My review is based on playing the Xbox version of the Final Fantasy XIII game. There are so many contradicting reviews about FFXIII, but one thing is certain, the graphics in this game were amazing, and some of the places where you got to travel in were exciting, when I was in Gran Pulse, I felt like I was like in the prehistoric times, it was cool to see all the huge monsters, and Dinosaur-like animals running around.

The characters were interesting, though I got tired of the way they kept switching who you control for the first few hours, they wanted you to get to know all the characters, and sometimes you were stuck playing as a character you might not like. I really like the main character, I’m so glad to see a strong female main character, that is confident and able to kick butt. But at the same time she is compassionate and grows throughout the game.

I wont give away too much of the story away, but the gist of the story is that there is a group of people that have been branded with a mark, it gives them special powers, but they are forced to perform a “focus” some time of job, and if they complete it they turn to crystal, but if they fail they become monsters. Now for the negative, personally, I found the Game play boring, i was 3 hours into the game and I wanted to stop because i was so bored. I mean literally the entire game is mostly running around fighting monsters.

Normally I like fighting and leveling up, but I like the balance of fighting when I want, or doing side quests, or exploring a town/city when i want, in this game all you do is… fight. It didn’t feel like an RPG game. I feel like this FF game lost the sense of adventure and the excitement that the other games have. Speaking of the battling system, during battle you control one character, and should that character die it is game over, you cannot be revived.

This is the main characters from the game, from the left is (Sazh, Snow, Hope, Lightening, Fang, and Vanille.)

The game has “roles” you can assign to each person, and they can only use magic or attacks from that role. Meaning if all three of your characters are commanders, you will have to use a button to switch to another “Paradigm” so they can be a medic. You have to set up a list of the types of paradigm you can switch to during battle. To level up you get CP (crystal point), which you spend on a system that lets you decide which role you want to develop your character as, but you don’t get to decide  which roles your characters will have until later in the game.

I read reviews where people complain that the game is too linear, i don’t think that’s what is wrong, i don’t mind linear games, its just that there is nothing to do in this game besides level up. The story was interesting and it held my attention enough that I could finish the game. But overall, this game was okay, but in my opinion, not the best game out there.

Here is the Game Trailer, so you can see a little more about the game.

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Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories, is a game that i was excited to play and yet why did it take me months to finish the game? I suppose its because i played KH1 and KH2 before this one, so my expectations were too high. The entire game is basically fighting heartless (its all that you do in each world) to collect cards to fight and cards to open doors, in each world you open three doors so that you can see cut scenes and fight the final boss. You repeat this in each world that you already visited in KH1, there really wasn’t any new worlds, since the point of this game is to delve into Sora’s Memory, as the name of the game basically says.

Sora is looking for Riku and King Mickey, he wants to find them so he can go back home. He ends up in Castle Oblivion a place that has something to do with memories. The castle is ruled by cards. Yep i said cards. Thats the one thing i didn’t like about the game, i know the games are geared for kids, but the whole idea of fighting with cards and opening doors with them just pushed the games into being really childish. It reminds me of those kids shows where kids duel other people, they stand there and creatures come out of cards and everyone is gasping in panic to see what the next card will be next. The villain always has a super undefeatable card that the hero manages to beat magically. Anyways, i Digress.

The cards thing wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t annoying fighting with cards. When you battle you have a deck of cards to use, some are attack cards, item cards, skill cards, and magic cards. The bad thing is if you waste your cards doing sleights (a special attack) all your cards will disappear and you’ll be standing there without any cards and unable to do anything,  but you do have the choice of waiting for Pluto to appear and find you more cards, but you better hope his card number is high, because if his number is low he can be broken by an enemy attack and you’ll get nothing. And yet despite all of that i was still able to finish this game because i really liked the story, it was interesting to see what happened during the one year gap between KH1 and KH2. Namine comes out more in this game and you are able to understand her powers more, and you get to learn a little more about the organization. You also get to learn more about Riku and Axel.

The graphics in this game are great, its a huge improvement to the graphics in the Gameboy version. The music as always is sweet and nostalgic but its getting kind of annoying that they cant come up with new music for the new Kingdom Hearts games, as much as i like the song Sanctuary, do they have to use it for every single game??? Also, for you Mickey Fans out there you’ll get to see a lot more of him in this game, and you get to hear his squeaky voice a lot, i used to love Mickey, but my love has officially been destroyed. One thing i really liked about this game is that when you finish the game there is a 2nd Story Mode. You actually get to play as Riku! You’ll get to see what happened to him after he disappeared behind the door with Mickey in KH1. I’ve always wanted to play as him, unfortunately you can tell they didn’t really care about originality when they decided to piece together a quick little game that features Riku. They actually force you to fight the same exact bosses and you revisit the same worlds that Sora did, i dont get why you had to do this. It was really annoying, but it was worth it because you get to learn so much more about Riku. Anyway, if you are a KH fan then i would recommend playing this game. Otherwise just head over to youtube and watch the cut scenes, you wont be missing much by skipping the game play.

Top: Gameboy Version Bottom: PS2 Version

You have to synthesized doors in each world to see cut scenes and reach the worlds boss.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, is the new release for Kingdom Hearts series. The game is for the nintendo DS and it is an action role playing game. The main character for this game is Roxas, the second main character, from Kingdom Hearts 2. Roxas is a Special Nobody, and I was glad that this game was centered on him. I found the plot to be very interesting, because I didn’t feel like I got to know Roxas enough in Kingdom Hearts 2, but in this game you will find out how he ultimately joins the Organization XIII, and learn more about the Organization at the same time. This story takes place during Kingdom hearts: Chain of Memories, and the beginning of Kingdom Hearts 2.

You won’t have Donald and Goofy to help you out in fights, but you will fight alongside other Organization members.  There is a new character called Xion, she is the 14^th member. It was interesting how, even though Nobodies have no heart they still have their own unique personalities and  I grew to like a few of them, that I had found  annoying before. Especially Axel, I can see now why he was so desperate for Roxas to remember him, and we learn one of the reasons for why Roxas used two key blades instead of one.

 The fighting in this game is similar to the first two games, and thankfully you won’t have to use any cards to fight! This game is basically a mission’s game; you will get to visit different games on missions since you work for the Organization. Sometimes you will go on missions just to gather hearts from the heartless, or just to gather information about the different worlds and the people that live there. I admit the missions quickly become repetitive and annoying, especially how the bosses would keep getting repeated. But the story kept my interest. When you are in a mission you cannot save your game or access your menu, if you need to do something you have to leave the mission, and then go back; which can be annoying.

You are also restricted to certain areas of the town your in, and since you have to try to avoid attention there is rarely anyone on screen to talk to, I felt like this game didn’t have the freedom the two previous games had,. Just like the previous games you will be visiting different Disney worlds. It was fun revisiting some of the worlds from the other games! The game has two modes, Mission Mode and Story Mode; in Story Mode, you will just play the game normally, but in mission Mode you can play with your friends, and you get to play as other characters that appear in the game. The graphics of the game are great, very similar to the first two games, and the music is Nostalgic because they used a lot of the music from the other games, so it was nice to hear some of my favorite songs again.  Overall, I really loved this game, and I feel like it really rounds out the plot from the previous games.