Kingdom Hearts II reviewed

When the first Kingdom Hearts game hit shelves it was wildly successful and wildly awesome.  So naturally a sequel was ordered up and rushed to unsuspecting gamers hands as they expressed horrible anger and disappointment.  Then it was combined with a story that was an Idiot Plot and a battles system that was completely stupid that only complete morons liked it.  But enough about Chain of Memories - seriously cards?  Lucky for you guys we're talking about the real sequel that doesn't suck in any way, so let's dig right into Kingdom Hearts II.

So this takes place a year after the first game but what have you been doing for that time?  Doing the events of Chain of Memories...sigh, there's a Let's Play of it which you can google so you can be up to speed.  Anyways, after that and THE LONGEST PROLOGUE EVER(which is not that bad, but it is that long) Sora, Donald & Goofy finally awaken.  But the world has changed as the Heartless have come back with Pete & Maleficient, who came back from the dead since she's magic, leading them.  Then there's this new faction called Origination XIII which control Nobodies, the souls and bodies of Heartless that are rebuilding Kingdom Hearts to find and take back their own hearts.

The game play here is very much improved from the first game.  The camera is much better and much smoother with it actually going where you want it to go.  The battles system has expanded into something a bit more than button mashing.  There's these new-fangled reaction commands that allow you to use the enemies attacks against them in an incredibly badass way.  There's also the Drive Commands that let you merge with either Donald or Goofy and do incredible feats of awesome like dual-wielding keyblades or firing bolts of energy towards your enemies.  On a pure technical level, this is much better than the first game.

But that's not what strikes me about the game.  That's not what I first remember about this game.  It's how almost everyone takes a huge level in badass.  Sora has his reaction and his drive commands that make him much more awesome.  Once Riku abandons the darkness, long story, he starts to kick some ass and then pilot some hovercraft thingy.  Kairi, of all people, briefly gets a keyblade decorated with girly flowers and kills a few heartless in one hit!  Even Mickey Mouse is a huge badass and I'm not making that up, he even has a badass longcoat.  By the end, this game becomes so badass that I just wanted to eat a raw steak with my bare hands in commemoration of it's manliness.

However there is a problem and that's the story. I don't want to say that it's too complex, even though it is very complex with some replays to make sense of it, but the game is split between The Heartless and Organization XIII.  The problem is that The Heartless storyline is pretty much the same as the first game and it is pretty boring....which is the main focus of the game.  Organization XIII's storyline is much more interesting with better villains and some border-line thought on how they tick but aside from the beginning and end, they don't really show up that much which is a shame since the game is best when it's focused on them.

So is this game better than the first Kingdom Hearts?  It's a bit hard to say, on an objective level it is better than the first one in most ways.  The only real flaw I can actually criticize is that voice-acting is a bit weaker since Haley Joel Osment's man-voice for Sora isn't very good most of the time.  Then again, they got Christopher Lee in this so that cancels that out.  On a pure fun level though, I'd play the first game in a heartbeat but for this, I kind of have to be in the right frame of mind and bone up on my Kingdom Hearts mythology to make sense out of this.  It's still a very good game though, it's just not as good.

9/10

Kingdom Hearts reviewed

I want you to imagine two things, the first thing is that you are back in the year 2001.  Then I want you to imagine you first hearing that Disney and Square were teaming up to make a video game where Donald Duck was a magician and Goofy was a knight.  And then the hero's weapon was a huge key that functioned as a sword.  Futhermore, some Final Fantasy characters were going to be there as well!  You would be thinking that would be the end of Square and make Disney a bigger laughing stock they were then.  In fact, you probably wanted to buy it just to see how laughable this game but there was one problem.  The game wasn't laughable at all....it was pretty awesome.  With your mind blown, let's dig into Kingdom Hearts.

The universe is in pretty deep trouble.  Evil shadowy creatures called The Heartless has been destroying the borders that kept the worlds separate.  Then with the walls gone The Heartless found the keyholes to the various worlds which they flood and destroy erasing that world.  Well, King Mickey Mouse isn't going to have any of that but he disappears and mails a letter to Donald and Goofy to find the Keybearer and save the universe.  Meanwhile, we have our main character Sora from Destiny Islands with his best friends Riku and Kairi.  However, The Heartless destroys the islands which sends Sora into the same path as Donald and Goofy...also, he's the Keybearer.  So now it's a quest to save the universe, find King Micky and find Riku & Kairi.

You got all that?  As you can see this game is pretty epic.  Now what sets that apart from every other epic RPG?  It doesn't start off that way.  I'm not saying it starts off as fluffy since there's nothing fluffy about a destroyed homeland and being separated from your friends but it starts off more humorous than epic with Donald and Goofy's wacky antics.  Even the early worlds don't really advance the plot that much as you just solve whatever worlds problems.  However, around halfway through the humor stops, the plot goes into full-tilt darkness and the relationships between Riku & Kairi have radically changed.  The change is almost so subtle that you won't notice it when it's happening but only when thinking about it.

Another strength of the game is the battle system.  It's like a combination of Legend of Zelda's 3-D batle system and Secret of Mana's in which there's no battle screen but you do have your stats and some rudimentary decisions to make like what magic and items to use.  You could just mash the attack button and you would be able to do fine, not great but good enough to live.  Now some may think that button mashing is a bad thing and while it is to an extent, here that's not the case since the enemies have enough variety to them to still provide some challenge.

Hell, I even think the gummi ship levels are pretty cool.  I know most people don't like them and they have their own extremely valid reasons but it's not so bad once you get the warp piece and the best engine making those levels immeasurably shorter.  What really gets me about these levels are the backgrounds, as you go deeper in it gets darker and more nightmarish as all color slowly drains away into the darkest place known to man.  Yeah, people do complain it's too slow and too Star-Foxy but those are easily overcome flaws in the bigger scope of things.

This game is pretty damn awesome considering it's pedigree and how it came together.  The battle system is one of the best I played.  The story is awesome, especially as it gets towards the end.  The voice-work is pretty good since they have some of the original voice-overs, great imitators and Billy Zane, which is awesome.  If I really wanted to I could nitpick like some of the weak voices-acting, the weak camera, some dangling plot threads and the beginning of the gummi levels but they're not big enough deals for me to hate on.  If you haven't played this game yet....geez, you're more behind the curve than I am.

10/10