend in Florida, then I can imagine why wifi of a full-on four-way battle in a 3D environment would not work. But at the same time, I've got all of these fandom friends who I'd LOVE to battle with and I know would love to play with me, but can't because they live out of state or even just a few hours upstate! So I'm stuck either only playing with people when I see them at cons, or playing with the one or two people who DO live close and a) own a DS, b) bought Days, and c) played through as much as I did. I really want to use the multiplayer capabilities, since that's one of the DS's big selling points and I think it'd be super fun to do Organization missions with fandom buddies. It's just frustrating that I can't DO that unless it's under certain circumstances. :(

Characters

AHAAA, CHARACTERS TIME. Considering the crapload of characters, I won't get into EVERYone, but some...
Roxas
OH ROXAS, FIRST IN A LONG LINE OF TRAGIC CHARACTERS. While he's really not as cold, distant and aloof as previously thought, at least the game explains why he was so angry by the start of KH2. I mean, he pretty much spends his entire lifetime looking for some kind of human connection, because he comes from Sora and Sora is ALLLL about human connections. And instead he is raised by sociopaths, worked to the bone because that IS what he's there for after all, and berated by the same people that make demands of him. And the few friends he DOES make end up betraying him because they're too selfish to allow him to make his own decisions. I think it would make any person bitter. I know some people like to blame Sora completely for killing off the POOR, POOR ORGANIZATION, but I bet Roxas didn't at all feel bad about knocking off the people who treated him like crap his whole life. (And suddenly I am kind of interested at the realization that, in my KH2 playthoughs, I almost always go into Final Form for the first time when battling Saix. And considering Final Form is supposed to be a physical manifestation of Roxas accepting Sora as his Other, makes you wonder...)

I still think it's more fun to play as Sora, however, and that's for a particular big reason. Half of what makes KH so much FUN to play is that you go to various Disney worlds, get to fight Disney villains, and run around with Disney heroes. Sora does all of this in spades in other KH games. But with Roxas, things usually went like this:
- Disney characters: *do something interesting*
- Roxas: Huh, I wonder what they're doing. Oh well, I better get back to my mission.
For a game series built around Disney interaction, it's not that much fun when you don't get to interact with Disney characters! Hell, there were even minigames where the point was to avoid being seen by a Disney character! The few times he DID get to interact, it was fun...Roxas and Tinkerbell was incredibly adorable, moreso than Sora and Tinkerbell, I think. And it was fun having Roxas talk with Phil, Genie and Zero, too. But all of those moments were few and far between. Part of that was, obviously, because Roxas is a Nobody and he didn't know how to interact with or react to people outside of what the Organization pounded into his head. So it was like...we're skirting on the edge of ALL THIS happy fun Disney interaction, but instead get stuck doing all the busywork. (Emblems, anyone?) While all of this can't exactly be blamed on Roxas himself, since it's just the situation he was shoved into, it still sucks for him that it's ultimately more fun to be his Somebody than to be him. :\

Xion
It's kind of funny how fandom has given her so much vitrol. I was expecting someone OH NO, SUPER ANNOYING, but uhhh no, that wasn't the case.
Is she a Mary Sue? No.
Is she the most amazing awesome coolest badassest character ever? No.
Does she break up AkuRoku? No, Axel does a perfectly fine job of that on his own.
Is she a tragic character? Most definitely.
Is she interesting? Ehh, I suppose so. Really, she's got about the same sort of story as the Riku Replica, except she handles things quite differently. So if you like the Riku Replica? Then you'll probably like Xion. Repliku was tragic but didn't leave that huge of an impression on me, so Xion was abooout the same, but that's just my opinion. I definitely felt sorry for her, though, because she basically gets this brief stint at a smidgeon of normalcy, only to find out that it can't last and is partially fabricated anyway.

What I found unexpected was how accepting Xion was at the end. Spoilers had made it out to be that Xion was really bitter at being a replica, that she wanted to be her own person and tried to absorb Roxas so that she could accomplish this. But in reality, by the end she's accepted that she must return to Sora, and even encourages Roxas to (eventually) accept this as well, telling him to make sure to beat Xemnas and that they'll have those happy memories again when they're both restored to Sora's heart. It's an interesting contrast to Roxas's stubbornness on staying his own person (and the Repliku's bitterness towards Riku), and I'm kind of glad they made her that way. It adds to what makes her tragic, and keeps her from completely becoming another super-bitter-replica-of-protagonist-character.

Axel
OH AXEL. I wanted some backstory on Axel's history, but of COURSE we didn't get anything on that. :/ While his super-badassery level was still toned down quite a bit (except for his off-screen stint in CoM), one thing that did come across loud and clear was that Axel is a completely selfish person. They say that sins of omission are worse than sins committed, and that would be true of Axel as of anyone. I think interacting with Sora in Castle Oblivion made Axel start to crave the feelings that friendship gave, and was absolutely enthralled with the idea of having Roxas and Xion as his best friends. So he did all the things friends are supposed to do: hang out with them, have fun, joke around, stick up for them, back them up on missions, etc. But Axel was still incapable of thinking selflessly, because hey, he's still a Nobody, and as he says himself, he's not capable of love.

