A great sequal! The story continues.

I played the first KINGDOM HEARTS several times and couldn't wait for the second one to come out. As soon as it did I immediately went and bought the game. I have played this one a few times. I love the fact that the same FINAL FANTASY characters are in it along with more of them this time around. The FINAL FANTASY characters seem to be in the story a lot more than they were in the first KINGDOM HEARTS game. I have played and own all the FINAL FANSTASY games and it's nice to see them return to a different kind of game to be in the story. Leon (Squall Lionheart) from FINAL FANTASY 8 returns for a second time around in this game. He has a leader roll in his part of the story throughout the game. From FINAL FANTASY 7 Cloud also returns with Yuffie and many others.

I love that Square Enix stuck to the same format of the last game. There are a few differences but it's mainly the same with the gameplay and the fighting. I love how it's still the 3-demensional style of game. When I'm fighting I like the all out slashing and bashing of the enemies. I can move freely when I'm fighting and when doing everything else. It's like a different kind of RPG and you sometimes get a different feeling as you would with other RPGs. I feel like I'm more involved with the game I guess I would say although some of you may think I'm kinda crazy. But it is a little different, like I'm more aware of what's going on instead of other RPGs where it's a turn based battle system and sometimes it gets boring and it's not always as exciting. Don't get me wrong, I still play about any RPG.

The story to this game is the best story in any game I have ever played. It give you backround to what happened before the first KINGDOM HEARTS then touches base with the story in the previous game. This story almost seems to take you somewhere else. The movies and graphics in this game almost brings you into the story and what this game is really about. I always knew what was going on and never got lost about what was going on.

THE STORY

Before KINGDOM HEARTS I

A long time ago, there was a man named Ansem. He tried to figusre out the nature of the heart and what darkness does to a heart. During his research he was afraid that darkness would take over the world. He tried to discover a shield over the darkness but he also discovered that when a heart is consumed by the darkness it gets lost from it's body and swallowed in the darkness, and takes shape and becomes what is called a heartless, a creature that finds other hearts to steal covering them in darkness and multiplying. King Mickey visits Ansem and tells him to stop the experiments because if the heartless consumed a whole world they would continue to another until all is lost to darkness.

He kept going with his experiments and didn't listen to the warnings. Ansem became shrouded in darkness and grew more power. With him lost to power, others sought to gain and control this same power like Oogie Boogie, Ursula, Captain Hook, Jafar, Maleficent etc. This is where the story starts back with the previous KINGDOM HEARTS Where Sora had to travel to each world locking them with his KEYBLADE and saving the 7 princesses which held the key to KINGDOM HEARTS which he did in the last game. After they saved the world from darkness, Sora, Donald and Goofy set out to look for King Mickey again.

At the end of the last game Sora lost Riku and Kairi again and when He, Donald and Goofy set out for the King, they came upon a structure called Castle Oblivion where an organization called Organization 13 makes their base there. this group took Sora and using Namine, who could manipulte memories led him to a trap. As Sora progressed through the castle his memories became twisted and lost. The one behind this was defeated leaving Namine released from captivity, she promised to restore Sora, Donald and Goofy's memories the way they were but it was going to take a year and to do so they had to go into sleep for a year for the process to restore their memories.

So now we are at the start of KINGDOM HEARTS II where you play as Roxas through the prologue. I told you It's an in depth story and that's why I love it so much. You will spend about 3 hours at the beginning playing as Roxas and as you complete more and more each time you see a movie about how Sora's memories are coming about. Now I'm not to crazy about a 3 hour prologue though. They could have at least shortened that up quite a bit. You got more of the story but not much more. Only that Namine is a NOBODY and Roxas is Sora's NOBODY. And at some point you see Kairi back on Destiny Islands and knew she made a promise to a boy but she can't remember his name or anything about him but as Sora's memories came back she remembered. She ends up jumping through a black hole with Pluto in search for Sora and Riku when she remembered after Sora is fully restored. When Sora is restored you then have control of him again and Roxas disappears because he can't exist because he is Sora's NOBODY and they BOTH can't exist.

Now FINALLY you can get to the game with Sora. Like I said I did not like the prologue much. It took way to long just to get the story when it could have took less time without all the other stuff in between. They could have made it shorter and let us know quicker who or what Roxas was and restored Sora a lot sooner and still had the rest of the story told.

But now you are Sora in Twilight Town with Donald and Goofy and they run into the king and yet another adventure begins. The big questions remains. What happened during their sleep? and what happened to Riku and Kairi? Now it's off to find the Organization 13 and destroy Heartless and Nobodies.

GAMEPLAY

Now, the game play pretty much stayed the same. I like how they did that because it's a break from other RPG games waitng to attack and everything. I enjoy running around hacking and slashing away and moving around freely. There are some differences that I also liked. There are a lot of limit commands you can do. Also when fighting certain enemies, sometimes you can use skills on them called reaction commands. Reaction commands show up on your attack command. It lights up green and you press the triangle button to use them. It happens a lot in this game and I think it's different and fun.

