[PS2] Kingdom Hearts 2

Originally Posted by aku

Well...damn the japanese and their use of engrish!

"XIII Order" isn't Engrish; it's actually correct in a grammatical sense. Nomura probably decided to change it to "Organization XIII" sometime around the English localization of Chain of Memories. Deep Dive isn't 100% canon; it's merely a template from which KHII built its story.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

What i dont understand is, how can CoM and KH1 score higher than KH2?

I just dont get why IGN gave it that score.

How ya doing, buddy?

Hmm, Sanctuary isn't too bad. Listened to it a few times now. I'm not the biggest fan of the way she sings the chorus, but the other verses sound pretty good. Better than I expected (and it's nice to finally hear those lyrics) but so far, the lyrics for Passion just flow nicer to me.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Hey did anyone else know that Brady Games is releasing a LE strategy guide for the game? I just found out, apparently it's gonna come with an art book. Definitely gonna pick this up with the game.

Quote:

BradyGames’ Kingdom Hearts II Limited Edition Strategy Guide includes the following:

• A comprehensive walkthrough of the entire adventure.
• Detailed area maps pinpointing key locations.
• In-depth listing of all available items and equipment.
• Expert boss strategies to take down even the most powerful boss.
• Exhaustive bestiary with a complete listing of every Enemy in the game.
• Limited Edition guide includes an exclusive art book, foldout, bonus content and more!

Source: http://www.bradygames.com/title/0744006244

Also according to SE, the LE of the strategy guide is going to come in four different cover designs.

Quote:

And for die-hard fans, BradyGames is offering another collectible—a KINGDOM HEARTS II Limited Edition Strategy Guide. This exclusive product features a Signature Series strategy guide with one of four special cover designs-not available anywhere else. A copy of Jiminy's Journal is also included, for players to record their progress through the entire game. With more than 400 stickers, the Jiminy's Journal will help players keep track of characters, treasures and more. A deluxe jacket encases this limited edition package. The KINGDOM HEARTS II Limited Edition Strategy Guide will retail for $29.99 US / $39.99 CAN and is also available online at http://www.bradygames.com for a limited time only.

Source: http://www.square-enix.com/na/company/press/2006/0328/

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by rpgcrazied

wow.. just wow.. IGN gave it a 7.6

what fucktards.

sorry.. had to say :P

Um. When Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (The Game) gets a 7.9 and beats Kingdom Hearts II, you know someone is smoking something at IGN.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Hantei

Hey did anyone else know that Brady Games is releasing a LE strategy guide for the game? I just found out, apparently it's gonna come with an art book. Definitely gonna pick this up with the game.

Here's some pics of the quide for ya hantei

http://www.kh2.co.uk/index.php?subac...t_from=&ucat=&

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Rayne

It's funny how My mom grounded me today. 50 bucks that I have been saving for 5 months. She knew I wanted it... If only I had a car. I'm not speaking to my mother right now BTW

Haha now that's what I call passion

Originally Posted by rpgcrazied

wow.. just wow.. IGN gave it a 7.6

what fucktards.

sorry.. had to say :P

Haha wtf; well, seems that the reviewer wasn't paid by Square Enix this time.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Hantei

Also according to SE, the LE of the strategy guide is going to come in four different cover designs.

I wonder how many are going to buy all four just to have a complete set. Although out of all of those the only one I am interested in is the white one. =/

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Sancturary unfortunatly did a poorer job than Passion to me personally, not because of the lyrics, though the repeated Chorus for me was disappointing.

I mostly blame editing and mixing moreso than Utada herself, while some parts of the performance was weaker ( "My hearts a battle ground line was alot better in Passion and so were the AHHS at the end of the song.Some parts were also sounding a tiny bit off key) It was overall well done. The mixing and arrangment was the parts made me cringe.

