Part 75: Day 358: Believe

Here it is. The final day.

Music: Critical Drive


Finally, on our final day, we get to dual-wield.



Welcome to the final mission. The only mission where we get to dual-wield and explore The World that Never Was.



The Neoshadows all die in 1 hit.



Dual-wielding Roxas has his own combo. The Y branch for ground combo lets us continue to aerial combo while the Y branch for aerial combo ends it earlier.



Of course, there's still badges to collect. There's just 2 areas in this mission, but once we've gone to the second we can't go back here.

Music stops
Video: Skyscraper Battle & Roxas and Riku


As Roxas walks towards The Castle that Never Was...



Neoshadows appear.





It's finally time to reenact Another Side, Another Story. At least the Deep Dive version. We all know that the original version is no longer accurate in many ways.

Music: Critical Drive


Naturally, the first thing we do is stand still and wait for the Neoshadows to hit Roxas until the yellow HP. It takes longer than it should've.



And here's our final badge in the game. We still haven't collected some in past missions, but still.



Anyway, this is the reason we let ourselves get hit. This Limit is only available for dual-wielding Roxas and this is the only time it can be used in the story mode.

It's about as dangerous as Xion's attack during her final form, which is not at all. Really, it's more style than substance, considering it has the same problems as Thundara.

Music: Another Side Another Story (or maybe it's the one that's coming up later. I honestly don't know which one)




Oh hi, Riku. You've basically been the most successful person in this game (though that's not really a high praise).



Like in the movie, Roxas goes after Riku. Unlike in the movie, there's no Neoshadows chasing behind him.



It makes this part looks less like Roxas giving Oblivion to Riku and more like Roxas trying to use Strike Raid.



...Only for him to grab it for himself instead. Strike Raid really got shafted in this game, huh?

You guys got a point about it having multiple variants in other games, though, so this is deserved.



Soon after, Riku remembers something.



That's right, folks. He doesn't reminisce about Sora while falling, he reminisce about Xion instead.



They pass by each other...



And arrive at their respective destination.



After that, Roxas immediately jumps back down. I don't know what they were actually trying to do here. Even Nomura admitted that he didn't think about the context when making it originally.



Together, they beat the Neoshadows. No, we don't actually get to have Riku as a partner for this section.





They both jump back so that we can have some actual dialogue between Roxas and Riku.

Video stops here
New Music: Another Side -Battle Ver.-


Fun fact: The game uses the same portrait for both hooded Riku and Roxas.

What does it matter? I'm here for you.

That sounds wrong in many ways.

Why are you trying to stop me?
Because I want back the rest of Sora's memories.
Sora, Sora, Sora! Enough about Sora!
Do you have some kind of plan?
I'm going to set Kingdom Hearts free! Then everything can go back to the way it was! Me, and Axel, and...her can go on having ice cream together...
Her? You mean Xion? It's a struggle just to remember the name now, isn't it? Either way, I can't let you go doing anything crazy.

You call that crazy? You've been away from Sora for far too long.

I have to find this Sora person, and freeing Kingdom Hearts is the only way! I want Xion back. I want my life back!
If you try and make contact with Kingdom Hearts, the last thing you'll get is your life back.
The Organization will destroy you.

I'm pretty sure we can handle it. The game itself, on the other hand...

Shut up!

You know, Riku, if you've talked to Roxas in addition to Xion this wouldn't happen.

That said, this is the one of the few scenes that definitely NEED to happen, so I guess that's Nomura's fault.

Boss: Riku


Anyway, we're now reenacting the KH2 portion of Deep Dive. You might notice that Roxas doesn't actually hit Riku here.



This is because Riku's actually blocking here. We can just go around behind him to attack.



Physical attacks works well against him. You know, when he isn't blocking.



Obviously, Riku has a physical combo of his own. It's not a threat.



Riku also has Dark Firaga. It's just like Fire which will home at us, but we can dodge it pretty easily. Or we can use Thundaga while he's casting it to cancel it. Good thing Riku doesn't have Magic Bracer



After reducing Riku's HP, he will power up.



If we attack him from the front while he's blocking, he will counterattack. This will also happen before he powered up.



