Your Pain Shall Be Two Fold
Story: In Kingdom Hearts 2 you play as Roxas, a boy with his summer vacation winding down. Lately, Roxas has been having strange dreams and he can not explain what they mean. Soon enough you take control of Sora (the hero from Kingdom Hearts 1), Donald, and Goofy and continue your quest on eradicating the evil heartless and the nobodies. You are also still in search of your friends Rikku and Kairi. Also scheming is a group called organization 13. They are draped in black robes and are a form of nobodies. They are lead by there leader Xemnas who is the nobody of Xehanort. Sora will fight through over 15 worlds and fight alongside dozens of Disney and Final Fantasy characters.
Sound: Utada returns with her amazing song sanctuary made specifically for the game. She also sang in the original kingdom hearts with her song simple and clean. Fighting sounds and voice work are also on par. There was some dialog in the game that was questionable (we totally smoked you lamers), but that does not detract from the overall sound experience.
Gameplay: I clocked in over 36 hours of gameplay and that was without going through all the side quests. Later I completed Jimminy’s journal and leveled up enough to fight and defeat sephiroth. After all that I had completed the game lasted about 45 hours. And the amazing thing is I still went back and completed proud (hardest) mode. The game is that awesome. Gameplay is solid with a myriad of different upgrades for the characters. You can even tweak how often players use magic and what types to use. Sora’s movements are fluid and string nicely together. I found that it did rely a lot on button mashing at times and the overuse of only the x button was noticeable, but it didn’t detract from the experience. Later in the game you can also use the square button to fight too. The button mashing was also made up by the overall length of the game. Also at times I felt kind of weird playing a game with Disney characters in it. Its kind of embarrassing when your brother walks down and Donald and Goofy are hugging Sora. Lol. But if you can look past some of the ‘kiddy’ qualities of the game you will find no better story and fighting mechanics. The leveling and upgrading skill set really sets this game apart. You are given a plethora of moves and spells that you have the option to equip. It plays very nicely into some hard battles. For example: The battle with sephiroth. I looked at a guide and realized I was still lacking a ton of abilities that were needed to beat him. Not only that, but many of the weapons and skills I had equipped were completely useless towards defeating him. So I equipped all the items that I had, grinded out a couple levels and obtained a couple new skill sets. These two skills totally transformed the game for me. It made everything easier and they were really cool attacks. So I went to face old Sephiroth and after a couple of tries I finally beat him. I know it’s hard to understand, but things like this really make the gameplay unique.
Summary/Overall: Overall I gave this game a 10 because it’s just a perfect game. Even though it has minor flaws it is masked by the sum of its parts. What I mean is that you can nitpick at look at all its downfalls or you can recognize all of its crowning achievements. The story and the message the game provides you with are so heartfelt and leave you wanting more. The gameplay is satisfying and also keeps you coming back for more. Overall the nostalgia factor is reason enough to play this game. I grew up with these movies and to see them again implemented so well in this square universe is truly something to behold. Please do not dismiss this review just because I gave it a 10. It truly is that good. And I do recall GS giving THPS 3 a 10 so it can be done. When a game gives you chills you know it is a great game. It gave me chill of joy. It is so good; I can’t stress enough to you that you have to play this game. There is so much to do and so much to explore. Disney and square have done it again with a perfect game. I hope you enjoyed the review even though it was lengthy but I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this game.
Edit: This is an old Gamespot review of the game. Sorry if some of it is written poorly and sort of incoherent. At the time I was trying to convey a sense of happiness the game provides but my review kind of fumbles that incentive. I still feel the same way about the game, its just I could have written it out better and not have been lazy. I could redo the review but again I am way too lazy. Anyway I gave it a 10 back in the day, so now that translates into 5. I truly think this is a must play game and if you can look past the kiddy aspect of the game it does have some groundbreaking story telling and game play. Thanks for reading.
