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Kingdom Hearts II

It seems that people’s opinions about Kingdom Hearts range the entire spectrum, from blind love to outright disgust. If you read my Kingdom Hearts Retrospective, you have an idea where my thoughts are – Kingdom Hearts was a decent game with a good story and a fantastic presentation that had a number of problems in the gameplay department.

However, regardless of whether you think my judgment is too harsh, too generous, or just about right, I would still highly recommend you give Kingdom Hearts II a chance. The long-awaited sequel addresses and generally fixes just about every problem the original game had, and improves upon its predecessor in virtually every way possible. If you liked the first Kingdom Hearts, you will absolutely love Kingdom Hearts II, and if you hated the first game, you still may very well find its sequel to your liking.

The gameplay has gotten a complete overhaul, and no longer is combat a boring process of pressing the attack button until you’ve powered through enemies. Added to the mix are new context-sensitive commands that are often the key to defeating otherwise tough enemies, team combo attacks that have varying effects depending on who’s in your party, a transformation ability that temporarily gives you all sorts of powered-up advantages, as well as other new additions to the gameplay, like the ability to switch out party members in the middle of combat and world-specific functions like Mulan’s morale system and Pirates of the Carribean’s moonlight/shadow system. In fact, the only real complaint I have about the combat this time around is that there’s so many options open to you it can get a bit overwhelming in the midst of battle, as the game gives you no time to hunt for the option you want in your menus.

The camera, while not quite perfect, is still much improved. It no longer hangs right on your butt in combat, and in fact, you can even opt to move around in first-person, interestingly. The various areas you move through are generally much bigger than those in the first game, and usually a great deal more distinctive and less repetitive. In the first game, if you got lost it was because multiple areas looked the same. Here, if you get lost it’s because the area to explore is so big (although, to a lesser extent, it’s also because the game’s map kinda’ sucks).

While the gummi ship areas from the first game were like crappy a Star Fox clone, the gummi ship areas in this game are more like a crappy Panzer Dragoon clone, which apparently at least gives them a bit more variety. While it may not seem like a huge step up, there is definitely one major benefit here that Kingdom Hearts II has over the original – once you finish a gummi ship level you never need to play it again.

The graphics have received a slight improvement over the first game, although it may not be apparent at first. While the game retains the same overall look of the original, little changes here and there make the overall presentation seem even more polished. All the characters have even more nice little flourishes in their animations, the artistic designs of some of the environments are even more ambitious, and the enemy count is much larger, including occasional areas with hundreds of enemies surrounding you. More impressive is the way everything occasionally all comes together, like in the final boss in Beast’s level, where the film’s ballroom, lovingly-recreated, is warped by a poltergeist-like enemy that makes every element of the room come alive to attack you, from the chandelier to the pillars to the wall of windows on the opposite end. With all this and the full battle raging on, it’s quite a sight to see.

Also, like the first game, a great deal of attention has been paid to the sound, and although Hikaru Utada’s Sanctuary isn’t as catchy of a theme as Simple and Clean was for the first game, everything else is just as strong as in that title. Veteran voice actors like Frank Welker, Dan Castellaneta and Jim Cummings are joined by top-tier name actors, from the return of Haley Joel Osment and James Woods, to others new to the series ranging from Christopher Lee to Gilbert Gottfried. Square Enix has tried to get as many voice actors as possible to reprise the appropriate roles, and in situations where voice-alikes were necessary, they’re all still close enough to be passable. The acting is all extremely good too, with the sole exception being Mena Suvari’s Aeris (reprising the role from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children with just as much of a lack of talent). Aside from this, my only other complaint is that not all of the spoken dialogue is voice-acted, although perhaps The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has spoiled me in this regard.

Finally, even the game’s story seems a bit more polished, although the first two or three hours of the game are bound to throw many for a loop. Like the original Kingdom Hearts, the game’s first few hours are very slow-paced (although at least this time around they’re not quite as boring). However, the way the game re-acquaints you with the story is quite unorthodox, almost along the lines of what Hideo Kojima did in Metal Gear Solid 2 (although I won’t spoil it for you here, I will at least say that the surprise shouldn’t piss off fans like Raiden did). At the very least, most will find it just a little confusing, although the sense of mystery definitely gives this game a much better kick-start than the first game had. Later on, players are treated to a selection of game worlds that’s delightfully even more eclectic than the original, ranging from Beauty and the Beast and Mulan to surprising selections like Steamboat Willie, Pirates of the Caribbean and Tron.

While there are still areas that could use a little improvement, overall Square Enix has addressed every issue the original game had, and the result is a sequel that’s far better than the original, and a solid title overall. So, while the first game was a decent but flawed title that disappointed just as often as it delighted, Kingdom Hearts II is one of the best games so far this year, which is saying quite a lot considering this is the same year we’ve already gotten so many amazing titles like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence.

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Tags: Kingdom Hearts II

Posted by Jake McNeill on May 5th, 2006 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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