"Let's Go Crazy"

The first three hours of Kingdom Hearts II involve running around as a dweeb named Roxas. You play mundane mini games like delivering letters on a skateboard and beating up Seifer from Final Fantasy VIII with a foam club. You also get to watch cutscenes where Roxas' friends eat ice cream and complain about how their summer vacation is almost over. It ranks among the worst video game introductions ever. When you finally regain control of series protagonist and keyblade master Sora, you're regaled with silly game world mythology introducing a new breed of monsters called Nobodies. But it doesn't really matter because the next 27+ hours of adventuring completely erases this sour beginning from your memory.

This latest chapter follows the wholly terrible GBA title Chain of Memories up with Sora and his companions, the magic user Donald and shield toting knight Goofy, continuing their search for Riku, Kairi, and King Mickey. But it doesn't take long before Sora and co set out to thwart the plans of Organization XIII, a group of black cloaked evildoers that wreck havoc upon the Disney worlds. As expected for an E rated RPG, Kingdom Hearts II's plot is light. Twists are obvious, dialogue is hokey, and preachy messages about following your heart run rampant. This stuff is probably great for a younger gamer, but everyone else will see this as hogwash thrown together to explain why you're going to travel to new locales from Disney favorites including Pirates of the Caribbean, Mulan, and The Lion King.

But I can excuse the less than stellar plot. Square still knows how to present a story with a bang thanks to their high caliber visuals, cinematography, and voice acting. And besides, Kingdom Hearts II isn't a story driven epic quest. It's a light-hearted adventure full of action. You'll note the game worlds are far more combat oriented. There's no more awkward platforming or aimless wandering to trigger the next cutscene. The areas are instead extremely linear, but you won't care because Square gave fighting a total overhaul making it an absolute blast.

At its core, combat is the same formula from the first Kingdom Hearts. You control Sora in real time while the AI uses its scripts to do battle with Donald, Goofy or a world specific fighter such as the ferocious Beast, the debonair pirate Captain Jack Sparrow, or even Final Fantasy X's cranky swordsmen Auron. Combat speed has been significantly sped up and enemy counts are far higher leading to more exciting skirmishes. The camera control is also far superior. Rather than slowly rotating the camera with the shoulder buttons, you can now easily move the angle up or down as well as rotate with the right analog stick. It makes seeing everything in a fight far smoother, easier, and more natural rather than forcing you to constantly lock on to every enemy as was often required in the original.

As before, the basic combat requires mashing the X button a lot; however, now Sora quickly stocks up on a variety of equippable abilities to create loads of combos. You can still pummel foes by mashing X to furiously swing your keyblade, but you can also stop combos short with special finishers. For example you can tap Square and Sora will instantly smash the ground with his keyblade kicking baddies up into the air. Follow this up with aerial combos and you're in business. Taking different abilities can yield different results like the Guard Break where Sora thrusts his keyblade forward breaking through a foe's defense and following up with a devastating overhead swing. Or choose Explosion where he conjures a ring of energy to burst from the ground laying waste to nearby enemies. In between white knuckle melee action, Sora can also cast a variety of spells including supercharged blasts of ice or crackling bolts of lightning. Magic is far more useful in Kingdom Hearts II thanks to MP Charge. Now when you've dabbled in too many spells, your magic will be temporarily unavailable until it completely recharges for a full magic meter. Considering how unusually often you found yourself out of MP in the first title, this works much better while still giving you a penalty for running out.

Square added awesome, completely new features too such as the Reaction Command, a context sensitive special attack initiated by the Triangle button. When certain conditions are met, a prompt quickly appears on screen allowing Sora to execute dazzling moves. Sometimes it's batting energy shots from gun totting baddies back at them or grabbing a Heartless with both hands and forcing it to spew a girthy white beam that obliterates surrounding monsters, but it's almost always different. The game also adds in Limits, where Sora and another party member combine powers for a flashy, destructive attack in exchange for all of Sora's remaining MP. For example Mulan and Sora can tear up the Land of Dragons by slashing their foes with fiery blades before sassy dragon Mushu makes Mongolian barbecue out of the Heartless. But in the computer world of Space Paranoids, Sora will team up with Tron to hack into the CPU and bludgeon baddies with an eruption of razor sharp pixels.

