"Action-RPG has been redifined again in the sequel, Kingdom Hearts"

How it All Began

Four years ago, two of the most unlikely companies merged to make an amazing game with something I've been waiting for: an Action RPG battle system. Well I didn't have a PS2 then, but got one and Kingdom Hearts two years ago. I was amazed. How can Disney take part in such a wonder? I thought we should leave movies to them and get quality games from Square. But I learned a new math equation: Disney + Square-Enix = Awesome game. Also two years ago an indirect sequel came out - not for the Playstation but for the Game-Boy advance. Okay the way you played the game in Kingdom Hearts Chains of Memories wasn't the best idea but it was unique and the story was amazing and was an important addition.

Sora, Riku and Kairi are three great friends who have thought of leaving their world to visit others. One terrible storm broke them up and Sora now the Keyblade Master has gone to look for them with his new companions; Donald and Goofy, with lots of twists and turns, emotions and acts of courage. Now the long-waited sequel (especially for Australia, another 6 months later!) came out. The magnificent Kingdom Hearts II.

Here's a bit of background of the story to keep you in touch (if you haven't played Kingdom Hearts I really don't know how you are keep up). Sora, after defeating Ansem, the seeker of darkness and losing his friends: Riku and the King into the realm of Darkness, Kingdom Hearts and also being separated from his friend Kairi he was following a path where he found Pluto with a letter from the King. That means both the King and Riku should be okay, so chasing the dog down a long path, Sora, Donald and Goofy get into a castle. A castle filled with people in black cloaks and all the worlds Sora have visited. Sora, while going up through the castle - Castle Oblivion (fitting name) - is forgetting everything he's been through and everyone he cared about in a steady pace. After defeating lots of the people in black cloaks (known as Organization XIII) he finds his way to the top, with a girl named Namine who reveals she has been tinkering with his memories and promised to restore the memories, with that said Sora and company have been stuck in capsules supposedly re-living the memories but are going to be unaware of Castle Oblivion. While Sora was venturing up above, Riku and King Mickey where venturing below on the reverse side trying to conquer his darkness with a final match against Ansem.

Somewhere else in a pleasant little town stuck between light and darkness and stays in the twilight, has an unbelievable name - Twilight Town. There is a boy who looks strikingly familiar named Roxas, hanging around his friends. You adventures starts and unfolds slowly Roxas, so many questions are asked, so many strange things are happening and Roxas has no clue why its happening to him. Later Sora awakens, now with both himself and his voice actor growing through puberty. his voice changed and all he thinks is he has gotten an overnight growth spurt with his clothes shrunk down. Now Sora plans to put a stop to the Organization and go back and find the King, Riku and reunite with Kairi as promised.

True Action-RPG

OK now we get it: Sora is still looking for the King and Riku and planning to somehow get back to Kairi and try to stop an Organization which he already half-defeated but has no clue he did. Yes, now how about the improvements from the first Kingdom Hearts? First thing you'll realize is the camera. Remember how annoying that was? Now it doesn't cause one problem, you move it with the right analog (which really didn't matter but yes it seems “traditional” now) and can get centered by pressing it down. One thing that helped that is how Sora is positioned, it is not like right behind him and showing a big character but showing Sora from quite afar making him look smaller so you can get a good idea where the enemy is and everywhere you can go.

Now this is an ACTION-RPG. So lets take a solid RPG out of nowhere - umm - Final Fantasy X. That's what you call a classic RPG; random battle, select something from a menu and do it, like “Attack”, and take turns attacking each other. That's hardly realistic or going to happen and seems a tad boring, don't you think? Think of this; enemies spawn and you don't get an annoying random battle opening, you move freely around as you would attacking the enemy, blasting the enemy with magic, healing yourself, jumping - all in real-time. How are you supposed to get all the controls to make that work - that'll be very complicated, right? Wrong. Kingdom Hearts I.I even more then the first Kingdom Hears executes this perfectly. A little "Command" box lies in the bottom left with options like Attack, Magic, Item and a special something else that shall be mentioned later. As you move you choose to "confirm" one, and do that command, so by default Attack is selected, pressing X will make you attack. Its not really complicated at it sounds. Now and improvement on this from Kingdom Hearts is there is now a reverse side to the Command, with Attack, Summon, Part and Limit. Why would anyone move around, go to magic, then Summon and take so many hits while doing so? The reverse side is a quick acsess (there's actually another quicker way). Now haven't you ever wanted to change Tarzan out and get Donald because you found a Trinity mark? Well 1) there aren't Trinities anymore and 2) you can switch characters anytime!!! Limits are your special attack but not like "Sonic Blade", "Strike Raid" or "Ragnarok" from Kingdom Hearts, it's the special attack where Sora teams up with someone to use it.

Reactions

What did the Triangle button really do in Kingdom Hearts? Let's see you locked on someone and then you pressed Triangle to send a party member after the target or generally help you. This time around the Triangle button is as important as circle. Triangle lets you talk to people, open chests, examine and everything else that used to take over the Attack command or the bottom command in Kingdom Hearts. And also in battles triangle serves as you "Reaction Command" and triangle flashes and the button is seen on an opponent and over the command box it tells you what the Reaction is going to do. The first one you use is one called Reversal and you use that on a particular enemy to quickly run around the enemy and make the enemy lose sight of you before you attack from behind. There are lots more you can use to make battles way easier and is very encouraged to be used by the game, like a quicker acsess to a Summon or a Drive (read on for “Drives”). Also there was another button that was neglected; Square, ok Guard and Dodge Roll was all that was used for. But in this - as well as guard - square can be used as an attack with certain abilities equipped, like Upward Slash an ability then lifts your enemy into the air by pressing square in the middle of a combo. You can use this for sweet finishing moves as well and more features later on as you play the game.

