Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days - Lightning in a Bottle
Why Game Preservation is Important
SYNOPSIS
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is the fifth installment in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, and takes place between Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, with some events happening at the same time as Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories. It released exclusively on the Nintendo DS on September 29, 2009 in North America. With the release of the Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix compilation 4 years later, 358/2 Days was ultimately reduced into a 3 hour long “movie” of the game’s most important cutscenes, which were fully voiced and reanimated in HD (there will be a quiz on this at the end take notes!). The game follows the life of the main character Roxas as a member of Organization 13, the main villain team of the Kingdom Hearts series, which is made up of Nobodies, people without hearts. His job is to travel to various worlds and eliminate Heartless, creatures who contrary to their name, hold hearts within themselves. Roxas is the only member of the Organization who can free these hearts because of his special weapon, the Keyblade. The Organization seeks these hearts because they hope by amassing a great number of scattered hearts, they can one day grow hearts for themselves. In the midst of this journey, Roxas becomes friends with fellow members Axel and Xion, and their bond changes the trajectory of their lives and the efforts of the Organization forever.
EMBRACING THE CONSOLE
As 358/2 Days was being created for the Nintendo DS, one of the first hurdles the development team had to face was the controls. The original plan was for the game to play similarly to its predecessors, but the console’s limited buttons made this task near impossible. For example, the DS was built with a D-Pad, compared to the standard joysticks used by home consoles that provide much more range in movement. Therefore, one of the sacrifices that had to be made was to simplify the combat. However, the development team was still able to use the quirkiness of the DS to their advantage. At times in Roxas’s journey when he visits places that Sora has been to in previous games, he gets glimpses of Sora’s memories due to the connection of their hearts. These glimpses are shown to the player as blurry videos that flicker on the bottom screen of the console, which catch the player off guard while not fully drawing attention away from the main scene on the top screen. This effect honestly freaked me out when I first played the game and left me thoroughly impressed. It’s quite rare for a game to incite such a strong emotion in me.
Another tragic time when the dual screens are utilized excellently is during one of the last cutscenes in the game. After defeating Xion, Roxas deserts the Organization and runs away to start a new life free from anyone holding him down. Unfortunately, he crosses paths with Sora’s friend Riku, who ends up kidnapping him because he is needed to wake Sora from the comatose state he entered in Chain of Memories. As Roxas is being taken away, the bottom screen displays a montage of moments where he is hanging out with Axel and Xion, except now Xion is gradually fading away from the scenes as if she was never there. It’s a heartbreaking way to visualize how she was being forgotten even by the people she was closest with. I think it is quite inspiring that even though the DS has clear limitations regarding the game’s controls, the developers were still able to make the most out of interesting mechanics that can’t be done on any other console. Obviously, the gimmicks I’ve mentioned would not be possible for a modern single-screen port, but I think it is still important to attempt a modification that would allow some of these aspects to be preserved. They heighten the emotions of the story without saying anything, and they are most effective when they occur at the same time as the main scene. Something that I wish the developers capitalized on is the console’s touchscreen. It is only used to freely move the camera and to easily equip items before a mission, but I think it could have been used to pull off special combat maneuvers or even some minigames that could have brought some more variety to the game.
THE MISSIONS
The area where 358/2 Days faced the most critique was the gameplay loop: daily missions assigned by the leaders of Organization 13. These have you heading out on recon to various Disney worlds, usually to find something new to advance the Organization’s research or mow down a huge horde of Heartless. They are admittedly pretty shallow compared to the fast-paced gameplay loop of previous Kingdom Hearts games, which constantly had you traveling to different places and doing unique things in each world. However, I’d like to argue that this monotony helps enhance the plot of the game. It serves the purpose of making Roxas’ strife and turmoils tangible to the player. You and Roxas are in very similar positions; you both don’t understand the true intentions of the company Roxas is working for and are only doing what you are told. But even as the game progresses, Roxas is hardly learning anything new about himself or his motives. After every mission, the only reward you get are some items to power you up for your next job and few minutes to spend hanging out with Axel and Xion. This is the cycle for basically the entire game: prep for mission, work alone, hang out, sleep, prep for mission, work alone, hang out, sleep. There are a few deviations from this pattern that often are the most interesting moments in the game. For example, a couple missions are accompanied by one other member of the Organization, and it is in these moments where you see these characters flourish. One of the early tutorial missions is led by Marluxia, the main antagonist of Chain of Memories. In this mission, you witness him construct the plan he takes out in that game in real time, as he often makes comments about the power of Roxas’ Keyblade as you fight. Some of the game’s hardest missions are at the end of the game, not necessarily hard difficulty wise but more so emotionally. There is a point in the game where you learn that one of your best friends, Xion, was created with the sole purpose of absorbing Roxas’ abilities so that the Organization can control more Keyblade wielders. However, she begins to take too much power from Roxas to the point where he is about to perish, so you must kill Xion to keep yourself alive, and she becomes the final boss of the game. As I played the game for the first time, I realized how much more power there is in doing the difficult deeds rather than just watching them. The mundaneness of the missions made all the moments where you are doing anything else other than work all the more impactful.