His power up mostly affect his physical combo. He won't get staggered after his powered up, so aerial attacks are better now.

It's worth mentioning that we're forced to use Oathkeeper in this fight, with its own combo. Its aerial combo is just 2 hits, so it's fast and he won't run off before we finish.



He does gain new attacks, though. One of them is Helm Split. Unlike Re:CoM, there's no extra shockwave after the final hit. Dodge Roll works well here.



Of course, Riku isn't complete without his signature attack.



We can use Dodge Roll to avoid his Dark Aura. This is actually Riku's Limit, which we can use when we're playing as him in Mission Mode.

And remember what I said about Limits?



It doesn't make you invincible, so we're able to do shit like this.

Music stops
Video: Riku Turns Into Ansem, After the Battle, A New Day


Why do you have the Keyblade?

This makes absolutely no sense in the context of this game. It's just here because it was in KH2.

Shut up! *attacks Riku*



Music: Riku






I have a feeling that while Riku doesn't hate Xion, he actually hates Roxas. Just a hunch.





Why don't you quit?
Come on, Sora. I thought you were stronger than that.
Get real. Look which one of us is winning.



Roxas is surprised at what he just said.

So it's true. You really are his Nobody. Guess DiZ was right after all.

Again, he should've known this for months now.

What are you talking about? I am me.





*Roxas attacks Riku again*

Riku, please! You have to stop him!

There's just the voice with subtitles on the bottom screen (not shown in the video). It's either Kairi's or Namine's voice. I can't tell. Mostly because they have the same VA.

How many times do I have to beat you?
All right. You've left me with no other choice.
What?
I have to release the power in my heart-



Even if it changes me forever.









Wow, that's just

Music stops


We move on to the second part of the video. This one has a weird bug in the emulator where the subtitles are delayed.





DiZ...he could feel Sora.
Oh, he told you how he "felt," did he? Ridiculous. A Nobody cannot feel anything.
If he had met Sora, things might have been different.

Or if you had told him everything like how you told Xion everything.

Music: Roxas


Roxas, don't be sad. I came from you and Sora. I am you the same way that I am Sora. You'll forget me, but the memories themselves will never go away. Memories of you and me will always be together forever, inside me.

Honestly, I can't tell if it's Xion or Namine or Kairi. Mostly because they have the same VA.

Also, there's another bug here. For some reason the game will hang if we let this scene play until the end, but it progress just fine if we skip this scene. I have no idea why this happened.

Music stops


-1 days left.







Maybe...today we'll finally hit the beach!

Music: Sanctuary


What are you going to do there. Take ...? Too bad SE don't bother making any beach here, though

Only seven days to go, and then my summer vacation's over.

Video stops here


So, yeah. That's Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. I like that they tried to change the gameplay. The idea of using missions are nice, but the worlds aren't large enough to avoid it being repetitive. The various recolored Heartless don't help. It just reeks of



The story, however, is really not the strong point of this game. The Disney worlds are basically useless. To be fair, that's also the case for other games (beside KH1). I really hope Disney will actually let Nomura involve Disney characters other than Micky, Donald, and Goofy in KH3.



The friendship part of the plot is a prime example for why communication is important. Riku basically convinces Xion just by talking to her (and beating her that one time).



The bosses in this game are...varied. Guard Armor, Leechgrave, Ruler of the Sky, and Xion (phase 2 and 3) are extremely bad bosses for reasons I've explained before.



The magic is easily the strongest part of the game. Having different effects for different tiers of it makes the earlier ones viable and some of them are fun to play with.



I like the panel system, but I'm certainly in the minority here. It's certainly not what you'd think of when you think about KH's gameplay.



Anyway, that's it for the story. There's no secret movies or anything here, sadly.



This LP, however, is not over yet. There's still more things to cover in this game.



For example, there's Mission Mode. It's the only place we get to see Xemnas, Saix, or Lexaeus in action there.



There's also the challenges.



More importantly, we still have a few badges and treasures to collect with a few missions we've yet to fully complete.



And finally, I'll show off all the available weapons in this game at the end of the LP. It's the one part of the game where they went



So if you managed to get this far, thank you for reading this LP.