Kingdom Hearts II (PS2) Review
Posted by Sean Garmer on 07.16.2006
Come to a world where Mickey meets Final Fantasy. This is the sequel to one of the most successful series in the last few years and it makes a great imprint on the RPG world with its awesome graphics and fun gameplay.
If someone were to have told me that in 2002, Square would make a game that would outsell its own Final Fantasy X (that was released in 2001), I wouldn't have believed anyone. Especially with the name Disney attached to the license. I was one of the skeptics that did not want to buy the game when it first came out. The thing that concerned me the most, was the Disney name attached to it. The thing with Disney is that you never know what kind of game you are going to get. Also with their track record of deplorable games, it makes it even more of a problem. My first thought was that this was going to be a kid’s game with Final Fantasy characters thrown in there. However, when I put in the game, I was pleasantly surprised that it was neither. It was a blend of both worlds all surrounding Sora on his quest to find his two friends with the help of Donald and Goofy. Well, now, four years later we have our hands on the continuation of the first game and the GBA release Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Did this one stand up to the first one's incredible story and really good game-play? Well by the end of this review you will know exactly why it did.
* First before I say anything about the game, if you did not play the first Kingdom Hearts or the GBA game you will be confused playing the 2nd one. I would suggest at least picking up the first game (which costs $19.99 right now) and playing through it. Trust me, you need to understand the basis of the story or you will be confused at the end of this game. The GBA game is in reality a replay of the 1st one with Organization XIII added to it. The game-play in it is different from the PS2 games because it uses cards. However, it does have some key story elements that tie into this game. So even though playing the GBA game is not as important as the first PS2 game. As far as story goes, both need to be played to understand the whole thing. KH 2 does some flashbacks in the intro, to the other games but, it does not really explain anything. So it would be very important for you to at least play KH 1 before thinking about buying this one. *
Story: Here is the story up to this point in the Kingdom Hearts franchise. If you already played the other two games than you can skip this part and can go straight into the review.
In Kingdom Hearts, you play as a young boy named Sora that after an intro/tutorial on Destiny Islands is separated from his best friends Kairi and Riku. While he witnesses the disappearance of his friends, out of the darkness come these shadows called “the heartless.” Out of nowhere comes a keyblade that enters Sora’s hands. Sora then finds a door and he goes through it. Then in another world, Donald discovers that King Mickey has left the castle. So he and Goofy are sent to find the “keybearer.” Eventually, Sora, Donald, and Goofy run into each other (literally) and together they travel throughout various Disney themed worlds defeating the heartless and their bosses. Along your way, you learn about a man named Ansem that apparently knows all about the heartless and what they want to do. As you continue to plod through the world’s you learn more about him and his nefarious plans. Eventually, you have to fight Ansem to save your friends and all the worlds. After Kingdom Hearts gets closed by Sora, King Mickey, and Riku. Sora also gets separated from his friend/love interest Kairi (who gets sent back to her home on Destiny Islands.) Sora, Donald, and Goofy are then left outside following Pluto until the game cuts out. Then a year later we get the story of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (the game was actually released two years after KH 1.) Sora, Donald, and Goofy keep following the grassy road until they find Castle Oblivion. The castle has a spell it puts on everyone that enters it where it makes people lose their memories. So Sora must go through all the same worlds as KH 1 and slowly get them back. While doing all this, he meets various members of “Organization XIII” that are testing him. He also learns about Riku, Kairi, and a girl named Namine that is seen drawing various things in this white room. After all of this you enter Twilight Town a really weird town where you learn even more about what the Organization is doing. You also wind up back on the Destiny Islands and finally go back to Castle Oblivion to have a final battle with Marluxia. After winning, Sora winds up in this sleeping ball and a new leader of Organization XIII is revealed. This takes you to Kingdom Hearts 2 where all the characters have grown up a little more. If you watched the secret ending of the first game you see a man in a black cloak with two keyblades. While playing through the three hour intro/tutorial you learn about Roxas, a former Organization member that is chosen by the keyblade. During the tutorial you control Roxas who learns things about Sora everyday. He lives in Twilight Town with his friends and goes on various adventures throughout the town. I thought Twilight Town was done rather well as it looks like a comfy little neighborhood. I even liked the look of the old mansion they use as it reminds me a little bit of the haunted mansion from the Disney World theme park. In tutorial fashion, they mix in a little bit of the story stuff with the fighting to get you used to the rest of the game. Three hours is a little long for a tutorial but it makes sense with all the story elements added in it. As far as the rest of the story goes, well you have to find that out by playing this game. Now if you want to find out anything more about the game go ahead and read this review.
