Finally beat the whole game tonight. The three episodes, the last episode and saw the secret ending. I really feel like this is one of the best KH games they've made.
Gameplay is definitely a step in the right direction. I've liked that they moved away from the concept of MP, it might work for a strict turn-based RPG, but for action-RPGs like KH, players shouldn't have to worry about too many gauges or the like while in combat. Plus it's just more fun to use a bunch of attacks that you know will reload eventually.
Despite what I said earlier, I didn't use the D-Links as much as I thought I would. Given the damage you can deal out with what you have already, they're practically redundant. I had a similar feeling with the summons from the first two games. Maybe if they continue using them in the future, the summons/D-links/what have you should be equipped like normal items, giving you some active and/or passive abilities without replacing your current abilities entirely, or requiring yet another gauge to fill.
Despite its weaknesses, I did enjoy the story and characters, though I do wish Terra's and Aqua's VAs emoted more then they did. Everyone else was good, I thought.
so, either I'm misremembering something about Aqua's ending, or this is pretty odd. I could swear Aqua has to beat fused Vanitas and break the whateversymbol-blade herself, while here Ventus just makes it explode from the inside?
I saw it as Aqua defeating Vanitas first, then while he was knocked out, Ven had his showdown with Vanitas to put him down for good.
Sora connected with Ven's heart (remember that first scene) when it was damaged by ripping out the darkness which somehow also connected to Vanitas and made him look like Sora. (Despite Vanitas already existing for a while at that point, but don't think about it too hard.
One of the reports mentioned that Vanitas could feel what Ventus felt, so its possible Sora's face was from the occasional leeching.
Anyway, I'll look forward to whatever games they have planned. According to the interviews, destroying a person's Heartless (or releasing them, you could say) and, if needed, their Nobody, would make the individual whole again. So we could be seeing a battle with a whole Xehanort in the future.
I too just finished the whole game today, beating the final boss (who was disappointingly easy) and youtube-ing the secret video. According to the game clock I spent just shy of 40 hours total on it, which is fantastic. I fucking loved it, every second, and I cannot wait for KH3DS now.
some story thoughts
Terra:
I thought that when Xehanort occupied Terra's body, his "soul" or whatever lingered in his armor, and that's what you use to defeat Terranort. So later, when Terra and Xehanort are arguing over who gets to use his body in the secret video, how is that even happening?
Ven:
So Ven's heart is...inside Sora? And that's how Sora can use the Keyblade? I'm gonna need like, some big clarification on this part.
Aqua:
SO Aqua's like, lost forever in the realm of darkness. She would totally starve to death, amirite.
I too just finished the whole game today, beating the final boss (who was disappointingly easy) and youtube-ing the secret video. According to the game clock I spent just shy of 40 hours total on it, which is fantastic. I fucking loved it, every second, and I cannot wait for KH3DS now.
some story thoughts
Terra:
I thought that when Xehanort occupied Terra's body, his "soul" or whatever lingered in his armor, and that's what you use to defeat Terranort. So later, when Terra and Xehanort are arguing over who gets to use his body in the secret video, how is that even happening?
Ven:
So Ven's heart is...inside Sora? And that's how Sora can use the Keyblade? I'm gonna need like, some big clarification on this part.
Aqua:
SO Aqua's like, lost forever in the realm of darkness. She would totally starve to death, amirite.
It would be Kingdom Hearts without the WTF
As I understand it, the Terra we see arguing with Xehanort was his actual heart. The "Terra" that fought in the armor was his, well, lingering sentiments.
Sora can use the Keyblade because it was originally meant for Riku, but after the latter's actions, it moved on to Sora as a substitute (before making Sora its permanent owner). Pureauthor mentioned an interview stating that Ven's heart is what allows the wielding of two Keyblades, though.
Maybe darkness is edible?
Speaking of which, I would like the World of Darkness to be explorable in the future...it'd be interesting if it has its own worlds.
A plot explanation! TL;DR ahoy, and a lot of spoilers too.
Alright. Let's start with Master Xenahort.
MX is a hardcore Keyblade Master. He's explicitly the toughest dude around-nothing's definite about his Keyblade physical skills but obv. he's quite good, and he outclasses Aqua (who is better than everyone else, including Donald and maaaaaaybe Merlin/Yen Sid) at magic. A while ago he was good, although he had some strange ideas about darkness that were well intentioned. He and Eraqus used to be old buds, they learned together. Eventually he discarded his armor while traveling between the worlds, and got evil as a result. His eyes are golden like Xiggy's at the end to mark him as a strong user of darkness. At some point he learns about the Keyblade War, the Graveyard, and the X-blade. More notes of the blade after MX.