You sill have magic, and able to use items in battle by equipping them. You still have summons and Sora also has different forms he can transfer into by changing his clothes. That command is the drive command and you have a certain amount of time before you change back. I love using Sora's drive forms. My favorite is Valor form. It's the easiest to level up and he really goes wild in this form! Each one looks different and some of them he uses 2 Keyblades! He has different abilties he uses with each ones and he goes crazy attacking and it's awesome! All the forms are Valor, Wisdom, Master and Final form. He sometimes turns into Anti-form which I can't stand and wished they never did that. The forms are supposed to make you more powerful and then you randomly get changed into that useless thing! I hate when that happens especially when you are trying to level up your forms and that gets in your way and wastes all your drive! Now I think that's kind of dumb.

The summons work the same to a point. Your other characters go away and your ally comes out to help you. They have different abilities and have limit attacks which you use with the triangle button. A lot of those a really cool to see as well! The summons yuo get are Chicken Little, Genie, Stitch, and Peter Pan. There are a lot of cool things to do and see in this game. The other limit attacks you can do with the other characters in your party. All of them have them. Even the other characters that you can use in each world. My absolute favorite limit attacks are with Donald. He does Donald Rocket and when you perform it you have this explosion of tons of rockets fly everywhere attacking everything in the way. At the end you see fire works. I use that one all the time. The magic is all about the same. What I do like in this game is the fact that your MP gauge charges and you get it back rather quickly and you don't have to wait to get to a save point to refill it or use items as much.

THE WORLDS

Some worlds are repeated from the last game but look different when you get to them in this game. I do like how they put new worlds in this game and not kept the all the same old worlds. That way it seemes different and experienced other things instead of all the same. What I didn't like was that the time spent in each world , didn't take to long. It seamed kind of rushed. Then after you play through all the worlds once, the game sends you back through them all a second time. Now in my opinion I think they should have made the time you spend in each world longer or put more worlds in the game to explore instead of making you go back through the same ones over again.

Hollow Bastion is a repeated but it's a completely different layout than in the last game. It's not the castle anymore and it's like your home base with a market and everything. Space Paraniods is acessible from Hollow Bastion as well. The Land of Dragons, Beast's Castle, Disney Castle/Timeless River, Port Royal, The Pride Lands and Twilight Town are all new. Agrabah is back. It looks the same but at least the Cave of Wonders is different. Halloween Town is back and it looks the same although you now get to go to Christmas Town while you are there. Of course the Olympus Coliseum is back but this time it's a real world with fighting instead of only being the battles. You still have those though. There is Atlantica again but I am SO VERY happy all it is is a mini game world because I hated the swiming in the last game. This is one world I didn't want to see again but I was glad It wasn't a real fighting world. And of course you can see the lovable Winnie the Pooh. His book is back and in it are new mini games which are so much easier than the last time!

MINIGAMES

There are a lot of minigames in this game as well. Theres the Olympus Coliseum battles, musicals at Atlantica, minigames in the Pooh book at Merlin's house in Hollow Bastion, lots of minigames in Twilight Town and minigames in just about every world after you complete them. Some of them are fun to do and others are just downright plain annoying. And of course once again you can see a special bonus movie at the end of the game. But in order to do that you have to play the game in Normal Mode, and completely filling out Jiminy's Journal. Which means completeing every minigame, missions, complete the synthesis lists, fight bonus bosses including SEPHIROTH again! He's back once again and believe me he's tough! But EVERYTHING in this game needs to be done and I'll tell you one thing, I have never been able to accomplish this task and it's kind of upsetting. I don't know why they have to make something like that so difficult. It's rather upsetting. So if anyone has ever done this please let me know because i'm starting to think it's impossible and if you did, you have my congratulations!

MY OPINION

One thing I have to say about the worlds, they are different and even the returning ones are different. But there is a lot more detail. I like how you go into the Pride Lands as a lion, fighting the pirates in Port Royal can be annoying and frustrating but it is neat how you can only attck them in the moonlight. And I like how they made the story about each world very similar to the Disney movie. My kids enjoyed watching me play this game just as much as I enjoyed playing it!

So there are a few things I didn't like about this game but everything I love about this game outweighs everything else. I love all my favorite Disney characters as well as all the friendly faces of FINAL FANTASY! It was a great game to get into. It was NEVER boring and I just can't get over how great the story was!

I can play this game again and again. I have actually played through it 3 times now. I will probably play it again. I don't know if there will be another KINGDOM HEARTS but I hope so. I love the story and can't wait to find out what happens next and I love playing the game. It's a lot of fun! VERY enjoyable!