The beginning of the rock solo in Passion were coherant non backwards Japanese words. It sounded so cool the way it kicks into the rock solo, in Santucary, it had a awkward, HORRIBLY awkward backwards line.

That line by the way when you reverse it back says : "So many ups and downs"

Also another thing was lack of back up vocals, now how hard was it to get some back up vocals back in to Sanct from the Passion mix? The Chorus from Passion had some awesome AHH lines that sounded like it was sang from some distant mountains. In Sanct, all of the layers were gone, making it far more emtpy.

On a side note, the lip synching of the lines "Music inside" and "Angels in flight" by Kairi and Namine were less well done than Passion.

While I had my thoughts on Simple and Clean way back, I was satisfied with final SOUND of it despite the lyrics. This time I had some problems with lyrics, but also with the mixing. Overall, this song, personally, was disappointing to me.

I hope the ending version sounds better.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

This song was dissapointing, it seems she was forcing the lyrics to be in sync with the tune, Sorry and i like how the lyrics are kinda stupid again (like simple and clean)

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Well, I just finished the Japanese version today. I absolutely could not resist after I bought one of those special FF12 PS2's.

Couple of things. First, IGN is absolutely nuts. From this day on, I will never ever read another one of their reviews. I just cannot understand how you can give this game such a low score (yes, 7.6 isn't that low when you look at a ten point scale, but as far as reviews go and how everyone looks at them, it is definitely low). Utterly ridiculous.

Second, this game is pure magic. After a certain event happens near the beginning, it instantly became one of my favorite games of all time.

Third, the story is so, so good. Good god, it's so good. I want to play through the game again, right now, but I must study...

Anyways, just letting you all know that if you haven't gotten it yet, it will be worth the wait. Here's hoping the English voices will be good.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

My brother got this yesterday, damn him to hell. Now it's going to be over a week before I can lay hands on it, having to watch him play. What I did see was pretty impressive, though. Pretty graphics aside, they've tweaked up the gameplay a little to give you more to do than just mash the button repeatedly. I'm more than a little amused that they borrowed from God of War with the triangle button commands.

I watched him play through the latter half of Beast's castle, through the boss fight. The partner combo attacks look terribly abusable, as often as you can use them. Every time he had his gauge up, he'd pair up and utterly maul the enemy (and get his ass kicked when it wasn't; he sucks at video games). The boss fight at the end was pretty interesting, too.

Hmm. IGN's biggest complaint was how easy the game is. Thinking back, they may have a point there. If my little brother can rape the Limit attacks so badly early on in the game, it probably gets way worse later on. And you can't set specific AI directions anymore? The fuck? No healing potions for Goofy and Donald, that's for damn sure.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Monkey King

Hmm. IGN's biggest complaint was how easy the game is. Thinking back, they may have a point there. If my little brother can rape the Limit attacks so badly early on in the game, it probably gets way worse later on. And you can't set specific AI directions anymore? The fuck? No healing potions for Goofy and Donald, that's for damn sure.

Well, hello? This game is also meant to be for young players and I'd prefer a easy but otherwise flawless game over a difficult game which I throw away after a couple of hours because it's just too frustrating.
Whoever wrote this IGN review should go to fucking hell.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Well, not just young players, but this game is supposed to be catered to all audience. Hence the slight edit that Square Enix made. With the E10+ rating. Well, all fans that're older than 10 that is . I mean, if you don't like it, then you can look to another RPG game. Because this game is to be enjoyable.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Pick proud mode, trust me, in proud mode, if you just mash away and don't dodge or defend, you could get your ass kicked by the nobodies in the TUTORIAL.

I suggest those that are afraid that its too easy just pick Proud. The AI is harder in that mode.

FELIPE NO

Quote:

Posted by Musharraf
Well, hello? This game is also meant to be for young players and I'd prefer a easy but otherwise flawless game over a difficult game which I throw away after a couple of hours because it's just too frustrating.