Xenahort eventually decided he wanted to reshape the worlds so darkness was equal to light and vice versa, so he planned on creating the X-blade to reach Kingdom Hearts. Additionally he was getting older and began to weaken due to age and the strain of darkness on his body. At this point, Eraqus and him have a dispute, they fight, Xenahort wins and gives Eraqus his scar. Unfortunately he needed a heart of pure darkness and a heart of pure light to get the X-blade, and his apprentice-Ventus- refused to use his darkness, so not only did Xenahort miss out on a potential pure darkness heart, he couldn't use Ventus as a vessel like he later did to Terra. At this point Xenahort rips out Ven's darkness, and Vanitas is created. Ven's dying/in a coma in this point, so Xenahort decided to leave him on Destiny Island where Xenahort grew up and thought it would be peaceful for his dying apprentice. Ven, at some point, instinctually summons his Keyblade though he's not conscious, and Xenahort realizes he isn't done for AND he has a potential pure heart of light. He kicks Ven off to Eraqus and trains Vanitas a bit.
At the Mastery ceremony, Xenahort corrupts the orbs to add a little challenge and see how things work out. Additionally, and this is something only hinted at in the game, the surge of darkness Terra gets isn't from his heart, it's Xenahort sabotaging him. He sees potential for using Terra as a body. Then he and Vani discuss how Ven isn't anywhere near strong enough for them to create the X-blade. The unversed are created somewhere prior to this, more on them in the Vanitas part.
Xenahort works with Braig because, presumably, Braig wants more power. He tricks Terra into 'freeing' him by using his darkness, then tells Terra it's ok to use darkness and appeals to his desire of being a Master to manipulate him. Xenahort then pops off to check in with Vanitas and see how Ventus is progressing, and he doesn't do anything much (besides manipulating Terra to kill Eraqus and trolling him into rage) til the conclusion of the story. He gets Terra to submerge his heart in darkness, which negates Terra's ability to use his armor to ward off darkness, and then punts him out of his body. Unfortunately Terra's badass and binds him from leaving, then uses his rage to animate his armor and kick the everliving crap out of him. This, combined with the explosion of the X-blade, causes Xenahort to be flung across space into Radiant Garden. He's lost some of his memories and skills from the beatdown coupled with Terra's heart resisting him. Aqua encounters him, but Terra is still fighting from within. Xenahort attempts to reseal Terra, but inadvertently locks his own heart, effectively locking away all of his memories including his skills.
Xenahort wakes up in Radiant Garden after Aqua saves him from the darkness, and he remembers his name and nothing else. Braig remembers him and probably fills him in again on their plans, which is way his objective is always the same (Kingdom Hearts) but it's much different and less thought out than when he was Master Xenahort, and why he doesn't realize Roxas=Ven. After Xenahort and his accomplices in Radiant Garden kick Ansem out, he steals Ansem's name for whatever reason, I still don't know why. Perhaps to insult him. Eventually he is turned into a heartless, which continues to use the name Ansem, and a nobody is created, calling itself Xemnas. Ansem gets whupped in KH1, and dies. Xemnas gets his ass whupped too in KH2, and dies. According to Yen Sid, this means Master Xenahort is back in his original body.
Vanitas/X-blade
Vanitas is pure darkness, which so far in the series is a title reserved for him alone. The unversed are born from him- the more TVA kill, the stronger he gets because they're part of him. Vanitas is basically a huge troll who goes along with Xenahort because it's fun and he'll get stronger. There's not much else to him. He looks like Sora because Ventus formed a bond with Sora- alternatively, he could just look like him to freak everyone the fuck out. X-Blade is not really X, but chi-blade. It's some Christian reference actually and it's the key to Kingdom Hearts and basically a giant plot coupon. It also looks really stupid but actually has a blade, so I guess it balances out?