Amazing Combos

The abilities now aren't the same as before, it's in categories as the following: Action (like Guard), growth (like High Jump), Support (like Combo Plus) and now each Keyblade has there very own ability (Star Seeker has Air Combo Plus). AP isn't that hard to get because there are lots of AP Boosts around. Now since the very bottom command has been taken by Drive (anxious are we?), how do expect to put up a fight without Ars. Arcanum!? Simple now there are Finishing moves which are used as abilities and basically the “finish” off your combo. Like one called Explosion, where at the end of the combo Sora unleashes the devastating attack. Combos are very well executed in this game; you can go do a combo like this: Attack, Attack, Fire and Explosion. Even Magic is linked to the combos which is awesome, you can release a flurry of attacks lift them up, attack some more, time add Thunder to the mix and use a finishing move. So combos are much better then it was in Kingdom Hearts you basically mash X, yes there can be mashing, but that depends on the way you play, you can mash then use magic, reaction or kind of “anything.”

Drive Form

A very cool new addition is Drive Form (finally) and this thing is what fills in the last command. Since Sora's clothes shrunk, he got a new set, and the clothes have special powers, to change colors and have an effect on Sora. But you have to sacrifice a character in order to do so. The first Drive you get is "Valor Form" where Goofy is gone, Sora gets red clothes, gets super fast, jumps like made and attacks rapidly with TWO Keyblades. There are more Drives and each of them level up depending on the Drive's condition. But it isn't that easy, you have a Drive Gauge, which gains as you get Drive Orbs (similar to HP and MP orbs) and it starts decreasing in Drive Mode and all good things must end. It's very cool, every drive has there own strengths and cool special attacks. There are downsides as well, for example, the Valor form is based on strength so much you can't use any magic at all.

In the name of Merlin

The MP gauge has changed, and you actually have a stat called Magic, it used to be about how much MP you got, now its how much Magic you have. One thing that really bugged me was that Cure takes all of your MP which gets annoying. Well that's a minor setback, since you can use the old customize shortcuts, to use items. Circle is used in the shortcuts now as well.

Gummi Bears!

Okay, you still have to get to all those worlds, like our old favourites like, Agrabah and Halloween Town, but there are new ones, Hollow Bastion has been redone completely, you don't even get into the castle through the main part of the game! Then there's a brand new world like Beast's Castle and Land of Dragons (Mulan). Okay, how do get from world to world again. Oh boy. It's the Gummi ship. Oh yes. It's been Re-done! The basic flight thing is changed; it is faster paced, with a final score at the end depending on how well you did. I can tell you it's still not the best and you really wouldn't want to drive through here and there again but its much, much better then the old Gummi system.

Graphically Speaking

The graphics and effects in this game are lovely. I can say "Nuff Said" but there is so much to talk about! First of all, they didn't aim to make Sora, Riku, Kairi and all the other characters realistic. They tried to make it look like a cartoon, and the graphics are just beautiful they way it is, the special effects used in different worlds are great. Like in Land of Dragons you can blow up things and the explosions you see have these effects that make it seem it's a Chinese theme. The command box has been redone for every world! It takes on the theme of the place you're in. Your health bar colors can change as well. It's just so much things have been done and put into these little things and big things are just amazing. But did you ever wonder how good the graphics can get? There is Pirates of the Caribbean world in Kingdom Hearts II, and it does seem strange with a cartoon character like Sora talk and interact with realistic people like Jack Sparrow or Elizabeth Swann. The graphics looks GREAT on that world, Barbossa looks like how Barbossa. Every detail is put in even on the "normal graphics". But then there are CG Scenes at the beginning and end of the game, which make them looks real - but weird if you know what I mean. Speaking of which, the beginning intro for Kingdom Hearts II has to be one of the best intros, EVER. I am serious.

Sanctuary

WOW. The music is top notch. Every world and location has their very own music going around. Not to mention Kingdom Heart II's "theme song", Sanctuary done by Utada Hikari. It's great. All the sound effects, like sword clashes, every word that comes out of someone's mouth are all perfect and extraordinary. Voice acting is done actually quite well in cutscenes which are all real time.

Recommendation

If you have played the first game, or first and Chains of Memories, and enjoyed it, this games is definetly for you. It has gotten every thing from the first and made it ten times better. Trust me, I'm a loyal Kingdom Hearts fan who has waited for this game for more than 2 solid years and got this the first day it came out in Australia, enjoyed it so much.

Final Statistics

Pros

* Better then Kingdom Hearts in lots of ways
* Reaction Commands
* Command redisign
* Drive Forms
* Lots of new Keyblades
* Music and voice acting
* Just watching Sora doing aerial combos
* Great graphical Effects
* Final Fantasy Characters
* Great storyline
* 3 Difficulty modes

Cons

* The Standard difficulty is too easy
* It ended suddenly and to fast (but 30 hours)
* Fruity Disney characters may tick you off *coughlittlemermaidcough*

Final Score

Gameplay/Controls (9/10) - Great to watch, reaction commands and drive are great additions. Can get button mashy

Graphics (9/10) - Great environments and effects, Jack Sparrow looks like Jack Sparrow

Sound/Music/Voice Acting (10/10) - Absolute lovely music, sound effects and voice acting

Value/Lifespan (10/10) - Tonnes of unlockables.

Worth (10/10) - GET IT

9.6/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/03/06