This game brings the cool characters from Final Fantasy and puts them into the Disney Worlds, making it fun for everyone
Minus: The combat is considerably unsatisfying
Interesting: The story is much more complicated this time around
Kingdom Hearts 2 for the PS2 was designed, created and published by Square Enix and Buena Vista Games (now Disney Interactive Studios) in 2005, and is the sequel to the platinum game Kingdom Hearts. It is rated PG in AUS, and E for Everyone in the US, and follows the story of a young boy who travels through various Disney worlds, with Donald Duck and Goofy.
Kingdom Hearts 2 is set one year after the first game. In Kingdom Hearts one Sora destroyed a man named Ansem who was controlling the main bad-guys in the game known as the Heartless. There is a Gameboy Advance game called "Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories" which is set in between the two games. You don't necessarily need to play or complete either of the first two games but it would help. In the opening cinematic of KH2 it shows you what basically happened in the last game; Sora, Donald and Goofy are walking along a road until they get to "Castle Oblivion" to try and find King Mickey and Sora's friend Riku. Each level/floor they move up to they loose more of their memory, and there is an evil group of villains known as Organisation XIII, made up of twelve men and one woman. Sora and his friends destroy almost half of them, and by the end of the game the protagonists have completely lost their memories. They have also met a girl named Namine who has the ability to take, implant and restore people's memories, so she conceals and puts Sora, Donald and Goofy to sleep each in a white pod, hidden in a special laboratory, to restore their memories. In Kingdom Hearts 2 Sora is awaken from his slumber and sets off on a journey once more to find out the mysteries behind these "nobodies," who are the new type of bad-guys in the game. It's an awesome and epic story that I thought was one of the best I've seen. It might get a bit confusing at times, but it's still completely awesome.
The characters in Kingdom Hearts 2 are so cool. Each character has a different personality and view. Each different character also all have their own look and style, and each and every outfit they wear are so much cooler than our normal clothes that we wear. One major thing that makes Kingdom Hearts so popular is the Final Fantasy characters included, which are superb. Square-Enix makes the villains evil and such, and the protagonists awesome and courageous. I think that you will think the same if you get this game. They are all basically 3D anime characters, with awesome hair.
Well here the gameplay is simple... sort of. It's a cross between a turn-based RPG and a real-time action/adventure game. There is a small command box in the bottom left hand side of the screen with ATTACK, MAGIC, ITEMS and another command. When you press one of these actions… well that action occurs. Pretty simple, lots of combos, but kind of plain. Occasionally there will be 'reaction commands' which require you to press triangle but it's still not that great.
The controls are spot on in this game, it's just the basic attacking that can feel dull. The only button you press for attacks is… X. Circle is jump and triangle is reaction command. It isn't so much boring… just very simple.
The graphics are incredible in this game! They're so good, especially in the cinematics. It really is truly fully rendered graphics at it's finest. The gameplay graphics are good for the PS2 and so are the cutscenes. Some of the best you'll ever see on the Playstation 2.
You've gotta love the music in this game! I downloaded some of the soundtrack onto my computer, it's actually really, really good! Nice smooth and quite tones and just awesome songs overall. There isn't anything to hate about it, I loved it so well done Square!
Kingdom Hearts 2 is a pretty long game. It has over 20 hours of gameplay and it's actually fun. It's not repetitive and it is fun going to each Disney word and meeting the characters there. It will last you a while, especially if you play it on a harder difficulty. Nice long game and good replay value.
Well after you defeat the last boss in this game a card will come up showing how many enemies were defeated and how long it took to complete it, etc, but after which you cannot save. So you can either replay the boss numerous times or you can go through all the Disney worlds again and search for all the secrets. It's pretty good and there is an extra hard boss and extra weapons to get as well.
This game is actually really good. It has simple controls and it's a nice mix of Final Fantasy and Disney characters, and interesting story that really sucks you in. It will get really confusing at times so you will probably have to either read about it online or complete the first game and 'Chain of Memories' for the GBA. A year later after this was released Square-Enix produced and released a 'Final Mix' version of the game with HEAPS of extra content… but only within Japan.
Story - 5/5
Characters - 5/5
Gameplay - 3/5
Controls - 5/5
Graphics - 5/5
Music - 5/5
Multiplayer – n/a
Length - 4/5
Replay Value - 5/5
Overall Rating: 9.5 -Awesome