Here’s the meaning behind Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days’ cryptic title. The Kingdom Hearts video game franchise is an unlikely but hugely successful JRPG mashup of familiar Disney faces and locations and original Square Enix characters. The first Kingdom Hearts game was released way back in 2002 and introduced the franchise’s main protagonist Sora - a young lad tasked with defeating the Heartless – dark beings whose hearts have been corrupted by darkness and are controlled by Disney’s Maleficent.
Both Kingdom Hearts and the second game in the franchise Kingdom Hearts: Chain Of Memories briefly featured a character named Roxas who turned out to be Sora’s Nobody – a shell created when Sora momentarily became a Heartless at the end of the first game. Roxas returned for Kingdom Hearts II in which it was revealed that he was a former member of Organization XIII, a collective of powerful Nobodies seeking to reclaim their hearts to become whole again.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days was released in 2009 and featured Roxas as its primary protagonist. Although 358/2 Days was the fifth game released in the series, chronologically it was set between the events of Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts III during which Sora was in a year-long sleep. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days served as an origin story for Roxas and followed his time as a member of Organization XIII, alongside his friendship with fellow member Xion. While the franchise isn’t exactly known for its sensical narrative, the title of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days still had a lot of gamers confused.
While promoting Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, its director Tetsuya Nomura was deliberately coy about the meaning behind the game’s title because it only becomes apparent after players have beat the game. According to Kingdom Hearts lore, the “358” of the title refers to the number of days that Roxas was with Organization XIII and the “2” refers to the fact that the game follows the story of two people – the protagonist Roxas and his friend Xion.
Ten years after the release of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, the franchise is still going strong to this day. In early 2019 Square Enix released its twelfth title in the series, the long-awaited Kingdom Hearts III. Boasting a host of new features including the ability to summon Disney theme park rides whilst in battle, Kingdom Hearts III is not only the best-selling game in the franchise’s history but one of the best-selling games of the year too.