Terra
Terra is a pawn. He's strong and smart, but far too gullible and insecure. Xenahort makes a good old darkness flare up appear and everyone, including Terra himself, think he's a baddie. Terra goes the route of "Well, if I'm evil, I'll be evil to protect my friends!" and starts to use the power of darkness, which is what Master Xenahort desires him to do as it opens him up to possession since Master Xenahort is much more in touch with how to use darkness. Unfortunately his heart and mind are very, very strong, and continually fuck with Master Xenahort, his mind taking over his armor and beating Xenahort up, his heart showing up at inconvenient times to attempt to steal back his body. He's also currently harboring/protecting Eraqus' heart, from when Eraqus died. Xenahort's trying to steal Eraqus' heart because killing Eraqus wasn't enough trolling for him.
Aqua
There's some plot holes with Aqua- how does she know Terra is being Terrabad? Aside from that, being the second strongest magic user in the series allows her to monkeywrench Xenahort's plans. In fact, her surviving Vanitas' attack is probably the point where his plans start to go wrong, because she starts beating everyone up at this point. Notably, if she does the clash in her final battle, she awakens Terra temporarily and really messes up Xenahort. It doesn't change what happens plot wise, though- she saves Terra (because, my pet theory, is they're totally hot for each other) and happens to put Xenahort in a memory wipe. Good thing too.
Ventus
Is in a coma, needs his heart, was stupid enough to destroy a big chunk of his heart (Vanitas), is technically Roxas.
I'm probably missing something so if you have questions/places where I am wrong/not detailed enough because THAT IS A LOT OF TEXT let me know. Thanks for reading.
Master Xehanort's possession also explains why his heartless and Xemnas looked different: Xemnas, of course, looks like Terra, it being his body and all, but the heartless looks a lot like Master Xehanort in his younger days, since it's technically his darkness manifesting.
Also
I broke down and watched the Re:coded secret ending. I wonder if this also means we'll be fighting evil Keyblade users in the future.
SpeedySwaf on
0
silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
edited October 2010
WOW, Ice Cream Beat is hard.
I wish I had just played Proud on all three characters, Normal Terra/Proud Ventus/Critical Aqua is for Masochists.
Also, confirm/deny: if you play Normal on ONE character, you need to complete the requirements for the movie on Normal on all three characters, or just on the ONE character on Normal?
silence1186 on
0
The AnonymousUh, uh, uhhhhhh...Uh, uh.Registered Userregular
I wish I had just played Proud on all three characters, Normal Terra/Proud Ventus/Critical Aqua is for Masochists.
Also, confirm/deny: if you play Normal on ONE character, you need to complete the requirements for the movie on Normal on all three characters, or just on the ONE character on Normal?
Just that one character, I think: you can choose the difficulty for the other two when you start their games.
SpeedySwaf on
0
silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
I wish I had just played Proud on all three characters, Normal Terra/Proud Ventus/Critical Aqua is for Masochists.
Also, confirm/deny: if you play Normal on ONE character, you need to complete the requirements for the movie on Normal on all three characters, or just on the ONE character on Normal?
Just that one character, I think: you can choose the difficulty for the other two when you start their games.
I hope so. I was reading that if you pick Normal/Proud/Critical, like above, you need to complete the Reports section for all 3 characters, not just the one on Normal, which seems brutal. Also, there's a Trophy for completing all 3 characters on Proud or more, so I'm going to end up restarting anyway. Sigh, I guess the point is moot.
If you want the movie then just restart the character on Proud. You can beat that character's story on Proud in far less time than it would take to fill out the notebook. It'll take probably 6 hours to do that, but finishing the notebook will no doubt take like 15.
Normal Terra/Proud Ventus/Critical Aqua is for Masochists.
How is it for masochists?
Because you need to complete the Reports section once (three times? I've gotten conflicting info), and you can't get all the trophies, so you'd need to redo Terra. To me, those seem like things you'd only do if you enjoyed torturing yourself.
Normal difficulty on any KH game is for masochists because it is painfully easy.
I was watching someone go through KH II on the default difficulty and I couldn't believe it. The game is easy enough on Proud mode.
While I was playing Terra through the story, I was disappointed I never got pull off any combos with commands or use the later Command Styles like Rockbreaker et al., since stuff died too soon.
silence1186 on
0
The AnonymousUh, uh, uhhhhhh...Uh, uh.Registered Userregular
edited October 2010
So maybe you beat Vanitas Remnant. Maybe you think you're a bit good at this game.
I'm guessing this is the general Kingdom Hearts thread
Since I have a DS now, how is 358/2 Days?
As a fan of KH1 and 2, will I enjoy it?
