Kingdom Hearts II

"I can't believe how much I got into this game."

INTRO: To be honest, I was never expecting to buy this game, ever. But when I saw how much hype there was I decided to try it out. I can't believe how amazing this game is. I never played the first Kingdom Hearts because at the time I thought it was ridiculous. But I do know the whole story of it, though. And I have played and beaten Chain of Memories. I have to say that Disney & Square Enix make a perfect team. It's a real dazzling experience, and once you've started the game, you can't let go. And here's why.

STORY: At first it seems confusing because you don't start as Sora. You actually start playing as a new guy by the name of Roxas. In case your wondering, Sora and Roxas are connected in a way but I don't want to spoil it for you. So KH2 is the continuation of Kingdom Hearts 1 & Kingdom Hearts:Chain of Memories where Sora and company have to find their lost friends ( Riku and King Mickey). You start out as Roxas trying to solve a mystery in his home town called Twilight Town. There's a mysterious group called Organization XIII, and loads of subplots and it just keeps spreading from there. Almost to the point where you're totally confused. But let me tell you, the main reason I got addicted to this game is because the story is amazing. You just have to keep playing to find out whats going to happen next. It will really suck you in. That's all I'm going to say about the story because I don't want to ruin the experience for the reader. But chances are you already know what happens by reading someone else's review. I don't really know so I'll just assume that you don't know what happens.

GRAPHICS: The graphics in KH2 are really good. You'll notice some pretty nice level design in Kingdom Hearts II. Unlike most games today where a lot of the areas and dungeons have a reused look to them, Kingdom Hearts 2 jumps from places like the monochrome world of Timeless River to the pulsating computer world of Space Paranoids without you being able to point out reused texture and architecture. All the characters can easily be recognize. The textures, color, everything is perfect. Not one glitch I have spotted yet in the graphics department. The worlds Sora travels to look incredible. You can easily recognize Halloween Town and Atlantica. The developers must have spent weeks or months creating these worlds because they look just like their movie counter-parts. The stunning intro cinematic sets the scene superbly and the quality is maintained throughout the whole game. The game's menu adopts themes to fit each world, so each world completely saturates the screen. It's only one of many little special graphical touches in the game. One thing that I am very pleased with is the fact that the game uses the in-game engine for most of the movies, and reflects you and your allies current weaponry and even your change of outfits if you tripped the event trigger while in a Drive Form. While this may not seem like much to the regular gamer, it's awesome for me to see a game developer actively trying to keep up the suspension of disbelief, rather than just casually ignoring those details, and just sticking default weaponry and outfits on your characters during the cutscenes. They did a great job, here.

GAMEPLAY: The presentation in Kingdom Hearts II is about as top-notch as it comes to a video game. The basics are really easy to understand, Sora is fighting his way through real-time battles aided by AI controlled, Donald and Goofy. In each of the Disney worlds you visit, guest characters will join the party to help you fight. You can hack and slash with your keyblade which is very fun to do. There is this move called the reaction commands. At certain points in the game a command will flash over the command window in green and a glowing triangle will appear. If you press triangle right on time you'll do a new move. Reaction commands add a lot of help and fun to boss battles, which make them much more electrifying. Level design and the battle system still need some tweaking, but it's hard to get upset over that when you start marking out over your favorite Disney/Final Fantasy character showing up. Sora also has a ability to literally merge with Donald and Goofy to take on different forms. You can also set the Reactions up to initiate Combo attacks. Once your Magic gauge is full, for example, you can hit Triangle while close to Donald, and he'll basically set off a portable Disney fireworks display on enemies nearby so long as you keep hitting Triangle. The drives Sora performs are the brawling, dual-wielding Valor Type, the skate-footed, spell-blasting Wisdom Type, or the better-than-both Master Type. These forms are timed, but the forms enhanced firepower has the potential to satisfy in a big way. The Atlantica level I really enjoyed because it takes a different approach because you'll play rhythm mini games instead of fighting. Speaking of mini games Kingdom Hearts II is filled with them. You can go out hunting for pages in the Winnie the Pooh book to play mini games with Pooh. Kingdom Hearts goes easy on the mini games, though there are several fun, arcade-style Gummi Ship missions. These take place between worlds, as Sora must unlock the celestial pathway to each one. Players have to shoot down loads of enemies and collect power-ups. Enemies drop medals, and if you obtain a count of 30 Medals, you'll achieve an S-Rank for the world. Red and Gold enemies drop items, which you can collect to get a higher Treasure Percentage. There are three missions per world, and meeting the goals on each level will allow you to unlock more and more powerful Gummi ships, as well as leveling your current craft. You can also build your own Gummi Ship, which is a cool idea but very hard to do. There are a bunch of Gummi Ship levels to beat, they're actually a lot of fun. Each Gummi ship level reminds me of those old-school on-rail shooters, think of Sega's Panzer Dragoon series, with an awesome difficulty. There are plenty of things to collect and find that make the game last longer. Completing all versions of the Gummi Ship levels, gathering all the different keyblades, item synthesis, Pooh book pages, and a bunch of other cool little things too numerous to mention.

SOUND: The game's soundtrack is remarkable. If you like the songs from the Disney movies, then you'll like this. The main theme ( My Sanctuary) is astounding and will get you hooked. The in game music is also really good and fits with the levels perfectly. I enjoyed the background and battle music for nearly all of the worlds in the game. You can tell where you are at any given point in the game without even looking at the screen. The effects are nicely done as well. From the little "pop" of picking up a treasure box, to the jingling of the chain attached to Sora's Keyblade, some people made sure that you were able to hear pretty much every little detail in the game, and that it would sound good. The sounds & explosions and all that, are well done. Nothing sounds out of place. The voice acting is amazing, This game is told through excellent voice acting from such well-known names as James Woods and Geoffrey Rush, and through numerous cameo appearances of other beloved and infamous Disney characters such as Aladdin, Ariel and Capt. Jack Sparrow. The Final Fantasy 7 characters were voiced by the same people who did the characters in FF7: Advent Children (the characters also sport their AC outfits), a nice little nod to the movie. There are some points during cutscenes where there is an absence of music and the feeling of the scene falls flat. For example, Simba reclaiming his throne should have had music thrown in there. But that's not really a big problem. The music and sound is still great.

CONCLUSION: This game is a must buy for anyone that's into action RPG's. There's a lot of unlockable stuff as side missions for people who like depth and replay in their single player RPGs. Expect about a 30-hour playthrough without bothering with the sidequests, and a 50-hour game if you go through them. I never thought I would buy this game, since i'm not really into RPG's, but I did and I loved it. This game will keep you entertained for hours because of it's replay value. I sure hope there is a Kingdom Hearts 3 because the ending will really make you think. This is one of my most favorite games of all time and I think you'll enjoy it as well. Everything about it is so addicting and fun that you couldn't be able to put your PS2 remote down for days. I would have never guessed that Disney and Square Enix would make a game as perfect as this. Even now I still can't believe how much I got into Kingdom Hearts 2.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 05/24/06