Graphics & Presentation: I like to describe how well things are presented to you in a game. Not just how they look but how they fit in with the game too. If this is a sequel than this is also where I describe all the new things that do not involve the game-play. Don’t worry if there are any graphical problems I’ll cover that too.
The game does not look that much different from the first game in the regular, in game graphics. With all the different things added into this game I don’t think they could have put any more into the graphics. As always Square sets the standard for CG scenes. While they are only used in the intro and the ending they are always the most beautiful pieces of footage in these types of games. I didn’t notice any fading out and there were no frame rate issues either. The game fits many enemies along with the three heroes on screen without any problems. I did not notice anything wrong when reaction commands are activated or with the limits breaks either. There is a pause when you change clothes for the drive forms but it feels more like an inserted pause like Final Fantasy X-2 and not a slow down. Actually, when you use the drive form the pause that happens deflects enemies away from you, so I would think that people would appreciate the inserted pause. The Gummi ship even looks better this time as there has been a graphic overhaul for this mini-game that actually makes it fun to fly in between levels. The game has been changed to where now things are all over the screen and it feels like you are playing Asteroids. It even tells you when there are things firing at you from many sides, with a very large alert signal that appears on the screen. It’s a nice touch and the way the Gummi ship should have been in the first game. The worlds look almost identical to their movie counter-parts with all the extra accessories thrown in, so I really don't have a complaint about the Graphics.
This game is very well presented in that, as soon as you enter a world, you immediately know where you are at, because even the menus and Sora's little info bar on the left side of the screen will have the world theme. All of the Disney and Final Fantasy characters play their roles well and fit in, wherever they are placed. The Final Fantasy characters even play a larger role in this adventure. Not only do you get Auron as a helper A.I. character, there are also parts in the game where you play alongside these characters defeating the heartless. As a person that is enamored with the Final Fantasy world it was a real treat for me to get help from Cloud, Squall, Yuffie, and Tifa as I destroy the heartless. These characters are all over Hollow Bastion (which plays the role of “host” town much like Traverse Town did in the 1st game.) Hollow Bastion is also the first world you enter once you begin the actual game. Once you are there, you should begin to notice a change with KH 2 as opposed to the first game. The World's are not as expansive as in the first one but it seems, that’s because this game focus’s more on the story than giving you a bunch of extra things to do. There are six new worlds in this adventure. These include: Port Royal taken straight out of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” Beast’s Castle, Pride Lands involving the story of the “Lion King,” Space Paranoids from “Tron,” Land of the Dragons that highlights different places from the movie “Mulan,” and finally, you also get to time travel back to the 1930's in the Timeless River and see “Steamboat Willie” with the original looking Disney characters. All these worlds look great, especially Port Royal, Space Paranoids, and the Timeless River. Port Royal brings you straight into the “Pirates of the Caribbean.” I thought they did a good job playing off of the gold curse, as Sora can only attack them when the pirates get in the moonlight. I had issues with some of the story parts that I will explain later but for the most part I enjoyed Port Royal and all the unique battles it had to offer. Space Paranoids was just absolute fun. Not only do you get to play with Tron and learn about the MCP. You also get to ride the cycles just like in the movie. I also really enjoyed the look of the whole level. Everything in this world is digital and looks like you are in a big computer. All the enemies are robotic and it really brought out the sense that you are a part of the Tron universe. For someone like myself that was not a huge fan of the film, the world in the game really made me want to see the movie again. If you don’t think that Disney doesn’t design these games without a double profit in mind, you have to be kidding yourself. You know Disney would love for people to play this game and then go out, and buy all the movies that you play with in the game. My favorite world was the Timeless River because from playing through it. I really got this notion that Square really took their time to make this world seem as authentic as possible. It’s in black and white, all the characters have that classic Disney look to them, and all the animations are kept to that style. It brought with it a big sense of nostalgia more than any other of the Disney Worlds. Even though, it is just a small part of the whole adventure (as you only visit it once as opposed to the other worlds,) the whole “Disney magic” thing was evident in that world. There are also three worlds that are expanded upon from the previous games. Disney’s Castle, Halloween Town, and Olympus Coliseum all now take you through a separate chapter in their story. Halloween Town now takes you through Christmas Town, Olympus Coliseum takes you through the dark mist of the Underworld, and Disney’s Castle walks through the elegant castle of the King and also holds the key to the Timeless River. Finally, there are two worlds that have been changed up completely, those being Atlantica and Pooh’s story book. With Pooh’s book, you still go around trying to find torn pages and playing mini-games it just has a different premise. Instead of going through mini-games to complete this big story, you find yourself trying to help Pooh remember all his friends by completing mini-games that apparently bring his mind back to normal. Atlantica went from a world in the first game to being an afterthought in KH 2. Now this world is all a bunch of mini-games that don’t require more than a little reaction time. I guess this was how Disney got the E-10 rating for this game. Atlantica doesn’t provide anything towards the main story much like Pooh’s story book did in the first game. It is just there for someone’s amusement, I guess. Now that you understand about the world’s and how they look, let’s get into what matters the most in video games.
