Famitsu has recently updated their website with some new screenshots from Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days in high quality, which also features a picture of Roxas’s new keyblade, the Wind Maker!

Also there some Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days translated scans from an article in the March issue of VJump, which features an Olympus Coliseum scenario, as well as new cutscene explanations. Thanks, goes to khinsider for taking the time to translate this. Click on the thumbnails to be able to read them:

Coded will be the first Kingdom Hearts game to be introduced to Mobile Phones and will star Sora and Co. Just like Birth by Sleep and 358/2 Days it will have a connection to the future Kingdom Hearts game. It will be played on a horizontal  screen and will still have 3D and 2D qualities.

Coded will take place after KH2. The story starts off with Jiminy looking through his journal until he finds a sentence he can’t remember.

“You need to return, to heal the wounds.”

The story will involve a digital Sora being sent to Destiny Islands as there is another scene where Sora arrives at Traverse Town but this time King Mickey is there too. This game is said to clear up any unsolved matters in Kingdom Hearts and will also let us know what Riku and King Mickey were doing during the events of the first game. This game will have a new story and gameplay as Sora will try to defeat a bug that has been corrupting the journal.

The gameplay will involve Sora moving blocks to complete puzzles while heartless are trying to attack you. After you complete the puzzle a Debugging option will appear causing Sora to vanish.

Coded will have more than one Mode,  it will have High Speed Mode which will allow Sora to move in high speed. There will be another mode called Crash Mode which will turn the game into a side scroller.

As this game will be on Mobile it will have a Telecommunication feature which will allow you to interfere with other players during gameplay but you will be shown as a ’shadow Sora’. You will be able to help the other player kill a few heartless or help with puzzles.

The leveling up system will be a little different from the other games, each heartless will earn you 10 Upgrade Points which will help Sora become stronger.

“The Keyblade is said to hold phenomenal power. One legend says its wielder saved the world, while another says that he wrought chaos and ruin upon it.”

These words were among one of the first that we saw, when we first gazed our eyes upon the secret trailer at the end of Kingdom Hearts 2. We witnessed three knights whom none of us recognized pick up 3 familiar keyblades, yet no one could really make a decent connection. We then were given a second trailer, which showed a lot more, including a boy who looked exactly like Roxas get frozen and fall of a mountain side.

Birth by Sleep tells the tale before the first Kingdom Hearts, and before Sora ever picked up a keyblade. We are taken back 10 years into the past where 3 knights, (who go by the names of Terra, Aqua, and Ven) go on separate journeys to find and stop an evil man who surprisingly is named Master Xehanort. What they encounter turns out to be much deeper than any of them could have expected and sets the stage for future events involving not only Kingdom Hearts, but also many of the characters we have grown to know and love. One character we know that gets himself involved, that character being King Mickey who by the looks of it, doesn’t have his king status yet and is still training and struggling to wield a keyblade.

This game will feature the option of being able to play 3 different characters. Those Being Terra, Aqua, or Ven. Each has their own unique journey in Birth by Sleep and by playing all three scenarios the player will be able to fully understand the story of the game and how it connects to the Kingdom Hearts games out now. Tetsuya Nomura has stated that the game play although similar to KH: Chain of Memories, this game will not feature cards, but instead uses a new battle system unique to the Kingdom Hearts series. As also mentioned by Nomura, Birth by Sleep will utilize the PSP system to its max with the way the graphics and game play is and that perhaps out of all 3 new Kingdom Hearts games coming out this will probably be the biggest. This game also features a new type of leveling system best described as a growth or growing system. Enemies in this game will not be the heartless and nobodies we are used to, since at this point in time they do not exist. So instead we are introduced to a new enemy that existed around the time of Birth by Sleep called the Unbirths, which tend to move really fast.

There have been discussions whether or not a co-op mode would be put in this game, and there is still no support either way, but its highly theorized that based on 3 different scenarios it might not take place.

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep is anticipated to come out sometime during the year of 2009 in Japan, however the date is still to be determined and could be changed.  However more and more information will still come forth for us to look into, and just like the old saying, “The past paves the way for the future.”

The time has come to hear the story of one of Kingdom Hearts’ most important characters: Roxas.  Yes, the story of Sora’s mysterious nobody is finally told in the Nintendo DS installment, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days.  Taking place after Sora gives up his heart in Hollow Bastion, 358/2 Days picks up in front of the abandoned mansion in Twilight Town.  A young boy awakens in front of the gates, and is greeted by mysterious man in a black coat.  The man then makes the name “Sora” appear in front of the boy’s face, rearranges the letters and adds the letter X, creating a name for the boy: Roxas.  Upon this event, Roxas joins Organization XIII as the 13th member.  His weapon of choice, the enigmatic keyblade, a weapon of unfathomable power thought only wieldable by Sora.

Unlike the other games in the Kingdom Hearts series, 358/2 Days will focus on the time Roxas spent as a member of Organization XIII.  Players will experience the same feel they did when playing Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, since game play (in terms of main controls) is relatively the same as the Gameboy Advance installment.  However, the card system has been removed, and instead will be a regular battle system, much like what was used in Kingdom Hearts. With this removal of the card system, the L and R buttons will now move the camera around and lock onto to enemies. X and Y (for the DS) buttons have been added.  X will scroll through the command menu.  Y performs the ability “Reflect Guard.”  It will perform dodge roll and glide when used while on the ground or in the air.  Furthermore, the very way the game is viewed resembles the 3D graphics of Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II, complete with full 3D cutscenes.  It will definitely push the limits of the DS, nearly rivaling the graphics that will be seen in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep for Sony PSP.

Players will be sent into the daily lives of the Organization’s members, taking part in various missions.  Each time a mission is completed, it is unlocked in the game’s 4-player co-op mode.  Here, up to four people can control Roxas, Saix, Xigbar, or Axel and go on the missions they have unlocked.  At the end, each player will be seen in the white chairs the Organization sits in.  Based on how well they do on a mission, the chair will rise.  The opposite can be said if the player does poorly on one.  Daily life as a member of Organization XIII will be the main part of the story, until Roxas’ fated duel with Riku, thus beginning Kingdom Hearts II.

But the story does not end there.  Joining the cast is yet another member of Organization XIII. She is the most mysterious member seen thus far, seeing as how she is clearly not in the subsequent games.  Yes, Organization XIII’s 14th member, Xion, will finally been introduced in this installment.  Sometime after Roxas’ birth, Xion will join the Organization.  It is said that she has some sort of connection to Kairi, yet she resembles Birth by Sleep’s Aqua.  Like Roxas and Sora, Xion is able to wield the keyblade, and spends her free time with Axel and Roxas.  But, just who is she?  What is the fate that will befall her in this story?  All the answers, and more, will be answered in 2009 when Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days reaches Nintendo DS.  The story is not over yet. 

Axel, Roxas, and Xion enjoy their free time in Twilight Town