Counterpoint: did you throw away Megaman 2 after a couple of hours because it kept kicking your ass? Difficulty was never a consideration in the olden times, and in fact everyone has fond memories of the old games they played at 10 years old that were hard as sin. Show of hands, younger crowd; how old were you when you played Chrono Trigger or FF7 for the first time? Did you grow to utterly despise the game when it got hard?

What you're seeing as making things easier for the target audience, I see as dumbing down the product for the lowest common denominator. Dumbed down products inevitibly are inferior to products that assume the user is at least capable of feeding himself without choking on his own spit.

But we'll see once I've actually played through the whole game. The game looked hard enough when my brother was playing, even though he tends to suck hardcore at video games.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

If it's easy in it's hardest level of difficulty, IGN has a legitimate complaint. If not, well that's why varying levels of difficulty were invented.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I just got the game today at Gamestop. I went to Gamestop yesterday but they hadn't gotten it yet, but one of the fucktards there said that I wouldn't get it today if I hadn't pre-ordered because of how hyped up the game is.


Well screw him. I got it.



The game is really good, but Passion is definitely better than Sanctuary. Still the game is fun thus far - I've only played an hour though (I have homework...).

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Spoiler:

Just got the game today, got sora back.. man.. reunited with king mickey. That was so awesome, he did a yoda on them nobodies :P 7.6 my ass.. ign is stupid

enjoy the game folks i am

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I thought this board would be full of english impressions, but I guess everyone's too busy playing. I just spend a good 2 hours on it, so I'm ready to offer some thoughts. Of course I'll keep spoilers marked, but if any of you don't want to know anything that occures in the first part, you can skip this post.

The title version of Dearly Beloved was fantastic, the perfect way to start up this game. My sister will especially like it, considering how she loves to play it in the piano.

It goes without saying that the opening FMV was beautiful, but it's worth mentioning. It makes me anticipate AC even more (same animation company). I was especially pleased to see a rendered Donald and Goofy, since I was told that no Disney characters showed up in any FMVs.

Despite previous complaints, I found the english version of Sanctuary very well done, and it stays true to the Japanese version. I was a fan of Passion from the start, so I guess to each his own.

The graphics are astounding. I absolutely love the increased use of facial expressions (and less use of the crappy low res faces with the stiff mouth flaps). They're probably the best facial features I've ever seen for PS2. The visuals also impress with Twilight Town. The beautiful sky and other small bits make the town appear much bigger than it actually is.

Mapping the examine button to Triangle is the best improvement to the game. No longer will you accidently swing your keyblade on any NPC you try to talk to. :doh:

Also, the Reaction button in battle is every bit as excellent as you've heard. Context sensitive buttons have become a bit of a fad lately, with games like Resident Evil 4 and God of War. Some might also consider it a cheat, making it easy to render complex moves and acrobatics with little control from the player. Well the day may come when next gen games will let us replicate those insane moves in realtime, but for now, I'm enjoying the crazy battles, especially the one against the giant Nobody.

Nobody does action like Nomura.

Speaking of which, the Nobody, despite looking cool and having some very creepy animations, are also the physical manifestation of Nomura's zipper fetish.

You have to give Nomura props for taking characters as old as Seifer, and still have them speak and act exactly the way they did back in FFVIII. Seifer has his battle stance, Raijin still ends every sentence with "Ya know!?", and Fujin still describes everything in one word outbursts. I don't like what they did to my Vivi, though.

"My life is a chip in your hands. Time to ante up!"

Amazing, they actually took my favorite Setzer line from FFVI and brought it back here. Well done. I really wish the other FFVI crew was here.

The voice acting is pretty amazing so far. I might even say it's the best voice acting out of any Square game. All the newcomers sound very natural, even surpassing the acting from the original. Christopher Lee is just awesomeness personified. I really, really hope they use him for FFXII. He would be perfect in that game.

