I’ve been struggling this week with Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. Okay, that’s a lie. I’ve been struggling with it ever since I finished its tutorial. But this week has been extra hard. Every mission feels the same, so that’s boring me, and I’ve gotten to the point of needing to level grind and I really don’t want to. In KH games of the past, if you needed to level grind, you just visited old worlds, or in the case of CoM, old floors. You ran around, fought enemies, went to a different area, rinse and repeat. But here, you have to repeat the entire mission. There’s no wandering around, searching for heartless to kill. No, you have to go through all the little tricks and fight the bosses.
The game tries to offer a more fun way of doing this by offering Mission Mode, so you can play and level up Roxas even if you use a different character. But you still have to do the same damn things. Fight the same bosses. You’re blocked from the same areas. Boring boring boring.
There’s a reason why I didn’t finish all the missions in Crisis Core. I got bored. And hello deja vu.
So it really wasn’t that hard to sway me to pick up a new game for now, at least until Assassin’s Creed 2 comes out in a couple of weeks. A couple of my friends have been going on and on about how awesome Uncharted 2 is, and after listening to my Kombo friends blather like little fanboys on their podcast about it, I caved. I was really, really nervous about it because I know it’s a third-person shooter, and I haven’t played any shooters since my disastrous attempts in the late 90s with Syphon Filter. But I figured that if I hated it, Shawn would like it, so it wouldn’t really be a money waster.
I really shouldn’t have worried too much.
I wish one of my friends had said that the shooting is practically identical to inFamous, because then I would have had no doubt in my mind. Although, so far I haven’t had to shoot much, just do the other thing I don’t like: be stealthy. Somehow though, with this game, I really didn’t mind it too much.
I’ve heard many people say that Uncharted 2 is like playing an action movie, but you don’t understand that until you try it. OMG am I believer now. I’m fairly certain my mouth was open the entire tutorial mode of the game as I was in awe of the graphics, the cut-scenes, the intensity of saving Drake, the voice acting…everything. And the dialogue is so hilarious! I haven’t laughed out loud while playing a game since Lost Odyssey.
After playing longer than I should have last night, I sent a PSN message to my friend, saying that I should just accept every recommendation he sends my way. He was right about inFamous and so far, he’s right about Uncharted 2. That means he’s probably also right about Mass Effect, so I should start that game too (but without the guide. I need a break!).
So yes, Uncharted 2 is in and KH is out for now. I will finish the game one day, but right now, we need a break from one another. I will still review the guide, as I have completed roughly 3/4 of the game, and the rest of the missions (I cheated and looked ahead) are exactly the same as all the other missions I have already done. Just harder. I doubt the guide’s approaches to any of these will change in comparison to what it has done so far.
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