Kingdom Hearts II

The Good
WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS

What happens when you mix Disney characters like Micky Mouse and Donald Duck with characters from one of the most famous RPG series ever, Final Fantasy, while adding characters of your own (Sora, Riku, Kairi, ect.) and having a story about evil shadows called Heartless who feed on the darkness in people's hearts and can only be stopped by the "Keyblade"? Well, you would think the end product would be a confusing mess. If you still think that, you must be a FPS fan boy (no offence to people who like Half-life or Team Fortress). But SquareSoft (now SquareEnix) and Disney Interactive had made undeniable proof that complete opposites can coincide peacefully with Kingdom Hearts. Well... "The story is not over"... and thank god because this game out-does the original by far. Not that the first installment was bad, it was just missing something. And this game, in my eyes, has just that.

The story continues from the second installment of the series, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (which I've never played at time of review). Namine has made Sora and his friends fall into a deep sleep, along with erasing everyone's memory of him. We start the story off with a boy who lives in a town called Twilight Town named Roxas, who's seemingly normal life shall soon reveal secrets that perhaps should of stayed secret... The story is very well made, and flows quite smoothly with the rest of the series, give or take a few plot holes.

The gameplay is a greatly improved version of Kingdom Hearts'. Almost everything has been improved: Fighting system, camera system, menu operation, synthesis, magic, summons, everything! And things such as Drives and a Shortcut menu just makes it all better. One of my favorite additions is Reaction Commands. These let you execute actions that shows Sora's true skills of combat. There are also mini-games that you can play. And the boss battles actually make me want to fight them (and that doesn't happen often)! All of the bosses give some moderate to extreme challenge, and most are really just a lot of fun! I can say absolutely nothing bad about 95% of the game. And the other 5%? Well... we'll get to that later.

The graphics are absolutely amazing. Some detail is so extreme, I wonder sometimes how Square could push the boundaries of the system so much. These graphics are one of the best examples of what a PS2 can really do! The cutscenes have specials "movements" for the characters in 60% of the shots. Let me explain: Sometimes in cutscenes, the models just talk like they do in game. But most of the time, their movements are exclusive to that cutscene, and their mouth syncs with the words almost perfectly.

The music is one of the best game tracks I have ever heard in my life. Some songs, such as "Vim and Vigor", give a sense of an evil aura surrounding the area, while "The Encounter" (one of my favorites) pumps you up for fight and gives you a feeling of "I'm ready to kick some ass!!!" Other music tracks in the game are also worthy of praise. The music will definitely fit the situation, whether walking in the mystic tower of Yen Sid, or getting one step closer to the final battle in the World That Never Was. The theme, "Sanctuary", is also a great song. As for the voice acting, it is wonderful. Not only do the original characters have good actors/actresses, but they have done something that is almost impossible: having almost every Disney character have their original actor. Obviously, Mickey, Donald, Goofy , and every one voiced by Jim Cummings (god-like actor) have their voices, but most of the others do to! Hades, Maleficent, Oggie Boogie, Ursula, Daisy, Minnie, Merlin, and even the freakin' Emperor from Mulan (I'm pretty sure)- ALL have their original voice talents. That, my friends, is commitment. The FF cast is good, too.

So far it sounds like the perfect game, right? Well, about that other 5%...

The Bad
...there are somethings I can't forgive.

Most of the Disney characters retain their original actors (amazingly). But, obviously, they couldn't do this for all of them. The worst cases are Nala and Scar. Nala's "new" actress is very bland and dull. I can't hear any emotion in her voice. It's almost like GLaDOS is voicing her- no, GLaDOS can actually out-perform Nala's actress. And she's a computer! And Scar's biggest mistake: he's not voiced by Jeremy Irons. Without him, Scar isn't Scar in my opinion. Instead of going the 2nd best option, Jim Cummings (see "Be Prepared"), they go with some one who does a TERRIBLE job being Irons. At least he's better than Nala...

Also, some classic moments (Scar's "little secret" to Simba, Hades's so-called "death", ect.) are completely butchered. For example, in the "final battle" at Pride Rock, there is no fire at all. It doesn't even take place at night. In my opinion, this brings the awesome-ness of the whole thing down immensely. Perhaps that would be too "dark", but if they did it in the 90's, they can do it now!

On one last note, I kind of liked the Trinity mark stuff. But that's not to serious.

The Bottom Line
Overall, this game is a must buy for any PS2 owner. Even if you don't like RPGs, buy it. You will not in anyway be sorry for that purchase.

The Good
I love the free-roam RPG gameplay and detailed level design. I love no text boxes and an option for subtitles and Japanese voice acting. Character development is a big plus since there will be a third game in the making. Also, the game wouldn't have been a success if it wasn't for all the original cast voicing all the Disney characters which really boosted the popularity of the game.

The Bad
The agonzing prologue to the actual game. I know you need to know the back story but it least cut it down to an hour. I thought a lot of levels making a second go around was kind of pointless. I thought they should have gone a different way of introducing the villians. The last thing was the amount of unlockables in the game was way too few. A trailer for the new game was great and all but they could have at least have thrown in some concept art or some alternate endings if you completed certain mini-games.

The Bottom Line
A great wholesome game for everyone. Disney fanatics is a must buy and also for RPG fans. Even people how didn't particularly into this stuff should play the first just to play the second because its that good.

The Good
Kingdom Hearts II brings back the set of playing characters that made the original fun. The story line fits in well with what happened before, but if you have not played the original, the story seems to run all right on its own (more or less).

The battle system and controls are pretty much just like before with a few new add-ons. This makes it fairly easy to get up-to-speed.

The new worlds are probably the best new thing in this game. As can be seen from the square soft website, you'll get to see some new characters from Disney movies pop up. There are some surprise worlds and new villains to cope with that definitely made me smile.

Traveling between worlds on the gummi ships is a lot more fun this time round. There are a lot of challenges and rewards that are associated with traveling through the asteroid fields multiple times. Plus you can now zoom between unlocked worlds which decreases one of the biggest pains in the original Kingdom Hearts.

The CG cut scenes are really nice and quite well done.

The Bad
Where the game falls short is that it just seems to play very sequentially. You kind of get to a world and follow on a more-or-less well defined path.

Absent are really spatially challenging worlds where getting to treasure chests takes a whole lot of careful planning and maneuvering. There just isn't the same level of challenges in this game. You don't get to fly around or really swim that much.

Battles are pretty much unchallenging IMHO. You sort of get in one, mash the X button until you get the job done. And unlike the original, most boss battles and level clearing challenges are pretty easy to get through the first time.

Also the new add-ons don't seem that useful. I only used a summon twice in the game, and that was only to figure out what it did. Team-ups tend to be annoying because you tend to call them up accidentally when you meant to do a reaction command on the same button.

The Bottom Line
This sequel is something a lot of Kingdom Hearts fans will jump on. I just had to have it. If you are like me then you'll like some of the new things but also feel like you aren't challenged enough for most of the game.

It's fun, yes, but it just feels like a bit of a drop. Not as bad as FFX to FFX-2.

Nice CG, okay story, fun worlds with some nifty surprises, boring challenges and battles.