Kingdom Hearts 2 has finally released and has proved to be worth every penny.
I thought the gameplay was amazing. I really dont understand what is wrong with the gameplay. I think it has definitley improved over the first one. People say it's button mashing, but it's not. You really need to use magic and different techniques to beat a boss in the game. Overall the gameplay has definitley improved over the first one since there are a couple of new features added to the game to make battling a bit more interesting. One new addition is the use of the Drive Forms. There are 5 in the game. One of them sometimes comes randomley when you use Drive. In order for Drive to work, Sora uses one of his party members or both to transform into different forms. These forms are Valor, Wisdom, Master, Final, and the one that sometimes comes randomley is the Anti Form. When you do this, you become a keyblade master and are able to pull of some sick combos but this is excluding the Anti Form as you turn into something that looks like a Heartless. This can REALLY help you in boss fights. Another addition is the Reaction Command. You basically use this for opening chests and examining things. But this is more useful when you are in battle. This is more like God Of War where you press a button and he does some awesome move. The same thing goes for here. There is also the Limit command. This is when you can pull off moves with your party members. For example Sora and Goofy have this one Limit move where for the last move Sora launches Goofy like a rocket and he knocks everyone on the screen. This is very helpful but does consume all of your magic. One big compaint from the first game was camera issues. You won't have to worry about that anymore as it has really improved and it's much more easier to fight enemies. The Gummi Ship has also improved and is more fast paced to make it more fun. I really dont know why IGN gave this game a 7.6, I was just stunned at that score. I thought this game should have at least been a 9.0. But no matter what they say, i just loved playing this game. I just finshed this game today and it took me about 35 hours. But there are a ton of extras for replay value.
Graphics are somewhat the same from the first game. People wont realise the difference. But still everyone looks smooth and the models look good. The levels are desgined well also. I was amazed in one point of the game. This is when Sora is surrounded by Heartless. I was wondering that how can they put so many enemies in one screen. I was amazed at how PS2 was able to handle that. The graphics really came alive in the Port Royal level. They almost looked like Xbox 360 graphics. I just loved how they designed this game. I think the graphics were well done and really made the characters come alive.
Sound was just as good as the first one. I thought the voice acting was just perfect. Especially with all the Disney characters voices just makes this game better and better. Well for the most part i thought the dialogue was ok. I watched the video review for KH 2 and they said tht the dialogue for the Final Fantasy characters was horrible. I'd like to comment on this and say that i thought it was ok. Even if it was bad, that really does not affect the entire game. Overall sound was perfect especially with the all star cast of voice actors from James Woods(Hades) to Geoffery Rush(Barbosa).
I think the game is perfect, even though i didn't like a few aspects of the game i still think it was amazing. There is some replay value as people will be facing one of the hardest enemies in the game, Sephiroth. Im sure anybody would be happy to beat him. There are also the Coliseum cups. I'm sure people would want to finsh those. I think this game is perfect for any collector and anybody who wants to play this game. Although people who haven't played the first game might be confused with the story. So i suggest you play the first game. But not necessarily CoM. I think there are no cons to this game, but the thing that i didnt like was that the worlds were too short and should have been longer. Other than that, i think this game is perfect. Squar Enix have done a great job and im sure they'll do wonders for the next game in the series