Where to start... First off, I played KH1, I own it, I liked it. They did a good balance of Disney and FF in the first game. Sure the controls were clunky and I got sick on half the levels from a camera on acid, but it was over all nice.

KH2 was nothing like KH1. Oh, there's still RIKU! I GOTTA FIND RIKU! ****** OFF KAIRI I WANT RIKU! But it's a big, heaping, steaming pile of a letdown.

Game Mechanics: SquareEnix tried to improve it since KH1. The camera has improved and isn't so hyper. The colors and environments are nice, however they didn't add much to the game in the way of worlds (Excluding Tron and oldschool disney scenes, all they added in planets is Pirates, Mulan, and Lion King.) The game has many repeat worlds with simpler maps so you don't get lost. They also make you return to the same planets 2 to 3 times, which makes things bloody repetative. What I did enjoy was their attempted diversity in minigames. About every planet has a mini game that you can return to and play again. The entire Little Mermaid world is a big musical minigame. They even went out of their way to make flying the ship and building your own more fun.


Fighting Mechanics: Like the regular game mechanics, SquareEnix tried to improve and make fighting easier for kids. This is where they fell and fell hard when it came to playing the game. Button mashing. Not just button mashing, but repetative brain-******ing button mashing. Hitting X will win you almost every battle, on middle difficulty mode. You can close your eyes and fall asleep hitting X and you'll win the battle. If that's not enough, Triangle is, as Chichiri put it, "the Insta-win button". And if that doesn't butcher fighting for the game (which is the bulk of it), they also made fighting a mess by having enemies pop out stars when you hit them. This clogs the screen full of badguys, charries, flying orbs, and bright-colored shiney stars. Any moves, magic, or limit breaks you learn are usually eaten up by this, so it's hard to tell what's going on as well as pointless to try different techniques.

The exception to this is the very very end when you fight Org13, where everything goes from braindead easy to tough out of nowhere.


Music: Eh, it's okay. The main theme song sounds like you're going on a head trip, though.


Character/badguy/scenery art: It's the same as the first game. While the scenery for the different worlds is different, it's not very interactive except for rare occasions. The character design for Org13 is one thing = Gothic. It ends up giving most of the part-disney theme a ghetto/emo feel which kinda contaminates the happy feel. I also hated the design of the "Nobodies", which were not as cute and likeble as the "Heartless". Something about flapping pieces of white skin with epileptic seizure lines going down them wasn't a turn on.


Plot: This is where the game bombed. I hated the plot. It leaned far too heavily on FF and less on Disney. They don't explain half the shit they're talking about, and half the mini plots don't tie up (I never got to see the Tife/Cloud/Seph thing tie up completely). Basically the entire game was "Find Riku!", "I'm Emotionally unstable, noone likes me, and I'm going to pop in with my friends to show everyone how much noone cares about me.", and "Who?" The entire game is FF teen suicidal thoughts and everything is explained through amnesia. Everyone and their mother has amnesia one way or another. This makes characters annoying, makes interest in the story a downer, and even Whinny the Pooh - who was fun to visit in game 1 - is made into a special ed retard through his lack of remembering everyone.

Now the plot did have a good point. That was the very very beginning with Rhoxis and his friends. I really enjoyed it. I found it ruined the game when Rhoxis was taken by Sora and you never see him again until the very very end.

It makes me think that, if they removed everything Disney from the game and steered clear of the amnesia excuse, KH2 would've been a better game. The problem is that it wouldn't be Kingdom Hearts anymore, but Final Fantasy.


Game Message: This is what bothered me the most. This game is geared towards children. It's obvious it's geared towards children. Why then do they give the message that hitting solves everything? Most mini games involve hitting something to fix it, which kills strategy. All problem solving situations involve beating on something. The other big message is that if you're a nobody, then you should die because no one will care. Everything in the game (exception to main characters) is a nobody or heartless. So therefore it's perfectly fine to slaughter the lot. Even Mickey Mouse encourages it. Nowhere in the game does someone say, "Hey, maybe that nobody should come join us and live."

Another thing I noticed is sexism in the game. How many female characters do you battle with in your team? Let's see. There's Mulan... um... ... ... Ariel the mermaid? No, you don't battle with her; you sing with her to make her feel better. Oh, what about Kairi? Nope, you never fight with her once. Infact, she's more often getting kidnapped and held hostage again. Ya know, now that I think about it, Mulan wasn't really a good fighter, either. Anyway, the point I'm trying to get at is... Where are all the female fighters? If Tifa or Aerith could join the team, or even if Kairi could fight, it would be better. And I'm sure there's more Disney films with a female Disney character you can fight with. Yes, don't get me wrong, I think Yuffie does fight alongside you for 1 really short battle, but that just doesn't add up to the rest of the game.