"A Great Sequel from the Original Kingdom Hearts"

First of all, this review is based from imported (Japanese) version of Kingdom Hearts II .

Kingdom Hearts II is an action-RPG game developed by Tetsuya Nomura at SquareEnix. This game officially a sequel from the original Kingdom Hearts. The story continues from it's previous series. Actually, there is another version, "Kingdom Hearts Final Mix" which only released in Japan. Kingdom Hearts Final Mix have some additional features compared from it's original, there is additional movie called "Deep Dive" which have strong story relation between Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II.

Kingdom Hearts II story take place after the original Kingdom Hearts and about one year after "Kingdom Hearts: Chains of Memories" (Gameboy Advance). So, it advisable for you to play that both games first to know better for Kingdom Hearts II storyline.

- Music and Sound -
Excellent!. Yoko Shimomura really did a great job here. Yoko Shimomura is the music composer from original Kingdom Hearts and she made it again here, in Kingdom Hearts II. BGM for "Main Title" theme in previous Kingdom Hearts, now recomposed with more slowly tune and have some additional orchestra feeling. That's very good music. The Soundtrack (OST), "Passion" sung by famous Japanese singer, Utada Hikaru, which you can listen it at opening CG movie, it's really beautiful and awesome!. I really like this song.

BGM in town (Twilight Town, Hollow Bastion and the other places), battle music, boss battle music and any other music, most of them are very good. For me, it's really worth to buy the soundtrack (OST) CD for this game.

The voice acting itself is superb!. All Disney and Final Fantasy characters voices has been dub by so many talented japanese seiyuu (Voice actor/actress). The voice of Sora and Kairi still have the same seiyuu from it's previous Kingdom Hearts (Miyu Irino and Risa Uchida). Also the Final Fantasy characters still have the same seiyuu from previous game, for example Cloud Strife by Takahiro Sakurai (Cloud voice in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts), Yuffie by Yumi Kakazu (Yuffie voice in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, Kingdom Hearts and EHRGEIZ), and the others, like Leon, Selphie, Aerith etc.. also have the same voice actor/actress like the previous series. Disney character voice, like Donald, Goofy and the others was taken by official Disney seiyuu for Japanese region. The sound effects itself is pretty good, you may notice that some of them have the same SFX from original Kingdom Hearts.

- Graphic -
When you play Kingdom Hearts II and start a new game, you will see a very cool opening CG movie with song "Passion" by Utada Hikaru played on it. Both the events and the graphic for CG itself is awesome and cinematic. It's great, just like the other Square's Final Fantasy CG movies. About character design for this game, Tetsuya Nomura still in charge here. Off course Nomura's fans will be pleased for the character design. The characters looks more mature now and yes, they're still have cool appearance.

About in-game graphics for this game, off course the graphic isn't as superb as God of War or Gran Turismo 4. Kingdom Hearts 2 graphics is not the best graphic for PS2 games, but it's nice enough and more suitable for the game like this since the game also have so many Disney characters which have a cartoon appearance. About graphics, the purpose for this game is to give us more cartoon like view instead of realistic view. So, that's reasonable and the graphics is still good.

- Story and Characters -
Just like previous one, Kingdom Hearts II have so many Disney and Final Fantasy Characters. For Disney characters, many characters from previous game will return, just like Aladdin, Hercules, Simba, Winnie the Pooh and the others. And now, this one including a place, called Port Royal. It's just like "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. The characters itself, for example Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom really resemble with the real life actors, they just like in the movie version.

For Final Fantasy characters, most of them will comeback into this game, some of them have difference costume. For example, Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII). Now he wearing his "Final Fantasy VII Advent Children" costume instead his previous costume. Also there is new character addition from Final Fantasy games like Setzer (from Final Fantasy VI / Final Fantasy III in North American version), Vivi (from Final Fantasy IX) and the other characters. This make Kingdom Hearts II have more complete characters compared with the previous game (Kingdom Hearts).

Anyway, for the first sixth day in the game (Twilight Town), you will controlling a brand new character, his name is Roxas. In Kingdom Hearts 2 story, Roxas have an important connection to Sora. I'm not going to spoil anything about the story here, but near the end of the game you will know who he is. There is also another mysterious female character for this chapter, Namine. For this "prologue chapter", you will need a few hours to actually finish it, it's quite long enough for just a prologue story. But don't worry, the main character for this game is still Sora. You can play as Sora later after finishing this Roxas chapter.

Kingdom Hearts II storyline is very enjoyable and now have more depth and more complex story than the previous game. It was a good story and can make me keep playing this game for hours just to see what happened and to follow where the story flow until the end.

- Gameplay -
Overall, Kingdom Hearts II have a solid gameplay. It's good and really enjoyable to play. "Trinity command" in previous game has been removed and no longer available, but now there is a brand new addition, called "Reaction Command". Now, triangle button in PS2 controller has been used by reaction command. This command is like a multi-function trigger, it's all depend on the situation. For Example if you're in town, you can use it for talking people. If you fight with certain enemy, reaction command can be used for a "Warp movement", you will warp to behind your enemy and you can attack it from behind.

In a boss battle, "Reaction Command" may be available depending of the situation and it appears relatively short. This command sometimes can be used to dodge the Enemy (Boss) powerful atatck. Also if you did reaction command perfectly, you can perform a powerful and stylish attack (you will see very cool animation).

Another new gameplay is a "Drive" feature. With Drive feature, now Sora can change his appearance and style of his attack. Each Drive has different capabilities and different purpose in battles. To use Drive feature, you must have a drive gauge. It will be depleted if you're using Drive and when you have empty Drive gauge, Sora will be back to normal. You can refill the drive gauge by saving the game before Drive Gauge goes empty and reload again.

About the movie cutscene, now there is a new feature that allows you to skip that movie cutscene. This is useful for people that has been finished and replaying the game but didn't want to see the same cutscene again for their second play.

In previous game (Kingdom Hearts), if you move Sora too fast and running around with many objects and obstacles, you may feel dizzy. and there are camera problems that disturbing the gameplay. Now, In Kingdom Hearts II the camera problems has been fixed. The camera position now placed with more far distance than previous. although there is still some camera problems, but now it's better than previous game.

About the length of this game, Kingdom Hearts II can be finished about 30 until 40 hours depend on your skill, your difficulty selection and how you complete this game. If you play this game on harder difficulty level, did not skip any cutscene event, leveling up Sora and the other characters, do many sidequests to complete this game perfectly then it's should take more hours to actually finish this game.

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Overall Score : 92 / 100
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Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/09/06