Surrealism might as well not exist in our pointless efforts to reach realism in the modern day space of video games. While every studio is currently looking to make the AAAA metaverse game that will consume the rest of our lives, this quirky, downright nonsensically designed one-button 3D platformer recalls the glory days of the Dreamcast with a sincerity embedded in its cast of regular folks who just need some cheering up, clearly coming from a place of bizarre, but undeniable empathy via Yuji Naka's direction. If you've played Naka's NiGHTS into dreams... before, you should know what I'm talking about. There is a deep, Seuss-like respect for childish imagination that has no place in our angry, confused current world. Of course everyone hated it.

To preface this I'd already watched the cutscene collection of this from the 1.5 ReMix a couple years ago so I had a vague idea of the story going into this. That said, 358/2 Days feels like an instant comfort game to me. I liked seeing the daily going-ons of the organisation, it made the whole lineup feel a lot more grounded in contrast to the other games. The gameplay loop is a bit boring - usually equating difficulty to larger health bars on enemies and the combat doesn't really evolve outside of new keyblades changing combos, which I still appreciated. Okay so I've established that the missions are monotonous and repetitive but seeing Axel and Xion after each mission on that clock tower made it all worthwhile. Playing through this allowed me to connect to the Seasalt trio a lot easier than from watching the cutscene collection, Roxas, Axel and Xion were all just trying to make it through each day and enjoy their time with one another. I loved seeing them grow together as people, as a group and seeing this friendship drift apart was heartbreaking stuff, definitely some of my favourite KH characters. Move aside Spider-Man PS4: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days really makes you feel like an underpaid worker who hates their job but loves their coworkers!