Well, I just beat the game this morning, and here's my opinion on it:
Story- 8/10
I found it to be really well written. I'd go so far as to give it around the level of writing that KH:CoM (GBA version) had, but it certainly had more emotional impact on me than KH: CoM. They did a really good job of tying up the loose ends that this game made, unlike previous games. From Demyx's whining, Xigbar's "As if"s and odd sayings, Luxord's game metaphors, and Axel's multiple "Got it memorized," I really got a feel for the member's personalities. Sure, they may be the same as they were in KHII, but a little fleshing out never hurt. I found myself getting a little choked up at the ending, which is something I can really only say for one other game, and I already knew the ending of this game. It did start a little slow, but once it started picking up the pace, I found myself enjoying it quite a bit. The ending was really well done, and Roxas' line,
, may seem a bit cheesy, but when you think about what happened in the beginning, it has a lot of meaning. That's, for the most part, all I can say about the story without going too in depth.
Gameplay- 9/10
It was really enjoyable fighting Heartless and Nobodies this time around. They put up a good challenge, and your AI partners also kept up nicely, and actually HELPED this time around *coughkhiicough.* The Panel System is engaging, and even though I never really played around with it, whenever I got a large panel that couldn't fit, I'd find myself spending around five minutes resorting my set-up to get it to work. The controls, while a little strange at first, quickly became second nature to me. The actual combos you can pull off were pretty interesting, and I liked how they later combined various Gears' combo chains together in more advanced Gears. Yeah, it got a little stale when you got used to using the same Gear and kept doing the same combo, but that was remedied easily enough. Magic, while certainly being somewhat overpowered, I found to be handled properly this time around. The balance between enemies was, for the most part, very even, but you would occasionally run into the amazingly annoying/strong or pathetic/weak enemy that would make you think, "What the heck?" but those moments were few and far between. The overall mission style of playing levels in the game worked out pretty decently for me, at least.
Graphics- 9/10
Despite a few graphical glitches (lines across the top screen when things get REALLY hectic), they're beautiful. Vibrant colors, and certainly some areas were reincarnated very nicely from the previous games. Yeah, it got a little old constantly returning to "The Gray Area" every 20-30 minutes, but never to the point of irritation. The CGI cutscenes, while naturally having a small drop in quality, were VERY nice. Although, I did find it a little funny when they cut-off some of the subtitles during the cutscenes. Like, "Axel and I have been looking (all over) for you." "All over" was left out of the subtitles.
Sound- 8/10
The soundtrack, while mostly taken from the other games, was pretty good. The old songs sounded nice, even if they're starting to get a little stale. The new tracks, especially "Xion's Theme," the new "Dearly Beloved" remix, and the new Neverland tracks were all amazing. Of course, headphones certainly make them sound better than the DS speakers, but the quality is good, regardless. The voice acting was pretty good, though limited. I wish the characters during combat would say something other than grunts when they attacked, or those little lines before a Limit Break (although Zexion's, "You think you can be forgiven!?" is epic).
Extras- 9/10
Mission Mode, Challenge Missions, Holo-Missions, etc. Too many amazing features to even bother list. The only thing that's stopping this from being 10/10 is there's not Wi-Fi, but I can understand why, sort of.
Overall- 8.8/10
It's not quite a 9/10, but with a few minor tweaks, it easily could be. I'm going to be starting my second playthrough, going with "Proud" this time around. They really weren't kidding when they said that this was the hardest KH game out so far. I'll be sure to be racking up many more hours on this game before I'm done.
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