Gameplay: Well it’s the meat of the game. The whole reason most people buy games is for this. If this isn’t good, you might as well forget even playing this game.
The heart (no pun intended) of any game is its game-play and this one gives you plenty of it. Your normal RPG stuff is all here with the attack, magic, and items all making a return. The Moogle’s Synthesis shop also returns but in a different way. Instead of making you backtrack to the host town to synthesize your items. Now they have shops next to the first save point in every world. This makes it easier and more fun to synthesize items because now the shop is always right in front of you. In the last game, synthesizing at times felt more like an annoying job, so the change is a good thing. Very similar to the first adventure, backtracking is still the name of the game. However, this time instead of going back to collect Dalmatians and lost items, each world has a 2nd story and a 2nd boss you must defeat after you close the world the first time. While those that want to collect everything to get the secret ending will still have to backtrack even more, at least now there seems to be a purpose to the backtracking. Certainly the one big problem that KH 1 had was the camera being mapped to the L2 and R2 buttons, making it difficult to see all of the enemies. In the 2nd one for the most part, that is corrected as now everything involving the camera is on the Right Analog Stick, while moving around with the Left Analog Stick. Another new thing is that the game allows you to switch party members on the fly in mid-battle much like Final Fantasy X. This is also another welcome edition because it helps you in challenging boss fights. Sometimes I found myself entering battle with the wrong character and with a click of a button I could correct the problem while still kicking some tail.
I did have one problem with the game-play, which I will explain in a bit. In the first game, all the elements that were added in the game fit together well. There was still more of a need for fighting than anything else but, everything except for the summons had some kind of use. In KH 2, all the RPG elements are still there but Square decided to take the term Action-RPG to a whole new level. There is no longer any platforming and the Magic other than Cure is rendered useless in this game. I really like using a mix of things playing a RPG and magic is one of those things. That is just a personal issue and will not affect the rating of this game because for all that Square takes away it also gives back with new things. One of these new things are the “drive forms” that allow Sora to use one or two of his party members to become a dual Keyblade carrier and just plain kick ass. There are four of these, three that are given to you in the game and one that must be earned by leveling up the others. The last form is one hell of a reward and should make people want to level up. Rewards for leveling up are always welcome in my view. The other new thing introduced in this game is limit breaks that come straight out of the Final Fantasies. Each Disney companion you receive (as well as Donald & Goofy) have limits that they learn and cause lots of damage to your opponents. The limits are big keys to defeating bosses, but, in turn they take up all your MP when you use them. As I mentioned before, this game is more battle heavy and that is brought on by “Reaction Commands” that work using the triangle button. What happens is a small icon will appear above your info bar to tell you when a reaction command is available. These little cut-scene animations do lots of damage and sometimes can go into big combos that leave your opponent begging for mercy. While for the most part they only happen in boss fights, sometimes there will be regular characters that you face, that also give you a chance to use reaction commands against them. The game also lets you map your limit breaks to the triangle button. So that all you have to do is press one button and the limit break begins to function. The fighting for the most part is a lot of fun but feels a little too button mashy. Don’t understand what I’m talking about? Here’s an example, In this game for the most part you will use the “X” button to attack your opponents. So you go along and press X to continue your attack, you might use triangle every once in a while, and possibly might need to heal with an item. Get the concept? I hope you do because that is about as hard as it gets. Then if you get into a drive form there will be even more button mashing. This is just a small gripe that gets solved if you play the game on the hardest difficulty called “Proud Mode.” I might also add that if you beat the game on proud mode, you do not have to do anything extra to unlock the secret ending. If you play the game on standard or beginner mode, you genuinely will not have a problem with anyone you confront until maybe the last boss. You also have to completely fill out Jiminy’s journal to get the secret ending. Overall, there is a lot less strategy to this game than in KH1. In this one, there really is not much to think about. You go in sword drawn and see what happens. There is only one boss where magic is a must and the summons are a huge waste of space. On the plus side, the game does give you plenty of new abilities to learn and new places to fight. So there is a good side to leveling up. I think that about sums it up for the game-play.
Sound: Does the music fit-in with certain situations in the game? Do the sound-effects have any glitches? That should be answered in this section.