So he just kept the ONE BIG THING that Roxas wanted to know (who he was) to himself, even though he knew the answers to all of Roxas's questions since Castle Oblivion. If he had just been truthful or honest with Roxas, there's no telling how things could have gone...maybe even for the better for Axel or Roxas. But because he just kept everything to himself and pretended everything was fine, he completely broke Roxas's trust in him. As "woobie" as Axel might have been, he still fucked up the one good thing in his life because he was a selfish liar. Which makes him pretty tragic, too, but it also explains why Roxas was angry and distant toward him through pretty much all of KH2. For as much shipping fuel as the game probably provided, it pretty much debunked any notion of a happy-sappy cuddle-wuddle AkuRoku love.

It still makes me want to know what the hell Axel's deal was when he was a Somebody, and even with his earlier days in the Organization. It REALLY looked like he had a history with Saix, and a COMPLICATED one. I mean, this game basically revealed that it was Saix who ordered the hits on everyone in Castle Oblivion, right from under Xemnas's nose. Why did Axel carry them out without much questioning? What else were they up to before Roxas showed up? Why was Axel the only Nobody that was influenced by Sora to the point where he wanted to latch onto best friends himself, instead of just using him for more concrete means? I SUPPOSE WE WILL NEVER KNOW THESE ANSWERS.

Other Organization members
- Okay, I think I really liked what they did with Demyx the best. He ended up as being lazy, whiny, and finding ways to shove his work off onto other people...and dangit, he was funny that way! A part of me also feels some kind of sadistic glee that the somehow-super-popular Axel/Roxas/Demyx fantrio got squashed...it's way obvious that Demyx cares only about Demyx, Demyx and Number IX, and may even be wary/resentful towards Axel. PEACE TREATY THAT!
- Luxord was intriguing in his dialogue, but they didn't expand on him much. Same with Xaldin and pretty much all of the Castle Oblivion crew. And this game just proved even more how much of a heartless bastard Xemnas is, but I don't think that was ever really up for debate.
- I was actually surprised to get a little more interest in Xigbar as a result of this game. He never left much of an impression on me in KH2, but after some of his lines and especially his little stint with Ven, I want to know what his deal was.
- Also, Saix looks like he has a lot more history, except we're NEVER gonna get that expanded on. I mean, the guy was the one to order the hits on all of Castle Oblivion. Maybe he was planning stuff under Xemnas's nose? (Although Xemnas definitely knew about Marluxia's plans.) I just mostly wanna know about what Saix and Axel were up to before Roxas popped up on the scene.

As for everyone else, we rarely see Mickey, Riku, DiZ or the Disney casts, and what we do isn't all that different from what we already knew. I actually really wanted to see more of what Riku was up to, but it wasn't much more than what they showed in the cutscenes. And the Disney characters were just there as practically extras, which was a disappointment for me.


Story

While there wasn't as much backstory for all the characters as I would've liked, there was plenty for Roxas, and really, that's who the game was ultimately about. And really, the story's also made me realize that ALL of the Organization's purpose, in fact the purpose of three KH games thusfar, has been in Xemnas's pursuit of the power of one boy's heart. Can't get the original Keyblade Master? Just use his Nobody. He starts to develop wants of his own? Get a clone working instead. That clone starts to break down? Okay, pit the Nobody and clone against each other and see who gets out on top. Both of them abandon you? Okay, just try to use the original Keyblade Master again. It's like the Organization was trying over and over again to manipulate an innocent with incredible power into getting power for them, and then somehow getting angry when that innocent went "FUCK THIS" and turned on them for it. It's like...well what did you expect to happen, Xemnas? But of course, in the process of this power play, the people who ultimately get the most hurt by it are those innocents...Sora, Roxas, Xion, and also Riku and Kairi for getting drawn into it.

I DON'T think the story did anything to present the Organization as morally right, or even less villainous. To me, it came across as Roxas being manipulated for the sake of his abilities, slowly discovering that he is being manipulated (and that the people he wants to care about are also being manipulated), and deciding that he's not going to put up with this. It's ultimately tragic, not heroic.

Overall? I think it was a good game, but it was the weakest of the KH series thusfar. It had fun moments and was a sad tale for all of the protagonists involved, and it filled in some things characterization and story-wise. But it was more frustration than fun to play, and I think it's ultimately steered a little too far from what makes the KH series a great game series. So if you're a huge KH fan? Sure, get it. (and if you live close to me, get it so I have someone to multiplayer with!) If you're a casual fan? Probably don't need to bother. If you're an Organization fan? Yeah, you'll like it. I'm not an Organization fan, so while I enjoyed its moments, it's still mostly neutral for me. I'm glad I played it, but I'm probably not going to replay it anytime soon.

In the meanwhile, I'll be drooling in a corner waiting for Birth By Sleep to come out! More Disney character interaction? YES PLEASE. New Disney worlds, especially of really classic Disney? DO WANT. Origin stories on Xehanort, the Keybladers, Mickey and even the Princesses of Heart? IT'S ABOUT TIME. Interesting-looking characters and gameplay that all signs point to being really flexible and fun? SIGN ME UP!

Yeeeah, Days has been a nice distraction, but it's also just made me want BBS even more. 8D