| Peter |
Jul 27, 2006 10:42 AM |
You can only get the final form when you have entered the final dungeon, after a certain fight, there is a chance that you'll change into it when you drive. The rest of the forms are gotten with the story.
Also, having finished the game, here's my review:
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The first Kingdom Hearts game was a huge hit in the US. Many gamers enjoyed the Final Fantasy and Disney combination, I know I sure did. The game wasn’t free from criticism though, as the battle system could use some work, especially since the camera could make some fights rather frustrating. Now that the sequel has been released in the US, it’s time to see if Square-Enix has listened to the critics, and if they have made some changes. Please not that this review will contain inevitable spoilers towards its predecessor.
First up, the story. As you may remember from the ending of the first game, after defeating Ansem, the worlds started to drift apart, and Sora got separated from his friends, Riku and Kairi. What was more interesting in the ending, was the hidden movie in the Japanese Final Mix version, which showed two Keyblade wielders duking it out in matrix style in some rainy city. This caused a rather big hype among the fanboys, and the question is if KH II has lived up to the expectations. Surprisingly, the game does not start with Sora, but with a boy called Roxas, who’s hanging around with his friends during his school vacation. Soon enough, it’ll become clear that there’s something wrong with Roxas, as he’s being spied upon by a mysterious man called DiZ. After playing as Roxas for a while, around 4-5 hours, you finally can start as Sora again, accompanied by Donald and Goofy, and the search for Riku and Kairi. However, there quest is soon interfered by a mysterious group, consisting of so-called Nobodies, called Organization XIII.
This is the basic premise of the story, but there are several rather big flaws. First of all, there are parts of the stories that just don’t make any sense. Take the Nobodies for instance. The game explains us that, when a person turns into a Heartless, another part of him turns in a Nobody. Still with me here? Now it gets confusing; the Nobodies want you to slaughter the Heartless, to get their HEARTS. Now, I think that anyone can figure out the flaw in this, how on earth can you get a heart from a heartLESS? This is really an incomprehensible error, that makes the entire story look ridiculous in my opinion.
A second flaw is that, as soon as the various worlds get unlocked, the main story just disappears, and it only looks like you play the story of the Disney world that you are visiting at that time. This really made me lose focus of the bigger picture at some times, and even though there are moments between worlds where the main story gets development, it failed to get my attention. In the end, I had already forgotten half of the questions that the game gives you in the beginning, and I really wasn’t that interested anymore. Aside from that, some of the plot twists related to the first game feel forced, and introduce new characters out of the blue in such a way that it doesn’t make that much sense. Some fanboys will insist that everything makes sense, but even after reading the so-called Ansem Reports, it still doesn’t clear up everything.
The last flaw is perhaps a personal problem that I have with the game, but it still needs to be mentioned. I get the feeling that the story tries to find a balance between childish things, mostly Disney-related, and the serious stuff, namely the bigger storyline. It looks to me like the game doesn’t know what kind of audience it wants to attract. On one hand, the Disney characters and worlds will surely attract smaller children, but the main storyline is aimed at an older audience. This problem makes the entire plot seem horribly unbalanced, and there are certain parts, like the musical in Atlantica, that almost made me feel embarrassed playing, because a part like that is meant for a younger audience, in my opinion, and I don’t think that I’m the only one who thinks this.
As for characters, the Disney character’s development is well known, since the various Disney worlds follow the exact same story as the movie/cartoon that it’s based on, with the only difference being the help of Sora and his friends. As for the rest of the cast, I don’t really have a lot to complain about, since most character’s presentation is handled very well in the end, but Sora and his friends also get some light shed upon.
Of course, the main attraction for RPG fans to this game is the presence of the various FF characters, and although some of them didn’t make the cut (poor Tidus and Wakka), there are plenty of additions, like Seifer, Tifa, and Vivi to name a few. Of course, fanboys can rejoice again since Cloud and Sephiroth still haven’t settled their fight, and you’ll see another Duel of the Fate or whatever it was called in the Final Mix Version. Aside from that, the most surprising characters are Captain Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Carribean) and Tron (from the movie with the same name), because they are not really expected in a game like this, because of the rather serious character of their stories. They don’t disappoint though, and the Pirates of the Carribean world has become a personal favourite.
Aside from old original characters like Riku and Kairi, Kingdom Hearts II introduces a few new ones, mostly the members of Organization XIII, and although though they get developed good enough in the end, they are pretty much absent in about 70% of the story, when your party is off exploring the various Disney worlds. It’s basically the same problem as the one I had with the story, but I really felt that they could have handled this better.
As for graphics, they are just perfect for this game. This is probably as good as graphics on the PS2 can get. Everything’s presented in vibrant colours, nice designs (although I’m generally not a big fan of Nomura, he does some good work for this game), and especially during battles the graphics will really shine. The special effects continued to amaze me during the game, especially when you unlock more powerful attacks. Environments look huge, and manage to each have a distinctive feel that is perfect for the world that they represent.
Once again, Pirates of the Carribean deserves being mentioned, since the graphics there really capture the mature and realistic feeling of the story there. Not only the world changes, but also the look of your characters, from turning into a lion when you are visiting Simba (the Lion King), to the simple look of the Timeless River (based on the Steamboat Willy cartoon), the graphics continued to surprise and amaze me. The interface also gets some well deserved attention, depending on the world that you are visiting, and it is a welcome change from the bland menu that was present in the first Kingdom Hearts.
