Square Enix's highly anticipated Nintendo DS edition of the collaborative effort with Disney 'Kingdom Hearts', sub-titled '358/2 Days' has now been dated for Japan and it will be making it before the end of the Fiscal Year, along with Dragon Quest IX. In fact the first three months are going to be pretty big ones for Nintendo DS fans that have a love of Square Enix's RPGs, since Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time will be launching at the end of January, Dragon Quest IX is scheduled for March, and now sandwiched nicely in-between is the h.a.n.d.-developed Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. Considering the developer already has a strong track record with S-E games (Chocobo Tales and its upcoming sequel, Chocobo Dungeon on Wii and its DS remake), hopes are definitely high for this next entry into the massively popular Action RPG series that has only graced the Nintendo formats once in the past - the Jupiter-developed Chain of Memories on GBA, which is actually heading to the US on PS2 in stylish 3D in the near future.

To celebrate the finalised month of release, below is a new scan of the game from Shonen Jump magazine in Japan:


With any luck a European release will arrive no later than the summer months of July and August...