Kingdom Hearts 2

Kh2 is the latest game in the series. It continues Sora’s journey as the Keyblade master. But this time, Sora’s mission is to find the Door to Darkness and get back King Mickey and his childhood friend, Riku.

So in the beginning (back to Kh, where everything started), Sora was chosen by the Keyblade, a weapon that looks like a giant key, that is used to take out Heartless. (Monsters you kill in the game.) And then he was accompanied by Disney stars Donald Duck and Goofy Dog(?). His mission back then was to stop the Heartless from taking over all the (Disney themed) worlds.

In CoM, Sora runs into a guy in a black coat which leads him Castle Oblivion, there he meets Organization XIII. They don’t introduce themselves as XIII, but they do say that they’re part of an Organization. After CoM, Sora is put into deep sleep to regain his memories, but in the process, he losses his memories at Castle Oblivion.

But now, new monsters have been created, Nobodies. When a person losses their heart, a Heartless is made. But at the same time, Nobodies are made as well. (They never mentioned the Nobodies in Kh though.) And unfortunately for Sora, there’s a group of Nobodies that remember how it’s like to have a heart, and thus team up to achieved the goal of getting it back. Those Nobodies are Organization XIII.

So Sora has to find Riku and the King, while stopping the Organization from taking other people’s hearts to achieve their goal. Phew, what a storyline!

~ Kh2 is the sequel to Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, most people think it’s after Kingdom Hearts but CoM was on Gameboy Advance. Where Organization XIII was FIRST introduced. (I’m gonna spell it with a ‘z’ because that’s how it’s said in the game, even if I’m NZer.)

Two words. FREAKING AWESOME!!! Kh2 has to be my favourite (one player) game! The graphics are great and the battle system never gets old. Kh was enjoyable, but Kh2’s has it all! Smacking around the heartless in Kh was fun, but being able to do that with TWO Keyblades with all sorts of new skills and forms is awesome.

2 x Keyblades = Lots of Fun!!!

The mini games are pretty entertaining, but what I love the most is being able to active special moves on certain Heartless & Nobodies. For example, after landing a combo on a Large Body, you have a chance to activate a special move by pushing the Triangle button, where Sora whacks the Large Body, making it go flying! (different Heartless & Nobodies have different special moves to use against. ^_^ More fun for the gamers! )

Also the Gummi ship has changed quite a bit. (that's the ship used to travel between the worlds.) The path between the worlds has became abit more complex with more heartless and Nobodies. But even with all the enemies, it just means more to blast at! Honestly, on Kh I couldn't be bothered with messing with the mechanics on the gummi ship cause I wasn't very interested with it and I really didn't need to upgrade the ship for the maps. But on Kh2, you just need to aquire the blue print(?) for a ship and just use it. So it's easiler for you to upgrade your ship. (And you'll NEED to get better ships for the later maps, cause yessh!)

There’s no such thing as a perfect game, there’s only the crap, the Ok and the great games. Kh2 is one of the Great, next to the Final Fantasys.) But I won’t compare those games to each other, or I’ll get scolded by some of the FF fans. (They’re not big fans on the FF clash with Disney characters, but I don’t think it’s a problem.)

Some of the bad points about Kh2 is that some of the scenes go a bit long. And the beginning is a little less impacting than I’d expect (not the Opening scene, the opening’s CG graphics are beautiful and the video clip goes perfectly with the game. But you better have played CoM, or you’d be a little confused on some ‘random’ characters showing up. E.g., Marluxia.)

But at the beginning of the game, you play as Roxas and theres tones of minor scenes and little mini games which aren’t too action-pacted. (But I have to admit that I just wanted to be Sora and start kicking Heartless butt.) But the mini games weren’t that bad, they were quite amusing. But once you’re Sora, that’s when the real fun begins!

I’ve gotten to the point that I’m one of those people that’s researching the net for info on Kh3. Basically, I look through the pages of comments on youtube looking for clues. And then go through EVERY web site that has an idea of the storyline. I even have notes on all the stuff I’ve found. …A-hem, well here’s my rating:

Graphics: 9.6 (c’mon, it’s done by Square Enix!)

Storyline: 9.5 (really interesting, but Kh3 is the head-scratcher here…)

Game play: 9.7 (absolutely love it when you can push triangle to activate special moves.)

Overall: 9.6 (Seriously, you Have to play it!)