I'm playing Kingdom Hearts II for the PS2....and sweet mother of mercy! Can anyone address the three main characters in any other way than reciting their names in an unnatural chant? When I see three friends, I don't exclaim, "Bill, Fred, Maximillion!" in the same way I'd say, "Schlemiel, schlimazel, Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!" Instead, I say "Hey, guys!" or "Avast, ye landlubbers!"
Well, I can feel it coming on.... I suppose this is going to be a game review. As mothers always say, "If you can't say anything nice, make something up, and then go ahead and rage about the bad stuff."
First of all, disclaimer: this is my personal opinon. You shouldn't let it rock your world.
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So... nice things.... niiiice things.....um.... Actually there are several. First, second and third would be Tron, Tron and TRON. I've always loved the film. The environment and music were great, and getting to actually control a light cycle was tres awesome. I bet that blind, warm and fuzzy nostalgia is how the designers wish I felt about every world in the game.
More positives: Well, the game is pretty. That's unarguable. Special attacks yield blossoming fireworks and colorful flashes. The character design (Disney and Square both) is fun to look at, although there were a few similar characters that could have been Sephiroth's love-children. There are also some interesting things you can do with "forms." ie: Your character can transform temporarily for higher stats, and is able to use two swords at once, which is a worthy addition. Limit breaks are also employable. Finally, it's (almost) always entertaining to see Final Fantasy characters, though it's a little weird to hear Cloud seriously mutter the word, "Goofy." Another thing I thought was fun was Timeless River, the black and white world of "Steamboat Willie," where even current characters took on the 1928 Disney animation look. The rest of the enjoyable aspects were mostly things that were established and carried over from the first game. (theme music, etc.) Oh, and one last thing: I always love a moogle.
The bad: If this tells you anything, at this point, I'm playing the game out of sheer stubbornness. The worlds may be pretty, but so far, they're uninteresting, straightforward and flat. They're tiny. No secrets or mysteries--nothing to collect. At least in the first game, one had the entertaining challenge of finding little balconies and ledges with treats on them, or leaping and gliding to interesting places. I've been looking. Believe me. I just don't see those sorts of places in this game. This far in, I can't see suddenly discovering there's a whole new world (pardon the pun) on the rooftops above Agrabah.
One massive annoyance is the simple existence of Atlantica. How does this make sense: "The universe is in peril! Only we can save it!...What? You want us to sing and dance in your ridiculous undersea musical extravaganza and waste countless precious hours we could be using to save the world?? .....Sure!!" I loathed Atlantica in the first game. Why would I like it now, when there is absolutely no reasonable explanation for me being there?
I hear that unless you complete every one of the thousand or so semi-impossible nit-picky missions Jiminy records in his journal, you don't get the "special ending." Just...screw you, Jiminy.
I don't need a special ending that badly. That's what YouTube is for.
I can have a passable good time by only poking around at the things I'm interested in--fighting matches, completing smaller missions, finding special "gummi" pieces for ship building, etc. But this doesn't further the story at all. To keep things interesting, the Boy and I, giggling like middle schoolers, designed a giant spaceship shaped like something I couldn't show my mother. The Penny Arcade guys would be proud.
Update: I actually finished the game tonight. The last hour or so was about as enjoyable as the eternal screech of nails on a chalkboard. Maybe I'm just an old-fashion kind of girl, but when I beat a boss, I prefer to have them stay beaten, not morph into some larger, uglier version of themselves and declare that we're going to throw down again. (somehow that's sort of *more* okay in Final Fantasy. Not completely okay, but less aggravating.) More button mashing, more inexplicable retarded pseudo-philosophy about "light and dark," more stale Disney platitudes about friendship and hearts... The Boy will bear witness to the fact that I carefully ran through my entire vocabulary list of cusses several times to make sure I had not skipped any.
"Why?" you may ask. Why would I bother finishing it? Because I'm stubborn and dumb, that's why. I kept hoping that something earth-shatteringly cool would happen. It did not.
Kingdom Hearts II gets 5 stars out of 10. Because I'm generous that way.
Unfortunately, there are people out there who would (and probably will) send hate-mail declaring, "OMG!!!1 your a moran its the awesomest game EVAR!!1!! FU!" Just as an FYI - Don't bother. I'll delete your comment. You can vent over at IGN or somewhere. Move along, now.
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