I thought it was very enjoyable, save two points.
1.) The enemies have WAY too much health unless you use the magic they are weak to against them, but you are limited to the number of times you can cast magic per level. Play it on the easiest setting.
2.)
Very general story spoilers:
They story is sort of doomed to be depressing, since it's a midquel.
Also don't buy it if you hate Roxas. Because it's all about him. The whole game is about how much Roxas's life sucks and Sea-Salt Ice Cream get it it's salty AND sweet it's bittersweet hahaha we are so clever high five!
Gilder on
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
edited November 2010
Dammit. I finished my Terra on Proud Mode without completing his journal on Normal Mode (only had ice cream beat left). I'll never know if I would have unlocked the secret movie with just Terra's journal completed on Normal, and the other two's games completed at Proud or higher. Sunuva.
Normal Terra/Proud Ventus/Critical Aqua is for Masochists.
How is it for masochists?
Because you need to complete the Reports section once (three times? I've gotten conflicting info), and you can't get all the trophies, so you'd need to redo Terra. To me, those seem like things you'd only do if you enjoyed torturing yourself.
Completing the reports is actually really easy. You get all but one for each character just by playing through the story. The only one you might miss is Terra's. Now, getting all of the chests, commands, stickers and doing all of the arena matches and all of the mini-games at least once is where it gets tedious. At least you don't have to fight the secret bosses for it... I think.
Edit: About 358/2 Days. I think that the Tetris-style inventory/skill system is great and the combat is better than any DS game has a right to be. It's also probably the prettiest DS game I've ever played. However, nearly all of the missions are basically exactly the same, unlocking the best stuff is done by doing those same missions again but harder, and there are over 100 missions. There are stretches without any plot, if that's what interests you, in which you're stuck with just the missions. I guarantee you that you will loathe Agrabah by the end, if you make it that far. It's still a fun game when you aren't doing the same thing for the thousandth time.
Oh man, how could I forget the 10 hour tutorial? It was insulting and even if the rest of the game had been the best game ever I probably wouldn't have replayed it just because of how many tutorial missions you got stuck with. Which makes BbS' ten minute that you can skip in every other playthrough after the first one even more amazing.
Ok..just started..so, does (one of) the main characters look just like Sora/Roxas because of story plot, or was it a marketing thing so fans feel comfortable with the character?
george-x on
0
The AnonymousUh, uh, uhhhhhh...Uh, uh.Registered Userregular
edited November 2010
The former. Well that, and they needed an excuse to have Sora's VAs play an evil character for a change.
The former. Well that, and they needed an excuse to have Sora's VAs play an evil character for a change.
That may have been a bit spoiler-y. I mean, not totally, but still. And speaking of Harry Joel Osment, damn does he sound a lot older now. I mean, duh, he is older, but judging by how Vanitas sounds, Sora may start to sound awkward if they don't make him any older in future titles.
Oh and just so you know, when you start over as another character you have to set the CPU speed and graphics again. It doesn't carry because you're technically starting a new game.
Posts
Gameplay is definitely a step in the right direction. I've liked that they moved away from the concept of MP, it might work for a strict turn-based RPG, but for action-RPGs like KH, players shouldn't have to worry about too many gauges or the like while in combat. Plus it's just more fun to use a bunch of attacks that you know will reload eventually.
Despite what I said earlier, I didn't use the D-Links as much as I thought I would. Given the damage you can deal out with what you have already, they're practically redundant. I had a similar feeling with the summons from the first two games. Maybe if they continue using them in the future, the summons/D-links/what have you should be equipped like normal items, giving you some active and/or passive abilities without replacing your current abilities entirely, or requiring yet another gauge to fill.
Despite its weaknesses, I did enjoy the story and characters, though I do wish Terra's and Aqua's VAs emoted more then they did. Everyone else was good, I thought.
Anyway, I'll look forward to whatever games they have planned. According to the interviews, destroying a person's Heartless (or releasing them, you could say) and, if needed, their Nobody, would make the individual whole again. So we could be seeing a battle with a whole Xehanort in the future.
some story thoughts
Sora can use the Keyblade because it was originally meant for Riku, but after the latter's actions, it moved on to Sora as a substitute (before making Sora its permanent owner). Pureauthor mentioned an interview stating that Ven's heart is what allows the wielding of two Keyblades, though.
Maybe darkness is edible?
