KH 358/2 Days: Game is beaten. Final Time was like 27 hours and some change, and I did every single regular game mission.
I wanted to do a full Meeple Rant...but I'm not feeling up for it. Overall, the game was good though, and HOLY HELL NOMURA PLOT WITH ACTUAL WRITING WHAT IS THIS!? There were some things that did piss me off though, mainly some of the monster design decisions (...why must we fight Wyverns WHILE FLYING that can only be hurt by HITTING THEIR TAIL?), which hurt the game's overall enjoyment value, but in the end, a decent addition to the series.
The game also makes CoM seem to serve more of a purpose, cause the game does feed off it in ways that make CoM actually significant instead of useless filler between KH1 and KH2. HOWEVER, the game still failed to make Namine serve ANY PRACTICAL PURPOSE. She's the KH series version of Sophia:
If you replaced her with a magical cardboard box, the story would be completely unaffected. we'd use a completely shallow character, and you wouldn't care. Ok, there were some scenes that needed a character...problem? Nothing about the scenes said "This needs to be Namine!" They were scenes that just said "It needs to be someone who knows what's going on, but can't be in the Organization." They could have used, say, Diz, and the scene would not only have been unchanged, but probably better,c ause Diz has a far cooler design (Namine has one of the most uninspired, most boring designs ever), a much better VA, and none of this "Tee hee, I'm so sweet and innocent ^_^" act they use with her, instead we'd have a guy who'd pull off the cryptic thing more convincingly, and none of this forced emotional shit in the mix. Its like they used Namine only cause they had too. Had Namine been a magical cardboard box, I swear the plot would be IMPROVED.
And you know what's REALLY sad? Namine has had *3 FUCKING GAMES* to prove she's useful...and she's failed in all of them. It says something that her DiD role in CoM was her most important work in the entire series, and then CoM more or less writes her out of worthwhile ness cause in KH2, Sora doesn't even remember her, nor does anybody, and all she has is a few VERY FORCED SCENES with Roxas, and a ludicrous one with Kairi...one Axel could have been used for as well...and been better...
Flipside, we have Xion, who despite being her first appearance...made quite an impression! She actually served a practical purpose, didn't feel forced, and they did stuff with her character to actually give her depth. Really, working with Xion the way they did, it made Namine BECOME EVEN LESS USEFUL. It really is quite amazing how worthless Namine is, but no, they have her, so they have to pretend she's meaningful! But after 3 games they've STILL FAILED MISERABLY.
In the end, Fuck Off Namine; you're a completely pointless character who needs to stop pretending you're massively important.
SO THAT ASIDE, games probably a 7/10 overall or something. Would be higher, but the failings do hold it back some...and no, despite my rant, I don't mean the Namine bullshit; that's more just a pet peeve I needed to get off my chest. The enemy design nonsense combined with a few stage design flaws were actually the main reason.