Kingdom Hearts II Hands-On

By Ricardo Torres, GameSpotPosted Aug 30, 2004 1:21 pm PT

Square Enix shows off a demo of the next entry in its Kingdom Hearts series.

Square Enix recently dropped by our offices to show off a two-level demo of Kingdom Hearts II, its upcoming sequel to 2002's impressive blending of Disney and Square's unique properties. While a sequel was a no-brainer given the original game's success, Kingdom Hearts II is being crafted to be more than just a by-the-numbers sequel. Although much of the game's story is being kept under wraps, Sora is back (and looking a bit older), as are Donald, Goofy, and a host of characters from the Disney stable.

Kingdom Hearts 2 will reunite you with Sora, Donald, Goofy, and a whole raft of Disney characters.

But along with all the good folks making a return, there's plenty of bad ones on hand as well, with the reappearance of the Heartless and a good helping of villains from Disney's pantheon. We got a very brief taste of how this is all turning out in the demo, which let us check out some locales we became familiar with in the original Kingdom Hearts: the Olympus coliseum and the Beast's castle.

The Olympus coliseum level features cameos from Hercules, Meg, Hades, and our trio of heroes in cinematic sequences in between segments of gameplay. Even though the demo was in Japanese, we were able to get the gist of the action. As usual, Hades is looking for a way to stop Hercules in the coliseum. Given his reputation in the pantheon of Greek gods, it's hardly surprising to see the flamingly coiffed god use whatever underhanded means he can to stop Herc, which results in Hades trying to summon a warrior capable of challenging the son of Zeus.

As luck would have it, Hades' summons brings Auron, everyone's favorite trench coat-wearing hero in FFX, into the picture. However, Auron isn't down with helping Hades and turns him down, which doesn't endear him to the short-tempered god. As they start to duke it out, Sora arrives on the scene and helps the warrior get away. But, seeing as the level is set in the underworld, the only real option for dealing with Hades on his home turf is to run like the wind. This approach works until the gang meets Cerberus, hell's biggest three-headed lap dog, which results in an epic boss fight that closes the level.

The Beast's castle level finds the trio of heroes checking in with their old fur-bearing, cape-wearing homey and his old lady Belle. However, there's trouble at home as the Beast doesn't appear to recognize Sora and the gang, going so far as to toss them around like laundry. When the trio finds Belle, she fills them in on the weirdness going on at Casa Beast. Apparently, the furry one has imprisoned the entire castle's staff in a dungeon. Belle is obviously concerned and pretty spooked, which leads Sora to offer his services. The level then follows the gang as they head to the prison and talk to the dresser (apparently the only member of staff not locked up) who fills them in on the staff's location. After a bit of exploration, the level ends with a fight against a boss who is firmly planted in front of a door, preventing you from entering a room.

You have to take the good with the bad, unfortunately, as the bad guys will be returning in force, too.

Although both levels were brief and the game is still very much a work in progress, the gameplay is shaping up pretty well. There doesn't appear to be too much that's radically different from the core mechanics of the first game. You're still going to control Sora for third-person exploration and combat, but there are plenty of refinements. The camera is being worked on to make it easier to use in combat, for instance. Artificial intelligence is being tweaked for your partners and enemies. Some of the new twists include a "drive" ability, which lets you merge with one of your party members. Although the feature was enabled in our demo, the exact mechanics of it weren't complete. For the purposes of the demo it was possible to merge with Goofy, resulting in a new costume for Sora and the ability to dual-wield swords as well as a wealth of new combo options.

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