Kingdom Hearts II

An inspiring emotional work of art and perhaps the best role-playing game this year. Square Enix continues to prove that you can take even the most played out source material in the world (Disney's various franchises) and make something wonderful.

From the amazing opening cg cinema (oh god, I think I just soiled myself it was so good) with Utada Hikaru's newest song, Passion, to the kick ass ending, this game rocked and set itself a more than worthy successor to the first Kingdom Hearts. [JPN Import]

If you loved the first game and enjoy a story-heavy action roleplaying game, then Kingdom Hearts II is a must-buy.

A living, breathing fairy tale in the purest sense. In this tale, the magic and wonder from Disney's pantheon of worlds and characters are merged with the interactivity and excitement of an epic Square Enix role-playing adventure. The result, in theory, may seem contrived or overly convoluted. But it works.

It just washes you away in the magic that is two of the world's greatest storytellers--Disney and SquareEnix--coming together to make something timeless, wonderful, and unforgettable. [Jun 2006, p.77]

It's pretty simple, very linear and slightly lazy in places but there can be no denying that it still manages to earn a place among the most beautiful and exciting adventures of recent years for gamers of all ages.

While KHII's story and flawless presentation (no camera problems here) ease gamers through the lengthy 30-hour quest, the undercooked gameplay makes it unlikely they'll touch the game again. It's just too easy: lock onto your target and mash the X button as needed. Heal and repeat. This isn't fun — it's tedious.

Listen to the positive reviews this game is a literal masterpiece,from the combat to story to music to Aesthetic,and probably one of the best climaxes in gaming.Prime Disney and Prime Square Enix created a timeless gem.

My hype for this game was through the roof when it first came out. Considering how hyped I was, I was quite disappointed, especially with some aspects of the story that felt quite incomplete (but was improved in the Final Mix version). Gameplay is fun, but in some ways felt simplified from the original game, especially the triangle mechanic. Overall, an average entry in the series.

A harbinger for things to come, a complication on the story and combat of the original game. Offering a bit for those keeping up with lore established in supplemental material and offering a lot for anyone who wanted the combat to be more of a button mashing visual spectacle, still enjoyable but not as charming.

I just got platinum on this game and I can honestly say that even though it is slightly better than the first game, it's still garbage. I can't tell you how many times I would tell Sora to jump and he wouldn't (like on the skateboard delivery minigame at the beginning) or spam triangle to grind during the 5,000 point challenge and he would just land on it like I never even pressed triangle. It's like the inputs often don't work in this game. Couple that with the bosses constantly becoming invincible for no reason at 1hp for a while. They'll just continuously eat attacks without defending and won't die. This can be especially annoying during the data battles, for example. What sets this game apart from the first is the improved gummi ship missions, and even though the worlds seem rehashed - the story is definitely improved upon. Sadly the trash mechanics couldn't make up for that and now that the platinum is in my rear-view mirror I will never pick up this game again. I can only hope that the third one isn't as bad as the first two, because I'm a big Disney/FF fan and love games in this genre.

kingdom hearts is a franchise with a lot of potential even if the overall concept is a bit childish. however kingdom hearts 2 falls short of this potential. It improves on a lot of kh1's problems (as any good sequel should) the combat is no longer clunky, slow, and just generally unpleasent but instead is more fast paced and just feels more satisfieng, your magic now cools down instead of just depelting, and the drive system can help you get through stickyer situations (when the game lets you use it). however there are numerous problems that hold kh2 back mostly stemming from the dev's strange disire to mix actions games with turn based RPGs in ways that don't mesh well. first off in addition to the core games' awkward menu system, dodge rolling (arguably the most useful ability in the franchise and the staple of a fair action game) has been locked behind a drive form thaat can only be accessed late in to the game which only lasts untill the drive gage runs out and isn't always avalable to use leaving you with just your block and parry (when you actually have an opertunity to perform one successfully) and different "action commands" (that only work on certain enemies at specific times) the problem here stems from the fact that you blocking can't cancel other actions meaning that enemies can whale on you while you sit slow and helpless to retaliate because you attacked 2 seconds too soon or the enemy attacking you isn't in your line of sight. action commands are just as useless. they require you to actually be able to use them which unless your fighting a dusk you can never do because you'll almost always lose the oppertunity before the command is finished loading due to the fact that you controls lock up when ever your hit. the next point of falure is the worlds. in a misguided atempt to make the game more "interesting" the dev gave each world unique mechanics most of which are utter **** an olny amount to annoying mini games that don't actually test what you've learned about the game and only serve as stumbling blocks to pad out the game with artifical challenge which it doesn't need give the the fact that not only is kh2 already a pretty long game but also that player can select all diffuclty levels right out of the gate. the worst part of these inane mini games it that they bypass difficulty selection since they follow their own special rules that for the most part are never seen again making me think that the devs may have been paid by the hourconsidering how much time must've wasting programming one-time mechanics. and finally the moment i'm sure a lot of you dear sobered-up readers have been waitng for... THE PLOT! kingdom hearts 2 takes place after the events of 358/2 days (a game release 3 years after kh2) and chain of memories (a wierd virtual card game no one played) meaning by this point the plot waters started to get merky. it also doesn't help that the secret ending (which is the games true ending) is locked behind difficulty dependent secret challenges which in this day and age you can find on gamefaqs or youtube however the internet was just starting to come into popularity and youtube was in it"s infancy when kh2 was release leading to the plot of the kingdom hearts franchise to become too metal gear-esque for it's own good leading to a plot that feels more like a janky puzzle many of the pieces of which are not avalable (or haven't been pulled out of the dev's ass) yet. to summarize calling kh2 good yet flawed is being too generous in all honesty it's the worst kind of slog: a game with shoe-horned in artificial difficulty in the form of inane one-time-only mini games and is rife with lost potential. i pray to god that kingdom hearts 3 reverses kingdom hearts 2's awful gameplay descisions but i'm not getting my hopes up