I was dancing like a little schoolgirl when I received Kingdom Hearts II. For months I had been checking out screenshots and reading anything I could about this game. So to say I was amped is an understatement. I can safely say I wasn’t disappointed. A few issues I dislike, but a whole lot I enjoy. If you haven’t played the original Kingdom Hearts by Square Enix and Disney Interactive, you may want to go ahead and do that before you even open the wrapping of Kingdom Hearts II.

While good old Jiminy Cricket’s Journal will get you pretty up to date on what has happened previously, it will be a lot easier if you play through the game and see for yourself. The opening of the game is a myriad of random shots and scenes from Kingdom Hearts and Chain of Memories. This will help to get a new player caught up (or super confused) and will remind old timers of what has already gone down. The game truly begins in Twilight Town where we run into Roxas and his gang. Roxas looks suspiciously like Sora, which is who I immediately thought it was. Poor Roxas, he is a friendly, decent guy, but as he starts having memories and dreams of someone he doesn’t know, things in the town start to get icky. Lucky for him, the trouble he runs into helps him to find out who he is and how to use the keyblade. There are new enemies to deal with including Nobodies and Organization XIII. Enter our old friends Donald and Goofy. With Donald and Goofy we hop into our trusty Gummi Ship and head out on another whirlwind adventure.

Using the Gummi ship we travel to different worlds searching for King Mickey, Riku, and Kairi, and trying to defeat both the Heartless and Organization XIII (who are not on the same side, by the way). There are a ton of Disney-like worlds in this game. Each one is completely different than the others. Some are familiar, such as the Coliseum with our pumped up pal Hercules, and of course Halloweentown with Jack Skellington. Others are brand new, making for some very interesting gameplay. Lazy River is a really cool world and a very different theme from all the others. Everything is in black and white and everyone looks like they are straight out of Steamboat Willy, including Sora, Donald and Goofy. Port Royale was astounding; it looked straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean and the characters look almost as if they walked straight from the DVD and into the game. Even Captain Jack Sparrow’s mannerisms were caught perfectly. In each world the skin of the command area changes to match the world, and in some worlds Donald, Goofy and Sora change to match the world as well. It is curious that this doesn’t happen in every world, as I could see some interesting costuming choices for Sora in say Port Royale or the Coliseum - Goofy goes Greek? Space Paranoids with Tron is one of the absolute best worlds by far. It is so completely different than anything else in the game and the getup that our three heroes are wearing is the best.

To accompany the looks, the sound in this game is really above average. The soundtrack matches the game perfectly and there are sections of music from the Disney movies that coincide with the worlds to really accentuate the mood of the world. Environmental sounds kick too, as you can just tell that people really put a lot of thought into making each place unique. Unique the whole game is, with its array of Final Fantasy characters built in. Every time I come across one, I giggle, because they just seem so out of place. Seeing Sephiroth and Cloud mixed in a game with Winnie-the-Pooh just seems so quirky and almost wrong, that it makes it irresistible.

The worlds look great, but have lost some of the depth that they had in the original Kingdom Hearts. In the original, there were far more pathways you could take, and much more difficult tasks to complete than in this game. I felt like I had barely gotten to a world when I had completed what I needed to do and was thus popped onto my Gummi Ship to take a spin to the next world. I was really disappointed in this. I didn’t feel like I got nearly as involved in the characters in each world and never really settled in. I felt like I was skimming the surface of every place I went. Bummer.

The combat system in this game is only so-so. In the previous game I had major problems with combat because of a camera issue. This has been basically solved now, and you can at least see for the most part what you are fighting. In the beginning the controls seem really mushy. Sora seems to move really slow and awkward. Once you change his keyblade it gets better though and Sora seems to fly through the air. What is cool in this game is the different special skills you can use by hitting the triangle button. These change from enemy to enemy and world to world, which is kind of fun. You of course have the option of using magic with Sora, but seriously, you won’t need to or want to put forth the effort to do so. Battles are beyond easy in this game. First of all, there are really a ton of options you can use in a battle on the command area. In fact I got so confused between Limits and Charge, Summon, Magic and regular attacking that I ended up sitting and staring trying to figure out what I was doing. Furthermore, in the original, probably many of you can remember moving barely an inch in Traverse Town and being so overcome with Heartless that your thumb was killing you by the time it was over. You may have even died - gasp! Not in this game. You really can get by with just using the X button. I was really bummed out about this because every battle you fight is easy. Not just the wimpy heartless that look like ants either, but even the bosses are a million times easier. There is no need to use magic at all against anybody so why bother?

There are Limit attacks you can do teamed up with other members of your party that do a ton of damage and look really cool. You can also morph into a special Sora who can wield two keyblades and whoop some butt. You can of course summon, this time being aided by Stitch and Chicken Little and a few others, but once again, you really won’t need them. They are more just to use as a boredom buster…to shake things up a little bit. The bosses don’t really get any more difficult as the game wears on (they just get more health), but Sora gets really strong. So you may find yourself trying to avoid the little battles in between bosses just to hear the story rather than enjoy the combat. You will find you have little or no need for potions or other items that you find because enemies drop enough healing orbs to keep you well intact and both Sora and Donald can heal as well. So if you want to spend time searching for every chest in town, go ahead, but be forewarned, there’s just not much in them.

So this is what it all comes down to. This is a great game. The combat system stinks but the rest of the game pretty much makes up for it. It really is fun and has a superior storyline that is really interesting and really different than a lot of other RPGs. I had no clue what would happen next. I really didn’t. Plus the graphics are stunning and the music is fantastic. The cross between Final Fantasy and Disney makes this a great game for older kids and grownups, and the Disney characters make it a game that younger kids can enjoy too. As a parent I know I am overjoyed when I can find a game that I can play with my daughter in the room and not feel like I am warping her fragile little mind. Go out and get Kingdom Hearts II. It is well worth the money and is a game you can play over and over again and still enjoy.

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It’s official. My thumb and hand are suffering from playing far to many turn based fighting games. Now I have switched to playing Kingdom Hearts 2 and my thumb can’t hack it. I am simultaneously thanking and cursing the game. Thanking it for the ability to hit continue after you die rather than start way back from the save point, and cursing it cause my thumb can’t move fast enough to keep up with some of the tougher enemies. For example, the little heartless guys that look like ants, no problem. Big guy in the Ballroom of Beast’s Castle, AHHHH. Battles are very fun and exciting and always different(if not a little painful-but I have been exercising my thumb daily to get it in shape). Maybe if I could actually come up with a strategy I wouldn’t have as many problems, but I am not much of a strategy player. I hack and hack until I have won the day. However, because of the slow movement of my out of shape thumbs, the continue option is a total bonus and I max out the usage of this capability. There is nothing this girl hates more than having to go way back to a save point and start again from there. Especially if there is a cut scene in there that you can’t skip. They get so obnoxious. Anyone who has had to sit through a cut scene for the 8th time in one night can relate to my woes. Lucky for us, that is taken care of in Kingdom Hearts because you can skip the cut scene. There is one scene however, that is totally unskippable. It took SOOO long, that I was painting my toenails, going to the bathroom, and getting a snack, came back and it STILL wasn’t over. Sigh…the dude talked so slow for no reason. NOT cool, especially because it was close to the beginning and I was anxious to be on my way!! But that is minor and so far has only happened once.The only real downfall so far? Not enough time in the day.