Kingdom Hearts II
In the year 2005 the sixth generation of consoles were getting ready to switch their users on to their new consoles so they gave their consoles proper send offs in which they would get money and bid the sixth generation farewell. Nintendo bid farewell to the Nintendo Gamecube with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Microsoft closed the Xbox life-span with Halo 2, that leaves Sony. On March 26, 2006, the Playstation 2 was about to bid the gamers farewell (or so they thought) with a smash hit that would shake the RPG world. This is Kingdom Hearts II for the Playstation 2.
Graphics
What can I say? Square Enix knows how to make a pretty game. It has come to my attention that Square Enix seems to make some of the most graphically advanced games for their times and Kingdom Hearts II is no different. The game looks beautiful, colors pop off the screen, the characters move more fluidly, and the worlds look better than ever.
There is no mistaking it, Kingdom Hearts was one of the best looking games to have ever graced the Playstation 2. It's simply beautiful from it's Disney worlds down right to it's original ones.
Gameplay
The gameplay for Kingdom Hearts II is basically the same as in Kingdom Hearts with a few tweaks and moderations. You still use the ▄ to block and roll and you use the O button to jump, the ▲ button, has changed but I will explain that later. In this game you still have the command menu in the bottom left corner of the screen with your Attack, Magic, and Items, but now a new selections have been made to the menu. Where the ? command used to be is now a Drive command (I will get into that later), not just that but if you press right on the D-pad then new commands appear. You still have Attack at the top but now you will have Summon, Party, and Limit. You highlight these options with the D-pad and select them with the X button just as in the first game.
The Attack command, of course, makes Sora attack enemies and objects. Depending on the situation and the player's choice of abilities Sora can pull of many flashy combos in the game. Magic let's you perform spells such as Fire, Blizzard, and Cure to attack enemies, heal yourself or other party members, and to interact with some objects. The Drive command is new though, this gives you access to Sora's five Drive forms: Valor Form, Wisdom Form, Master Form, Final Form, and the Anti Form. The forms use up a new gauge at the corner of the screen called the Drive Gauge, when you use a Drive Form not only do you use up some energy from your Drive Gauge but Sora also absorbs one or two of his party members to use them. To use Valor Form, for example, you need Goofy, for Wisdom you need Donald, and for Master you need both. Each form has it's own special abilities, moves, attributes, and stat changes. The forms look really cool but be careful because the Drive Gauge does not refill itself at a save point like the HP and Magic gauges,.
Another new thing added to the game is that you can change the commands on you Command Menu, press right on the D-Pad and it will give you new commands. One of them is Summon. Like in the previous game you can summon Disney characters to help you in battle, this time though the summons use up energy from the Drive Gauge so it's more limited than in the last game. I have no problem with that though because the summons in this game are practically useless, other than Genie I never use the summons, they were very disappointing. The Command Menu now has a Party command on it as well. This is a very welcome addition to the game as you can now change your active party members on the go as to the first game in which you were allowed to switch party members only at save points. Finally the last thing added to the Command Menu was the Limit command. If you play Final Fantasy you should know that Limits are like a character's final move, their special if you will. That's basically what this is except this is not Soras' final move, it's your Disney party member's. Depending on which Disney character you have in your party you have different Limits, even some with Donald and Goofy, and they can be accessed through this command at the cost of your whole Magic Gauge.
Other additions to the gameplay were Action Commands, these commands allowed you to perform some pretty spectacular moves in the form of quick-time events. I really like these moves, they're amazing to look at and when you perform them you feel like an unstoppable beast. You perform these when a yellow ▲ appears on your enemy, once it does you press the ▲ button on your controller and you perform these moves.
My opinion for these is really split, I like them but sometimes I don't. They are an entertaining gameplay element and they're really fun to use, but they seem to make the game a bit too easy. Finally one of the most significant changes was the camera, the camera was mapped unto the right analog stick so it's easier to control and it doesn't wonder off by itself, so that was a welcome change.