LOST IN TRANSLATION
As I’ve mentioned previously, 358/2 Days has been bundled with HD remasters of the other games in the franchise in compilation titles. However, the only part of the game that was remade were the main story cutscenes; there is no way to play the actual game outside of the original DS release. I believe this was a huge detriment to the effectiveness of the game’s story because there is much to the game that the main cutscenes can’t capture. Video games excel as a notable medium for storytelling because they provide something film and literature can’t replicate: experience. You are the main character in the story. You feel Roxas’ exhaustion after hundreds of fruitless missions because you were the one doing the fighting for him. You mourn for the few friends that Roxas made along the way because they’re all you got too. This isn't to say that there’s anything wrong with the third person perspective of film and literature, but it's sad to see this story lose the power it had as a playable video game. There is so much in the original version of 358/2 Days that was not put into the movie outside of the gameplay as well. Between missions, you can walk around the castle where Organization 13 is based and talk to some of your coworkers. They always have something interesting to say to Roxas whether it be about their personal lives or making a harsh comment about how they feel about the other members. Unfortunately, very few of these interactions were put into the movie; if it wasn’t significant enough to the plot, it was cut. It’s such a shame because this game is the only one that really explores the individual members of the Organization and the inner workings of their community, so a lot of people miss out on these little details because they only know about the movie in the HD collections.
One other lame thing that the movie does is in the few times something important happened in what would have been a mission in the original game, the movie doesn’t even show you what happened. It just displays a summary of what went down with a still render of a scene from that mission in the background. I was baffled at some of the scenes that were denied a genuine cutscene, most notably the moment in which Axel breaks up the fight between Roxas and Xion that the organization set up in Halloween Town. It really would have been nice to get these scenes animated and voice acted just like the rest.
Another tremendous loss in my opinion is the multiplayer mode. This allowed up to 4 players to do select missions in a group as any of the Organization members, and even a few extra characters like Sora, Donald, and Goofy were unlockable to play as. 358/2 Days was the first Kingdom Hearts game with multiplayer, but this mode was never brought to modern consoles. I know this game mode would be so popular with the fans and it’s a huge bummer that it can only be played locally on a 14-year-old game. 358/2 Days is not the only Kingdom Hearts game that’s a victim of a lost game mode; Birth By Sleep was remastered as a full game for modern consoles, but it lost its online arena mode that let you duel other players. These little minigames are not important to the game story wise, but I still believe it’s very important that they’re preserved. Only a handful of people are lucky enough to have access to the original versions of these games, it's sad to watch these features that were not carried over to modern releases become lost to time.
CONCLUSION
I understand why many people push 358/2 Days to the side because in all honesty, the game isn’t very fun. Even so, what would have been the point of the game if it was fun? If the game was constantly enjoyable to play, it would have undermined all the struggles Roxas and his friends had as cogs in the Organization’s machine. I truly respect the way that the game works to immerse you into the lives of these characters without trying to sugarcoat their pain. It begs you to sit down and enjoy all of the intricacies and quiet moments that lie outside of the main mission loop. Making a story-centric game that isn’t afraid to be a little rough at times is a risk that I think developers should take more often. I wish there was a way to bring 358/2 Days to modern consoles to keep it preserved and make it easier for people to play it today. The cutscene remake in the HD collection just does not suffice as a good retelling of the story as there is so much context and emotional beats missing without the experience of actually playing as Roxas. Every Kingdom Hearts fan should find a way to play 358/2 Days if they want to experience one of the best stories in the franchise in a whole new light.