Kingdom Hearts: Twice the Fun, Twice the Mini Games.

Kingdom Hearts 2 is one of the most interesting merges of a set of characters that are so different from each other, no one would have thought it would be a success. In fact with Kingdom Hearts Square Enix did not think that it would be popular at all. Boy, they were wrong! Kingdom Hearts won over the Final Fantasy fanatics, Disney Fans, and some that just like the cool “whack and hack” action that the game offers. If you liked Kingdom Hearts, you are going to love the sequel.

One thing that is for sure, if you haven’t played Kingdom Hearts, and Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories, you won’t get most of the story. At the beginning of the game they do their best to explain it, but I guarantee you won’t get half the hints, foreshadowing, and little bits and pieces that tie back to the other games. For the first 6 hours of game play, you play as Roxas.  His main purpose is to try and catch up the people that haven’t played the other games, and to teach you how to play. After the 6th Day in Twilight Town, Roxas won’t show up again until the end of the game. After Roxas is out of the picture, you finally get to play as the main character, Sora.  Sora’s introduction in the game is quite funny.  He is in his old clothes, which are way, way, too small, and man, does he need a tan! Any way, you do end up getting his new clothes from the Sleeping Beauty fairies after you leave Twilight Town, then the journey begins.

The backbone of the game is the reaction command. This is where you do special limits with your party members, have additional attacks and combos that can defend, reflect enemy attacks, or deal massive damage to that particular enemy. Reaction commands are vital to boss fights, and are a quick kill on certain heartless and nobodies. For example: the nobodies, Berserkers, have very high defenses and attacks that deal a massive amount of damage that you can’t counter. They have the reaction command called Berserk. This is where you grab the club from the enemy and gather them up with it (they stick to the club like flies on a piece of flypaper) and Sora puts in several swings that deals massive damage to them.  He then finishes them up with one final blow at the end of the combo. This saves your HP and your time.  The trick is to just get one of them to drop its club.

Valor, Wisdom, Master, and Final are the forms Sora can use with his new clothes. However, if you use these forms too much Sora will turn into a really neat Anti-Form where he changes into the shadow form seen in the former Kingdom Hearts where Riku used the dark side to create Anti-Sora. The only thing bad about it is that you can’t control Sora’s attacks, other than telling him to attack, and the reaction commands cannot be used. However, one thing is certain, it is really cool to watch Sora run around like a heartless character and do some pretty amazing dark attacks. Drive forms are incredibly useful, and what’s neat about them is as you level them up they give you abilities that allow Sora to jump higher, slide-dash, glide, and other cool stuff. Each drive form has its own unique fighting style and abilities. Valor, the first form you get, is where Sora merges with Goofy to create a red, two Keyblade wielding Sora that is all physical attacks. You can’t use any magic in Valor form, but if you use it when your MP is low it will fill your MP bar back up to max. Wisdom is where Donald and Sora merge to get an all-magic form where Sora glides around on an invisible skateboard and uses strictly magical attacks. Master form is Valor beefed up and magic thrown in the mix. This form is mostly physical and aerial based attacks, Sora’s feet stay on the ground, and he has a cool new aerial ability where he does a tornado like attack drawing in enemies to him and then attacking with his Keyblades.  Final form is the coolest, and isn’t obtained like the others. You have to “discover” it. Once you have discovered it you have it for the rest of the game. This form teaches you the glide ability, which is crucial to the Paradox cups and the final battle. This is another form where Sora glides around and does some spectacular long-range attacks that are great for defeating nobodies.

Along with a plethora of new abilities comes a whole batch of new Keyblades. The Keyblades now have abilities attached to them unlike the first Kingdom Hearts. They also have their own unique sounds when you hit an enemy. It’s a minor detail that really adds to the game. In Halloween Town you get the Decisive Pumpkin which sounds like you hit someone with a mass of jingle bells on a stick. All the Keyblades are obtained after or before boss fights, with the exception of one, the Ultima weapon. You have to synth this deadly, but beautiful, blade from the Moogles. Fenrar, the coolest Keyblade of them all is obtained by defeating Sephroth. This Keyblade is Cloud’s buster sword gone Keyblade, and is just as big. It is defiantly worth fighting the King of all Final Fantasy Villains for. 

Last but not least are the mini games. There are three times as many mini games in this game. They are all pretty fun, that is, if you know the key to defeating them. If you choose to do proud mode, you don’t have to worry about them, but if you choose normal mode, you are going to have to complete all of them if you want the two secret endings. Jiminey’s Journal is where your scores and mini game data are kept. In order to get the secret ending you have to satisfy the journal’s requirements. That means finding all the treasure chests, world maps, meeting all the characters, performing all the limits, and defeating the mini games and the cups at the Underdome. This is time consuming, but well worth it. Just be patient, and you will have it done in no time.

There is a lot more to this game, such as gummy ships, treasures, and abilities that I could write on and on about, but I’ll save you the lecture and cut it off short. In a nutshell, if you like the Keyblade action, the Final Fantasy characters, and I guess the Disney elements, then you will like this game. It’s visually pleasing, great graphics and you just have to love the feel of the game… did I mention the Keyblades?