The soundtrack to the game again fits in perfectly with all the worlds. As many have instrumental versions of the themes from their respective movie. The soundtrack seems to fit in with every situation whether you are just walking around or in an intense battle. It’s basically, classical music that’s either sped up or slowed down depending on the situation. All the sound effects that go with the blasts and blade swipes are there. Even with the reaction commands and limit breaks, you will hear something said or a sound effect play to let you know that it has begun to function. The Voice acting again is probably one of the best casts for a video game, as Square is always keen on that part of the game. For the most part, the Disney characters are played by the people that did the voiceovers for the movie. Some exceptions include Captain Jack Sparrow who is not played by Johnny Depp and Genie that is not played by Robin Williams. Really, if I had not checked IMDB to see who did the voiceovers. I probably would not have figured out that Johnny Depp didn’t do Captain Jack, because whoever did do his voice for the game sounds a lot like him. The three main actors have returned to do Sora, Kairi, and Riku which are probably the only ones that really matter. The Final Fantasy characters except for Yuffie, Tifa, Cloud, Aerith, and Cid (who are played by the same actors that did their voices in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children,) are played by some unknown video game voiceover people. Even characters that didn't talk in the first one have voices like Cid has a bigger part and Merlin actually speaks in this one. The game is still part text and part voice to allow space for other things. It really didn’t bother me because I’m used to it, from playing the previous game. I can see some little kids being annoyed by it, but it does encourage them to read. I’m happy that you can now skip cut-scenes because it was really annoying in KH 1 if I died I had to watch the same cut-scene over and over until I got through the area. As I mentioned above, I did have a problem with the story in some of the worlds, so I’ll take the time to explain that now. While it is great to make me feel like I’m playing the movie, some of the story parts sound and look like they were just ripped straight from the film. It is really not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it bothers me. Some of the stories can be intertwined with the heartless or nobodies very well that makes me think I’m playing a game. Then you get to Port Royal, Atlantica, or the Pride Lands and I feel like I’m basically watching the movie. It just seems like Disney creative just kind of turned off their minds in parts of the game’s story, when some of it could have been changed to create a different storyline for that part of the game. Other than that small issue, the sound quality of the game is excellent and can even be heard in Dolby Pro Logic II.
Lasting Appeal: Does this game have enough to keep you playing it over and over?
I say it’s medium to high, as there are three levels of difficulty. The story may be linear but it may make you want to play through it again. There is more than just the secret ending to obtain as you can also battle in more than eight Olympus Coliseum tournaments. The game does take about 50 hours to complete so most people may be one and done with it. However if you try hard enough you could go back and try to get every item and even attempt to synthesize the Ultima Weapon. The game even allows you to play extra gummi ship missions for anyone that is a fan of flying. You can also fight Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII who is an extra boss in the game. So there is a lot to do if you get bored with the main storyline. Just leveling up to give Sephiroth a fair fight is going take about 20 hours as it is.
Fun Factor: How much fun did you have playing this game?
I really enjoyed this game and in my opinion KH2 is better than KH1. There are a lot of different options you can take when fighting through this game. Fight to use drive forms, use limit breaks, use reaction commands, or you can just slash away till your hearts content. The whole point of the game is to fight to proceed through the story. So you can choose to fight as little or as much as you want. I rate the fun factor being high. Obviously this game is not for everyone but it is simple enough for anyone to pick up and play. The fun is as good as the story and that is going to be what determines how much someone enjoys the game. With all the different things you can do in this game anyone should be able to have fun with it.
The 411:
Overall, the game brings with it a lot of new things that make the game-play even more enjoyable. The button mashing can get really old especially for casual gamers that don’t get too involved in the story. I did have to dock the game some points for the on and off creativity of the Disney writers. I also wish they would have given us a little bit more to do on the side. A few extra bosses or a secret world would have been cool. All in all, if you are a fan of RPG's and want to try something that isn't turn-based this could be the game for you. If people look past the Disney façade they will see a great RPG that is possibly even better than the previous games. This game accomplishes everything a sequel should so I can easily recommend this to any fans of the original. I really like this series and I hope Square continues to make some more games with Sora, Donald, and Goofy.
Graphics
10.0
Amazing graphics and CG scenes that will make your mouth water.
Gameplay
9.0
The fighting is fun and fast paced and there are plenty of options at your disposal. The one drawback is that the buttons can get a bit mashy at times.
Sound
9.5
The voice acting is superb and may just be the best cast ever in a game. The music brings you straight into every situation and really adds to the gameplay.
Lasting Appeal
8.0
There are some extra things to do but the main focus remains the main game itself.
Fun Factor
9.0
The game throws so many different enemies at you, it's just so fun to kill them all. With all the different things you can do and the great story mixed in there, you could find yourself slashing away for hours.