All this battling will quickly build up Sora's Drive Meter, which is used to transform into special Forms. You'll first obtain Valor Form allowing Sora two equip a second keyblade and imbuing him with lightning speed and new crowd clearing combos. Soon after you can boost your magic potency with Wisdom Form as Sora floats through the air, casting enhanced spells, and firing enchanted bullets from the tip of his keyblade. Additional Forms found later in the game allow Sora to control his weapons with telekinesis while he throws them across the screen with ease and batters Heartless and Nobodies with a barrage of flying keyblades. Alternatively the Drive Meter is also employed for the less helpful Summons such as Genie from Aladdin and the titular feral alien from Lilo & Stitch.

Combat is wild, fast, gorgeous, and simply spectacular. You'll thank Square for focusing so much on creaming Heartless and Nobodies. Kingdom Hearts II will even occasionally throw in different twists to spice up fights. To sneak Mulan into the Chinese army, you don't just button mash through Heartless. Instead you scavenge for orbs and replenish Mulan's constantly decreasing morale. Once you're ready for some swashbuckling in Port Royal, you'll be fighting Captain Barbossa's crew of ghost pirates. To survive you'll need to lure the undead seamen into the moonlight to render them vulnerable. Boss fights even incorporate similar concepts. Facing off against Hades in Olympus Coliseum will prove futile unless you first use a reaction command with Hercules to toss an Aura Sphere at the nefarious god. In Port Royal, there's a giant Grim Reaper Heartless roaming the streets and unfortunately it's snagged the Aztec gold to become invincible. Victory will require frying the boss with spells to make it drop gold doubloons so that Sora may break the curse by returning the gold to its chest.

Variety is a true strength of Kingdom Hearts II not only in combat, but, much like Square classic Chrono Trigger, in its distinct game worlds as well. The Land of Dragons is full of war-torn countryside and snowy summits infested with Heartless shaped like Chinese ghosts and bulky spear wielding centaurs. In contrast, you'll soon after venture to Beast's Castle - an elegant palace adorn with the finest decor - to butt heads with the likes of animate statues. Later, our heroes travel back in time to Steamboat Mickey era Disney and the screen becomes black and white, the sound goes mono, and cracks and pops are added to the audio to emulate the feel of the old shorts. And then Port Royal features ultra realistic scenery and character designs compared to the rest of the game's anime and cartoon inspired style. Easily the coolest is the Pride Lands. Here Sora takes his place in the circle of life and transforms into a tiny yet agile lion cub with a completely new set of combos and maneuvers.

Kingdom Hearts II is just packed with excellent side diversions too. Swing down to Atlantica, and Sora will participate in a series of rhythm games set to classic songs from The Little Mermaid like "Under the Sea." Jump into the 100 Acre Woods and you'll find a bunch of heart-warming mini games including a mock horizontal shooter with Sora and Pooh Bear hanging onto a balloon battling tree stumps and honey pots. And then there's a fast-paced magic carpet ride in Agrabah, the 50 round Hades Cup in the Olympus Coliseum and the ultra difficult optional fight with Final Fantasy VII's Sephiroth. Even the Gummi Ship segments return with a major redesign for fast paced levels akin to a Sega rail shooter rather than a dull version of Star Fox.

Kingdom Hearts II isn't perfect and it's not beyond criticism. What it is, however, is an extremely fun and fast-paced action-RPG romp with a short learning curve, variety and truck loads of Disney and Square magic. Square even deserves to be commended for making little retread into the first game. The majority of enemies are completely new, and revisited areas like Halloween Town and Agrabah have been redesigned and expanded. The plot, boring introduction, and lack of challenge may annoy seasoned role-players, but I was having too much fun to really care. Whether it's battling a thousand Heartless or watching Sora strum his keyblade along with Stitch on the ukulele, Kingdom Hearts II is one massive, endearing fan service.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/25/07