As for music, first let me say that I loathe J-pop, so I’m biased against Hikaru Utada. Sadly enough, her opening and ending song hasn’t changed my opinion, and the game could have done perfectly without her, in my opinion, especially since the rest of the music in the game is excellent. Aside from the expected remixes of well-known Disney tunes in the various worlds, Yoko Shimomura manages to give most of the original themes a distinct sound, pleasing to the ear. The music never takes away your attention of the events you’re witnessing, and nicely fades to the background, never being disturbing or annoying.
As for the voice acting, it’s pretty obvious that Square-Enix has gathered the big names for this game. Naturally, most Disney characters get the same voice as in their animated counterparts, and the original characters also get class actors, with Haley Joel Osment returning for the role of Sora, and even Christopher Lee showing up as DiZ. I was a tad disappointed that Jack Sparrow wasn’t voiced by Johnny Depp though. The FF characters also get nice voice acting, even though there have been some changes since the first game. The biggest shock for fanboys was that Aeris’s voice actor had been replaced, and even though the replacement does a really nice job in my opinion, she can’t do anything good in the eyes of FF zealots. I was more irritated by Cloud though, since his VA is obviously just reading lines without any feeling, especially during the confrontation with a certain nemesis.
Now, it’s time to move on to the best part of the game, the battle system. The main issues that I had with this in the first game were the camera positions, the lack of challenge, and to a lesser extent the button mashing. Kingdom Hearts II fixes two of these problems, mainly the camera positions, although there are still some awkward situations, and thanks to the new more difficult Proud Mode, there are actually some challenging battles in the game. First, lets see what’s new this time. The basics are still the same, but the biggest change is the introduction of so-called reaction commands. During a battle, you’ll sometimes be giving the option to press the triangle button to activate a reaction command, a special attack of some sort which can be vital to winning the battle. These special attacks are awesome most of the time, and you have to pay close attention to get them, because some of them will only be active for a second. I really liked this feature, since it distracts you from the button mashing that combat would otherwise have been reduced to.
A second new feature is the use of drive forms. Every time Sora receives damage, or every time he defeats an enemy, his boost gauge will increase. When this gauge has filled up, Sora can transform in drive forms, that allow him to execute special attacks, wield two keyblades, use devastating combo’s and other stuff like that. These various forms are unlocked as the story progresses, and are one of the coolest additions, imo. You can level these forms by using them, and in return, they’ll not only become more powerful, but some of the unique skills that they posses, like dashing or jumping higher will be available for use outside of battles, a lot like the Trinity skills from the first game. Now, it sounds like these drive forms can make the battles a bit too easy, but there’s a catch, well two actually. The first one is that one of your other party members will disappear from battle when Sora is using his drive, lessening your party’s overall attacking power, and the other one is that Sora will sometimes not change into the form that you selected, but he’ll shift to the so-called anti form. While this is a pretty powerful form, it’s biggest flaw is that you can’t use reaction commands with it, making this form pretty much useless for boss battles
On top of this, Disney characters also make a return during battles, and Sora can now, thanks to the reaction commands, team up with them to beat the hell out of an enemy. These attacks are easily among the coolest ones in the game, and I especially like his move together with Auron. Although they lose some of their usefulness near the end, they are still a joy to watch.
Summons also make a return, and they are actually useful this time around. Sora can also combo with them, and they can really dish out some damage, so you might want to check them out this time.
Now, for my main problem with the battle system, the use of magic. I hardly ever used any spells aside from the usual healing spell, and when the game requires you to use them to progress. The problem is that a healing spell will consume ALL of your MP, and you’ll be forced to wait until the bar slowly refills before you can use any other spell. Some people say that this adds to the strategy of the game, where you carefully have to wait until you use your precious healing spell, but it just annoyed the hell out of me personally.
Unfortunately, the rest of the gameplay hasn’t really been improved, au contraire. In the first game, you had some nice platforming action, which offered a nice diversion from the battles, but in the second instalment, the fields are looking nice, but they are just boring. You don’t have to jump or dash to get to locations or to reach treasure chests, and the battle fields are reduced to nothing more but a way to the next story sequence. As for the rest of the gameplay, it’s pretty good, since there are tons of minigames to play, like in Atlantica, which is basically one big minigame, since there are no battles. Some of the games are enjoyable, but others were annoying the hell out of me. Synthesizing also makes a return, but I personally haven’t really bothered that much with it, although the system’s better developed than in the first game.
As for sidequests, I doubt that anyone would be disappointed by this game. Why, you may ask? Because of Jimmy’s journal, a massive compendium giving details of the story and background on the characters, but what’s more important, Jimmy also presents you with plenty of challenges, some easy to complete (the Winnie the Pooh games), some challenging (the Colloseum tournaments), and others just painfully boring (completing all the synthesizing lists). For the perfectionist gamers, this is a gift from heaven, because it took my brother over 20 hours to achieve 100% completion. Take the Hades Paradox Cup for example, it requires you to get to level 99, to max out all the summons and the forms, which can easily take hours. Not to forget completing all the synthesize items, getting at least 20 of all materials, and maxing out the synthesizing moogle’s level will take enough time. What’s the reward for all of this? Some gamers will achieve satisfaction, and some will be wanting to see the 3 minute hidden ending movie, which you can also get when you simply complete all the worlds on Proud Mode, a less daunting task.
Overall, if you don’t pay much attention to the lack of a decent story, and if you can look beyond the sometimes childish Disney stuff, you have an excellent action RPG, which can easily entertain you for hours. The battle system is improved a lot compared to the first game, and it’s just a shame that the other aspects of not only the gameplay, but also the rest of the game seem to be neglected.
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