I'm also impressed how much David Boreanez has improved on Squall (judging from his re-recorded dialogue during the past clips). As for Suvari, also judging by the brief lines in the flashback, well she is passable, but compared to all the other strong voicework, she sounds weak in comparison. It isn't bad, but it doesn't measure up to Mandy Moore. I really hope she does a better job in AC (after such a long wait, there better not be any flaws in that movie).

I'm a bit letdown that one VA didn't return to reprise his role. (not really a spoiler but just in case)

Spoiler:

Billy Zane isn't Ansem this time. Ziggy does a great job, but Zane just rocked with that deep voice of his. Damn.

I do have one complaint with the voice acting, and that's the choice pronounciation of some FF names. Seifer is prounounced as "Sai-fer", instead of "Say-fer". I find the latter to be accurate, because it would have to be spelled as Siefer in order to be prounounced "Sai-fer". What's even worse is that the girl character (Omelett or something...) calls him "Say-fer"!

It gets worse though. Selphie briefly mentions Tidus, and calls him "Tai-dis", which is stupid since it was established in the original game that it's prounounced "Tee-dus". There was already prior arguments over which prounounciation was correct, and now this is going to start the debates all over again.

Finally, Vivi is prounounced "Vee Vee". I always used "Vi-Vee" (like Vivian). It really sucks to spend so many years prounouncing a character's name a certain way, only to find out you were incorrect.

Also, using Sora and Kairi's pre-pubescent voices from the first game is a nice touch. God bless continuity (and damn you, Mandy Moore).

Anyway, the story starts off strong right from the start. It's refreshing to see an Evangelion/Lain style of head trips and warped reality debates in what is essentially a Disney product. I'm very glad they didn't interfere with Nomura's writing (which, between this and FFVII, is establishing him as a master of making his characters really trip out). Things remain lighthearted while at the same time have an omen of impending doom to it. I bet it'll be especially bizzare to anyone who didn't finish CoM.

On that note, the game does a very good job of summarizing the events of the first KH through its constant flashback clips. The same doesn't apply to CoM so far, though, so I hope the majority of you finished it, or at least know the ending.

The unveiling of No. 13 (or is it No. 1?) was just awesome. They really set it up for surprise as the hood slowly comes off. I'm not even going to spoiler tag it, because I'm afraid someone will respond with a follow up that will ruin the future twists. But bottom line, KH2 does a great job of making sure that Sora and Roxas' story outweighs the Disney portion of the story. In fact, the Disney portion now seems as an afterthought, almost uneccesary. The main story with the original characters stands just fine on its own.

I can't wait to see Nomura's FFXIII.

Finally, Kairi is really, really cute. :love:

Oh, and my Gamestop got pretty annoying today. First, the clerk kept asking if I wanted to move my $5 that was used to reserve the game onto reserving something else.

"No thanks."

"Really? Are you sure? There's that new Final Fantasy coming you know. That new...Final Fantasy VII game."

"......"

I was also tempted to get that Limited Edition strategy guide. Even with the discount though, it would have totalled $75 if I got it with the game. Hell no. Perhaps I can get it for cheap in Amazon.

Even if I could though, I don't normally buy Strategy Guides. I can figure out most of the game on my own, and there's always Gamefaqs. The only reason I'd consider it is the beautiful artwork. So I ask those who bought the LE: Is the extra art worth it, or is it a small amount that hardly collects all the art?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Monkey King

Counterpoint: did you throw away Megaman 2 after a couple of hours because it kept kicking your ass? Difficulty was never a consideration in the olden times, and in fact everyone has fond memories of the old games they played at 10 years old that were hard as sin. Show of hands, younger crowd; how old were you when you played Chrono Trigger or FF7 for the first time? Did you grow to utterly despise the game when it got hard?

What you're seeing as making things easier for the target audience, I see as dumbing down the product for the lowest common denominator. Dumbed down products inevitibly are inferior to products that assume the user is at least capable of feeding himself without choking on his own spit.

