The wait for Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep isn’t too long. Square Enix set January 9, 2010 as the date for the Kingdom Hearts prequel and released a new batch of screenshots.

Currently, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, and Final Fantasy are Square Enix’s three pillars. President Yoichi Wada wants to expand this number to eight.

Team up with Stitch or your friends in Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep. This Kingdom Hearts game also has a multiplayer mode.

The last thing we heard was Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep would be in stores “this winter”. Square Enix updated the time frame, which could have been a vague way of saying February 2010, to “2009″.

A Shonen Jump scan reveals a Lilo & Stitch themed world and a release window.

If you can’t wait until the fall North American or European release dates, don’t despair. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is completely playable if you’ve played a Kingdom Hearts game before.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days will undoubtedly be one of 2009’s biggest DS titles. It’s an incredibly action RPG with bite sized missions that can be played in chunks or one after another that manages to capture the magic and appeal of the console Kingdom Hearts games in a portable form.

“We made a game where characters from various FF games got together to battle, Dissidia, but that was a project we were originally thinking of using for KH. However, deciding it would be a bad idea to make Disney characters fight each other.”

While the game begins in the future, around Day 255, to be exact, it quickly flashes back to Roxas’ first days with Organization XIII. Here’s a brief, spoiler free look at what a nobody’s first week is like.

One of the most hyped feature of Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days is the fact that players can also take part in a single or multiplayer Mission Mode. Here, you can control any of the members of Organization XIII.