I really enjoyed 358/2 and I feel it cemented Roxas as my favorite character in the whole franchise. There's nothing really to say on the subject that Fynn didn't mention in his great write-up. Except I still think the whole Riku-Ansem thing was stupid and mostly used for cheap shock value. I will say that 358/2 is one of the most heart wrenching entries in the whole series with probably one of the biggest gut-punching endings in the franchise, which is saying something because most of the games have bittersweet endings. Well the good ones at least...

I'll stick up for the gameplay a little more though. I enjoyed the Grid system because the one thing KH tends to lack is a good customization system. The console entries lack any meaningful one and CoM probably has the best one in the series if you dig deck building. Still I appreciate the challenge of the Grid system imposes on the game. I feel the two best features of the game, which were largely ignored for the rest of the franchise was how magic and keyblades worked in this game. Granted, magic is unique because it's built for the multiplayer, but I appreciated the fact that each level of a spell was unique and not simply a "bigger" version of the first spell. You could also build some interesting combos with stuff like Blizzaga and Firaga. For the Keyblades, I liked the fact they had alternate combos depending on whether you hit an alternate button at certain times. One of my favorite Keyblades would open up into a powerful aerial combo if you chained it right and with the aforementioned spell changes, it was possible to create some fun and challenging combat setups. So I feel the core idea of the combat system was actually really strong, the issue was the game was made for the DS.

Don't get me wrong, I love the DS, but 358/2 should have been made for the stronger PSP system if they wanted a hot handheld multiplayer itle, especially since Wi-Fi support on the PSP was better designed than the poor DS. It may have also improved the controls of the game as well. Like KH1, 358/2 asks more of the camera than it really could, especially with the added problem of lacking a right analog stick to fix things. Made more annoying by the game lifting areas from verbatim from KH1, leaving us to deal with finicky camera controls in some platform heavy areas like Agrabah or bringing back the awkward flight controls from Neverland back. There are also just some flat out obnoxious missions that just make the gameplay side of things more tedious than it should be such as the stealth missions against Cogsworth and Pete or the obnoxious "chase down the giant heartless" missions in the Wonderlnd Maze and Neverland. I like to hope that had the game been remade for a stronger system with a better camera, it would actually really shine as one of the better entries but obviously SE has decided that's more effort than they are willing to give to the poor title.