Speaking of which, I would like the World of Darkness to be explorable in the future...it'd be interesting if it has its own worlds.
And am I a horrible person for actually wanting to see a mega sphereical hexical card based strategy game?
MX is a hardcore Keyblade Master. He's explicitly the toughest dude around-nothing's definite about his Keyblade physical skills but obv. he's quite good, and he outclasses Aqua (who is better than everyone else, including Donald and maaaaaaybe Merlin/Yen Sid) at magic. A while ago he was good, although he had some strange ideas about darkness that were well intentioned. He and Eraqus used to be old buds, they learned together. Eventually he discarded his armor while traveling between the worlds, and got evil as a result. His eyes are golden like Xiggy's at the end to mark him as a strong user of darkness. At some point he learns about the Keyblade War, the Graveyard, and the X-blade. More notes of the blade after MX.
Xenahort eventually decided he wanted to reshape the worlds so darkness was equal to light and vice versa, so he planned on creating the X-blade to reach Kingdom Hearts. Additionally he was getting older and began to weaken due to age and the strain of darkness on his body. At this point, Eraqus and him have a dispute, they fight, Xenahort wins and gives Eraqus his scar. Unfortunately he needed a heart of pure darkness and a heart of pure light to get the X-blade, and his apprentice-Ventus- refused to use his darkness, so not only did Xenahort miss out on a potential pure darkness heart, he couldn't use Ventus as a vessel like he later did to Terra. At this point Xenahort rips out Ven's darkness, and Vanitas is created. Ven's dying/in a coma in this point, so Xenahort decided to leave him on Destiny Island where Xenahort grew up and thought it would be peaceful for his dying apprentice. Ven, at some point, instinctually summons his Keyblade though he's not conscious, and Xenahort realizes he isn't done for AND he has a potential pure heart of light. He kicks Ven off to Eraqus and trains Vanitas a bit.
At the Mastery ceremony, Xenahort corrupts the orbs to add a little challenge and see how things work out. Additionally, and this is something only hinted at in the game, the surge of darkness Terra gets isn't from his heart, it's Xenahort sabotaging him. He sees potential for using Terra as a body. Then he and Vani discuss how Ven isn't anywhere near strong enough for them to create the X-blade. The unversed are created somewhere prior to this, more on them in the Vanitas part.
Xenahort works with Braig because, presumably, Braig wants more power. He tricks Terra into 'freeing' him by using his darkness, then tells Terra it's ok to use darkness and appeals to his desire of being a Master to manipulate him. Xenahort then pops off to check in with Vanitas and see how Ventus is progressing, and he doesn't do anything much (besides manipulating Terra to kill Eraqus and trolling him into rage) til the conclusion of the story. He gets Terra to submerge his heart in darkness, which negates Terra's ability to use his armor to ward off darkness, and then punts him out of his body. Unfortunately Terra's badass and binds him from leaving, then uses his rage to animate his armor and kick the everliving crap out of him. This, combined with the explosion of the X-blade, causes Xenahort to be flung across space into Radiant Garden. He's lost some of his memories and skills from the beatdown coupled with Terra's heart resisting him. Aqua encounters him, but Terra is still fighting from within. Xenahort attempts to reseal Terra, but inadvertently locks his own heart, effectively locking away all of his memories including his skills.
Xenahort wakes up in Radiant Garden after Aqua saves him from the darkness, and he remembers his name and nothing else. Braig remembers him and probably fills him in again on their plans, which is way his objective is always the same (Kingdom Hearts) but it's much different and less thought out than when he was Master Xenahort, and why he doesn't realize Roxas=Ven. After Xenahort and his accomplices in Radiant Garden kick Ansem out, he steals Ansem's name for whatever reason, I still don't know why. Perhaps to insult him. Eventually he is turned into a heartless, which continues to use the name Ansem, and a nobody is created, calling itself Xemnas. Ansem gets whupped in KH1, and dies. Xemnas gets his ass whupped too in KH2, and dies. According to Yen Sid, this means Master Xenahort is back in his original body.
Vanitas/X-blade
Vanitas is pure darkness, which so far in the series is a title reserved for him alone. The unversed are born from him- the more TVA kill, the stronger he gets because they're part of him. Vanitas is basically a huge troll who goes along with Xenahort because it's fun and he'll get stronger. There's not much else to him. He looks like Sora because Ventus formed a bond with Sora- alternatively, he could just look like him to freak everyone the fuck out. X-Blade is not really X, but chi-blade. It's some Christian reference actually and it's the key to Kingdom Hearts and basically a giant plot coupon. It also looks really stupid but actually has a blade, so I guess it balances out?
