Kingdom hearts II is an impressive RPG, although its extremely easy and the gameplay is reduced to button-mashing.
PROS:
- Great lasting value (25 hours+)
- Tonnes of fun abilities and extensions to attack combos
- Even greater lasting value if you want to beat the game 100% (80-90 hours)
- A good combination of Disney and Final fantasy
- Excellent graphics
- Excellent music and voice-acting
- Fixed camera
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CONS:
- Far too easy
- Gameplay is reduced to button-mashing
- Gummi-ship routes are monotonous
- Gameplay is rather repetitive
- The first four hours of the game are boring
- A ridiculous amount of cutscenes
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Gameplay: 6
Gameplay consists almost entirely on button-mashing. During combat, you are probably going to spend just about all of the battle mashing down on the X button in rapid succession, then you will quickly use "cure" magic to heal yourself and thus continue the process over and over again; it gets a bit tedious after a fair amount of time. Not only that but about two thirds of the special abilities you will recieve throughout the game, you will be very unlikely to ever really use, the only abilities you are likely to use are extensions to your combos and air combos. But up until you realize how repetitive and tedious the gameplay truly is, your probably going to have a great deal of fun. The thrill and excitement of playing the game is likely to last about 50 hours or more because that was about the time I started to grow tired of it. But that is actually some pretty good value in comparison to a lot of games that are being released in stores at the moment.
Sound: 10
As we all were expecting (considering that Square-enix produced this game) the music not far off a complete and utter masterpiece of a soundtrack. Believe me, the music is probably one of the most unique and remarkable part of game, it never seems to grow tiresome, even after you become bored of the gameplay.
Plot: 9
(also like what we were expecting from Square-enix) The storyline is fascinating if somewhat overly-complex. Its actually quite incredible how all the characters seemed to be involved in the storyline. Although when you think about it, the storyline is somewhat childish however.
Graphics: 8
The graphics are also way above average by Playstation 2 standards, which is also what we were expecting from the one-and-only Square-enix. Particularly during the opening cutscene when you begin a new game, and the ending cutscene once you defeat Xemnas and a few other cutscenes; the graphics are truly breathtaking, it just makes you wish there were more of them. But during ordinary cutscenes, there are way to many of them, there are so many cutscenes throughout the game that it is just plain ridiculous; during these ordinary cutscenes, the graphics are slightly above average.
Overall: 8/10
All and all, Kingdom hearts II is by no means a bad game, and by no means is it brilliant. Although, the game probably would be brilliant if the gameplay didn't rely so much on button-mashing and wasn't overloaded with special abilities that you are never even going to think abouit using. If the gameplay was a bit more like how it was in the first entry in the Kingdom hearts series, the game would more then likely have a better lasting appeal. Another thing that causes the gameplay to fall flat on its face is that its extremely easy for most of time. But ultimately, Kingdom hearts II is definitely one of best options in a while to get your Disney-loving children and Final fantasy-loving teenagers in nearly four years, and the game is more than likely to please fans of the first game (and Chain of memories) and newcomers alike.
I would also like to note that during the "Pros and cons" section of this review, when I said that the first four hours the game was boring, this is because more then half of that time is a seemingly endless amounts of cinematics. Please do not let the first four hours of the game put you off the rest of the experience, I deeply assure you it gets a lot better as it goes a long.
Thank you for reading my honest review of: Kingdom hearts II