Another big change that came into the game was the Gummi Ship. While in the first game the levels of the Gummi Ship were very slow and very uninspired, as if they just tacked it on at the end, they put more effort into the Gummi Ship levels this time around. They're more fast paced and the environments all differ from each level. The different camera views and enemies that are thrown into these levels add a fast paced on-rails shooter action that was not seen in the previous game. The customization menu for the Gummi Ship has also been revamped, although there is no need to fiddle too much with it, the default ship works just fine in my opinion.
One of my complaints with this game is that it is too easy, the first game was very challenging, this one doesn't compare. Luckily there are difficulties to choose from so if you're an experienced KH player pick the harder modes. Many new abilities make this difficult gap, Sora gains many, many abilities. Most of these are very useful, while a few are just flashy. The gameplay is very good and very fun to use, I'm glad Square Enix made these changes to the game, they're welcome changes.
Story
What's a Square Enix game without a good story? I mean really, the story in this game is one of the best I've ever had the fortune experience. The story continues after the events in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories as Roxas, a new character, awakens in Twilight Town to finish his last few days of summer with his friends. As he's going through his last days of summer, Roxas starts experiencing weird events: he's getting flashbacks from the previous game and these strange creatures started to show up in the town. These strange new enemies have started to wreak havoc in the peaceful Twilight Town and nothing can fight them, just the Keyblade. After Roxas goes through more events he starts to figure out many secrets, he's not who he thinks he is, he is apparently part of Sora, he's a Nobody. Roxas goes to an underground laboratory and meets up with Sora who is still asleep, it's been one year since the end of Chain of Memories and with Roxas finally completing the link Sora awakens.
What can I say the story is amazing. Sora is back, he's older now, as is every character now (most notably Riku and Kairi) and he sets out on his journey to find his friends and the King. He meets up with new characters introduced in the series, fights the new enemies known as the Nobodies (empty shells of a person after they have lost their heart), and learns new secrets of Kingdom Hearts as he tries to defeat Organization XIII. The story, again, is amazing, I love the characters, the villains, and the new worlds that make an appearance in the game.
Presentation
The presentation in this game is very high quality. Everything is above average, the graphics, the music, the voice acting, everything. The worlds all look very beautiful in this game thanks to the effort Square Enix puts on its games. The voice acting is superb having used professional voice actors like Hayley Joel Osment, Hayden Panatierre, Jesse McCartney, Brittany Snow, and Christopher Lee. The new characters and worlds also help it stand out from the past two games. Being able to fight Shan Yu alongside Mulan in the Land of Dragons, and prowl the prairie as a lion cub alongside Simba in the Pride Land. The only thing holding the Disney worlds back is one in perticular, Atlantis has been reduced to just music minigames, and while I do like the music from Disney movies, I think they should have included this kind of minigame separately in a different world and it featured more than just The Little Mermaid music. Lastly it seemed to me like the RPG elements of this game were a bit weak and made the game feel more like a hack-and-slash game sometimes.Other than that everything in this game is done very well and the presentation is near spotless.
Overall
I'll just say it right off the bat: this is the best Kingdom Hearts game so far. It kept everything from the the old game while improving on the parts that needed improvement and added new things to mix. The worlds, the characters, the music, everything is memorable and the ending makes me want the next Kingdom Hearts game to come out already as it leaves you with questions as in what's going to happen next. There is a hidden movie which made me think that Kingdom Hearts 3 would be coming out but it ended up being Birth by Sleep (which I will review later), and many things to accomplish even after the story is beaten. Nothing beats this game, I mean how cool is it to see Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart fighting side by side? It's epic. Other than a few complaints here and there, there ain't much holding this game from being my favorite game in the series even with it's lack of RPG elements and couple of troubles here and there this game is a must play for most people. I will gladly give this game a 9.5/10. It's not perfect but it's so close, come one Kingdom Hearts III make it and ending worthy of video game history.
Please look forward to the rest of my Kingdom Hearts reviews in the near future. Thank you.