Terra
Terra is a pawn. He's strong and smart, but far too gullible and insecure. Xenahort makes a good old darkness flare up appear and everyone, including Terra himself, think he's a baddie. Terra goes the route of "Well, if I'm evil, I'll be evil to protect my friends!" and starts to use the power of darkness, which is what Master Xenahort desires him to do as it opens him up to possession since Master Xenahort is much more in touch with how to use darkness. Unfortunately his heart and mind are very, very strong, and continually fuck with Master Xenahort, his mind taking over his armor and beating Xenahort up, his heart showing up at inconvenient times to attempt to steal back his body. He's also currently harboring/protecting Eraqus' heart, from when Eraqus died. Xenahort's trying to steal Eraqus' heart because killing Eraqus wasn't enough trolling for him.
Aqua
There's some plot holes with Aqua- how does she know Terra is being Terrabad? Aside from that, being the second strongest magic user in the series allows her to monkeywrench Xenahort's plans. In fact, her surviving Vanitas' attack is probably the point where his plans start to go wrong, because she starts beating everyone up at this point. Notably, if she does the clash in her final battle, she awakens Terra temporarily and really messes up Xenahort. It doesn't change what happens plot wise, though- she saves Terra (because, my pet theory, is they're totally hot for each other) and happens to put Xenahort in a memory wipe. Good thing too.
Ventus
Is in a coma, needs his heart, was stupid enough to destroy a big chunk of his heart (Vanitas), is technically Roxas.
I'm probably missing something so if you have questions/places where I am wrong/not detailed enough because THAT IS A LOT OF TEXT let me know. Thanks for reading.
Wow I cannot shut up, can I.
Also
I wish I had just played Proud on all three characters, Normal Terra/Proud Ventus/Critical Aqua is for Masochists.
Also, confirm/deny: if you play Normal on ONE character, you need to complete the requirements for the movie on Normal on all three characters, or just on the ONE character on Normal?
I hope so. I was reading that if you pick Normal/Proud/Critical, like above, you need to complete the Reports section for all 3 characters, not just the one on Normal, which seems brutal. Also, there's a Trophy for completing all 3 characters on Proud or more, so I'm going to end up restarting anyway. Sigh, I guess the point is moot.
Platinum FC: 2880 3245 5111
Because you need to complete the Reports section once (three times? I've gotten conflicting info), and you can't get all the trophies, so you'd need to redo Terra. To me, those seem like things you'd only do if you enjoyed torturing yourself.
I was watching someone go through KH II on the default difficulty and I couldn't believe it. The game is easy enough on Proud mode.
While I was playing Terra through the story, I was disappointed I never got pull off any combos with commands or use the later Command Styles like Rockbreaker et al., since stuff died too soon.
You aren't.
Watch closely, and despair!
I'm guessing this is the general Kingdom Hearts thread
Since I have a DS now, how is 358/2 Days?
As a fan of KH1 and 2, will I enjoy it?
I thought it was very enjoyable, save two points.
1.) The enemies have WAY too much health unless you use the magic they are weak to against them, but you are limited to the number of times you can cast magic per level. Play it on the easiest setting.
2.)
Very general story spoilers:
Completing the reports is actually really easy. You get all but one for each character just by playing through the story. The only one you might miss is Terra's. Now, getting all of the chests, commands, stickers and doing all of the arena matches and all of the mini-games at least once is where it gets tedious. At least you don't have to fight the secret bosses for it... I think.
Edit: About 358/2 Days. I think that the Tetris-style inventory/skill system is great and the combat is better than any DS game has a right to be. It's also probably the prettiest DS game I've ever played. However, nearly all of the missions are basically exactly the same, unlocking the best stuff is done by doing those same missions again but harder, and there are over 100 missions. There are stretches without any plot, if that's what interests you, in which you're stuck with just the missions. I guarantee you that you will loathe Agrabah by the end, if you make it that far. It's still a fun game when you aren't doing the same thing for the thousandth time.
Haters gunna hate.
The missions with Vexen, Lexaus, Marluxia, Larxene, and Zexion. Also the very first mission with Axel, I think.
Amazing.
also this loading time is INSANE