AUTHORS NOTE: Once again, I am writing an article about a popular game that was released several years ago. And, as same with those other articles, I am explaining how I understand that reviews of this game have been done, but I think that it is needed that I do one. Thank you for reading this brief note.
Kingdom Hearts II was the sequel to the game Kingdom Hearts created by the company Square Enix, and was released in the year 2005. The game featured a mix of Disney and Final Fantasy characters, as well as a few original characters. The game was extremely popular, and although it contained Disney characters, they had abilities that were apropriate for general RPGs. For example, Donald Duck was a mage, and Goofy was the Disney equivalent of the "Tank" role from World of Warcraft. In this article, I will be explaining the basic storyline, mentioning worthy game mechanics, looking at both the positive and the negatives, and giving the game my own personal rating using the ten-star system.
In the end of the original Kingdom Hearts, the main protagonist, Sora, a fourteen-year old boy living on a peaceful island with his friend Riku and his secret crush Kairi, had finished defeating an evil and mysterious scientist named Ansem. Ansem had been studying creatures called Heartless, who are the result of when a person's heart becomes consumed with darkness. However, he himself had embraced the darkness, and he became an extremely powerful heartless. After defeating Ansem, Sora (along with his two new friends Donald and Goofy) began to search for a way to free Riku from a world of darkness, which acted as his prison. However, in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, after encountering a mysterious organization, he and his friends began to lose their memories. They were put into a slumber by a young girl who had power over their memories, and so they slept for a whole year, slowly getting their memories pieced back together. Around the end of Sora's slumber (at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts II), a young boy, Roxas, was enjoying summer vacation with his friends. However, throughout the last week of summer, he began to notice strange things, such as time stopping for a brief few seconds, or strange, white creatures attacking him. However, the strangest of all these things was when he was visited by a red-haired an in a black cloak. The man's name was Axel, and he kept trying to "remind", as he said, Roxas of when he was in something called Organization XIII. Finally, on the last day of his summer vacation, Roxas visited a mysterious mansion and found out that he was living in a computer-generated world, and that he was apparently the empty shell of a person, nothing more than a tool that wasn't even supposed to exist. When Roxas found a strange boy that looked eerily like him sleeping in some kind of machine, he began to fade into the boy. He shed a single tear as he said, "I guess my summer vacation is... over." Whoever this boy in the machine was, he apparently has something to do with the existence of Roxas. And how did Roxas enter in a computer-generated world in the first place?
There were a few game mechanics that are worth mentioning in Kingdom Hearts II. The first is the use of a variant of the ATB system from Final Fantasy that was commonly used in the Kingdom Hearts series (except in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories). The system worked by choosing a command (such as attack) or from a collection of commands (such as the different types of magical spells) and then execute them. However, unlike the ATB system, characters are able to move freely in the midst of combat. Another special game mechanic is the use of creatures called Moogles. Moogles were a popular creature in the Final Fantasy series, and in Kingdom Hearts II, Sora is able to "Synthesise" items with them. The player is able to create new items/equipment by giving the Moogles components and a payment of Munny (the currency in the game), and the Moogles create the item that the player wanted. However, the Moogles are only able to create an item if they use the exact components from the item's recipe. By continuing to Synthesise items, the Moogles gain Experience Points, and the more levels they gain, the more items that they learn to create.
One of my favorite things about the game was the story and the emotion. Not only was the story deeply detailed, but there was so much emotion behind it. Young players learned about the hardships that come in a young adults life, teaching them to respect those who suffer, while older players were able to connect on a personal level with the characters as they went through heartbreaks, or a friend turning against you when you needed them the most. Kingdom Hearts II was an emotional game that could touch a wound in even the most sturdiest of people. However, the game did have two small problems with it. The first being that there were barely- if any- sidequests, and the second is the fact that the character you actually play as is not interchangeable. That being said, you are not able to directly play as and/or control Donald Duck.
MY RATING: 8.75 / 10
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