But we'll see once I've actually played through the whole game. The game looked hard enough when my brother was playing, even though he tends to suck hardcore at video games.

I couldn't agree more. After spending my childhood playing Megaman 2 (repeating your example since the time I've spent on MM2 probably rivals my WoW time) I can't help but laugh when I hear people complaining about how hard Megaman X1 is, or that the problem with the Megaman Collection was that the games were too difficult. Hell, I play Fire Emblem games because of the challenge they provide.

Even if the difficulty is dumbed down I can still enjoy it with a good story. It only pisses me off when it's down to the insulting level of something like FF X's final boss. I don't know whose brilliant idea it was to inexplicably make your party invincible against an already lame excuse for a final boss, but they must have thought the target audience was bereft of basic motor functions.

Originally Posted by SOLDIER

I do have one complaint with the voice acting, and that's the choice pronounciation of some FF names. Seifer is prounounced as "Sai-fer", instead of "Say-fer". I find the latter to be accurate, because it would have to be spelled as Siefer in order to be prounounced "Sai-fer". What's even worse is that the girl character (Omelett or something...) calls him "Say-fer"!

It gets worse though. Selphie briefly mentions Tidus, and calls him "Tai-dis", which is stupid since it was established in the original game that it's prounounced "Tee-dus". There was already prior arguments over which prounounciation was correct, and now this is going to start the debates all over again.

Finally, Vivi is prounounced "Vee Vee". I always used "Vi-Vee" (like Vivian). It really sucks to spend so many years prounouncing a character's name a certain way, only to find out you were incorrect.

Heh, I'm actually glad that they changed Seifer and Tidus' name pronunciations like that since those are the ways I normally say them. Vivi's is kind of odd, but not that bad. I just remember laughing at how horrible "Tee-dus" sounded in the original Kingdom Hearts.

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lol funny thing is the way the pronounce the names are how I have always pronounced them, expect for Tidus though.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by SOLDIER

I do have one complaint with the voice acting, and that's the choice pronounciation of some FF names. Seifer is prounounced as "Sai-fer", instead of "Say-fer". I find the latter to be accurate, because it would have to be spelled as Siefer in order to be prounounced "Sai-fer". What's even worse is that the girl character (Omelett or something...) calls him "Say-fer"!

It gets worse though. Selphie briefly mentions Tidus, and calls him "Tai-dis", which is stupid since it was established in the original game that it's prounounced "Tee-dus". There was already prior arguments over which prounounciation was correct, and now this is going to start the debates all over again.

Finally, Vivi is prounounced "Vee Vee". I always used "Vi-Vee" (like Vivian). It really sucks to spend so many years prounouncing a character's name a certain way, only to find out you were incorrect.

I've always thought of them as "Sai-fer" and "Vee-Vee." I wasn't so bothered by those names, but I was surprised that they used "Tai-dus."

Most amazing jew boots

Shouldn't they be informed on how to prounounce the name before they say it? Is it written phonetically in the script for the actor to use? I would think that's the case, otherwise there would be constant screwups when the VA's try to say a difficult name. One example that comes to mind is Tenchu. As crappy as the voice acting was to begin with, it was especially hilarious when this one boss character literally stumbles as he tries to prounouce his own name. :doh:

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Rydia

I've always thought of them as "Sai-fer" and "Vee-Vee." I wasn't so bothered by those names, but I was surprised that they used "Tai-dus."

It's サイファー (saifaa) and ビビ (bibi) in Japanese, so I've always said "sai-fer" and "vee-vee" as well. ティーダ (tiida) suggests that "tee-dus" is the correct pronounciation of "Tidus," so I've pretty much been using "Tidus" for, well, ever.

As for how the VAs pronounce the names, well, I thought that the recording directors or whoever supervises the recording sessions would catch these small errors, but I guess not.

Jam it back in, in the dark.