tommy_lop's Full Review: Kingdom Hearts for PlayStation 2
When I heard Squaresoft was coming out with a game in which you could go into different Disney movies and meet different characters I was interested, throw in the fact that it would also have Final Fantasy characters and I was hooked. All though it's a big risk cause if Square screwed up then it could be one of the worse license games in history, a blunder that could make Superman 64 Superman 64 good. But after I read the reviews I rented it and then bought it. This is one of the best Disney and PS2 games out there. I laughed even harder when I read Rock_on’s review of Mickey’s Magical Mirror and found out that Gamecube owners got screwed when it comes to Disney games.
Story
Sora lived a happy if dull life on Destiny Island with his friends Riku and Kairi. In till the day the heartless attacked the island and the three got separated, Sora landed in Traverse town with a magic key called the Key Blade. At the same time King Mickey has disappeared and Donald and Goofy are ordered to go find a man by the name of Leon (or the jerk formally known has Squall Leonard from FF8) so they can find the key. After a few misadventures in traverse town Mickey and Donald find Sora and the three leave to find Kairi, Riku, and King Mickey.
Charecters.
Sora.
The main character in the story Sora, is a teenager from the destroyed world of Destiny Island. He is out to find his friend Riku and Kairi, the weird thing is that he keeps having visions of Kairi. He gets team up with Goofy and Donald to help them find the keys, and while he often fights with Donald the 3 of them quickly become friends.
Donald
Donald is the sage of the group and can cast magic spells. He is of course weak in the physical areas and is use less at the beginning of the game in till he finds some decent spells. He is hot temper and often gets into arguments with Sora.
Goofy.
Goofy is a bit of an oddball of the group. He is more of a physical attack and has high HP and good attack strength. He's the peace keeper of the group and usually makes sure that Donald and Sora don't kill each other.
Riku (it's pronounce like the FFX Rikku but this ones a guy)
Riku is Sora's friend and rival from Destiny Island, when the island blew up he started looking for Kairi and Sora. Sora and him find each other early in the game but Riku decides to split up and look for Kairi on his own since he isn’t interested in Sora's quest with the key blade. He finds Kairi in a commacost state and is now looking for her heart, to do this he is willing to even join the dark side.
Kairi.
Kairi is one of Sora's friends from Destiny Island. Since the Island has been destroyed she has lost her heart to the heartless and has been in a commacost case since then. Little does Sora know that her heart is closer then he knows.
Malecifient. (aka the bad fairy from Sleeping Beauty.)
The person behind the heartless, a group of evil monsters that feed off the evil in a persons heart. She has sent them to destroy many worlds even Sora's Destiny Island.
Ansem.
A brilliant Scientist who studied the heartless. He gave his life defending his world from the heartless.
Squall, Yuffi, Cid (that would be a FF7 Cid, and kids that ain't a stick he's smoking) and Aerith.
4 of several FF cameo's, these 4 have volunteer to defend Traverse Town.
Graphics.
The graphics in this game are in one word amazing. While there not quite the realistic looking characters in FFX it's easily forgiven, mainly because this isn’t the look Square is going for. Who wants a real life Donald Duck, Square is going for the Disney cartoon look and they pull this off wonderfully. Each of the Disney worlds you go to look like the movie that there supposed to be in from Alice to Wonderland, to Tarzan, even Peter Pan everything looks like it's supposed to. This of course means that sometimes Sora and the gang have to go through minor costume changes like in the nightmare before Christmas stage. The graphics really help the Disney playhouse world that Square was going for.
Sound.
The music in each of the stage is usually a tune that is ripped out of whatever movie/world your in. The music is dynamic and changes whenever heartless appear to battle, similar to that of Zelda. This does have a few down side because not every tune you want to hear over and over again. The formention tunes are under the sea, and winnie the pooh. Especially Winni the Pooh there is no break in the song in his stage and it takes 2 hours to complete, imagine hearing winni the pooh for 2 hours that's enough to drive anybody nuts.
The voices of course are awesome Disney has put together has many authentic voice over has possible. They have hired an all star cast to do some of the voices. While not all the voices are from the original stars (either because the movie is old and the actors are probably dead, or because there to much to hire) the majority of the main characters voices are here. Has for the voice of Sora they hired Haley I now see Disney characters Osmand for the gig. Of course the voice I like to make fun of is Lance Bass doing Sepironth's voice now I have proof that N'Synch is the incarnation of all that is evil.
Gameplay.
Ok you may have Disney characters, you may have FF characters, don't expect a FF game with Disney characters. The battle system is more of an action game with that of RPG design. Like an RPG you can equip abilities and weapons to the characters. Also true to an RPG you level up by defeating enemies. But the whole FF engine has been scraped.
The closet thing I could think of calling this is an extremely
passive lock Zelda 64 engine. Like Zelda you can lock on to an enemy and then face them, but unlike Zelda this doesn’t mean you always have to face them, and it doesn’t slow you down to fight. You can also flip through the locks by hitting the switch button or lock off by hitting the lock on button again. This makes it easy to acquire different locks easier and quicker. It's a good thing that they did this because there are literally dozens of enemy appearing on screen at a time, that means there is a lot of hacking and slashing to do.
Of course what really brings the game together is Sora's partners in crime Donald and Goofy. These two are with for the entire course of the game, one of them can be switched out for another Disney character like Aladdin in a certain world but will rejoin you at the end of the world. Now if Square screwed up there AI they would be to helpful and greedy that it would be impossible for Sora to get a hit in edge wise because Donald and Goofy would be done wiping the floor with the heartless before Sora even drew the keyblade. If they where to moronic and just stood around then they would be pointless little things following you around that you wish you could hack to pieces if the enemies weren't doing it already. Luckily Square hit a pretty even medium where Donald and Goofy help you out just has much has they call out for help from you. The only gripe I have is that Donald uses is magic at the beginning of the battle a lot of the times and leaves himself a sitting duck (pardon the pun) the rest of the time.
Of course the battle system isn’t perfect the problem comes that you have to use either the right analog stick or the left control pad to move through the few menus the game posses. These menus are for items to cure your self mostly and this of course does leave you just standing there while doing this, and of course leaves you easy kill while doing this. It's almost has frustrating has the run away battle system found in FF8.
Side Quest
There are plenty of these in the game. From finding 99 Dalmatian puppies, to finding all the pages in Winni the Poohs book. Then of course there is the Olympia Stadium. While Herclease is easily the worst Disney film in by book, 2nd only to Pukeahontas, I mean Pocahontas. The stage luckily doesn’t go to in deep to the plot and story of the movie like the others do. Rather it's just a battle arena in which you complete against heartless for exp. Of course a few FF characters come out of the wood work to do battle with you. This also includes that of Sepironth which means you can kick is homicidal psycho butt all over again, or in my case it was very much vice versa. The dialog from my battles basically went like this: take that you psycho, hey watch it with that sword, heartless what, hey knock it off don't do that, D@@@@@@@@@@@MMMMMMMMMNNNNNNNN (slamming of controller in frustration has Septhrionth once again hands my butt back to me).
Summons.
While the usual Shiva, Ifirit, and Bahamut aeons may have taken a vacation, this time around there Disney characters. To name a few you have from Simba from the lion king, to Genie from Aladdin, to Tink from Peter Pan. To summon these characters Donald and Goofy have to be alive and well, and then have to be given up temporally while the other character is out. This is of course is not good because with Donald and Goofy out of battle your left to find an army of heartless alone. And most of the summons are not strong enough to justify Donald and Goofy taking a break.
Final recommendation.
Kingdom hearts is one of the best Disney games to come out, and probably the best license game since Goldeneye.
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