Playstation 2 - Kingdom Hearts II

Format
Playstation 2
Publisher
Square Enix
Developer
Square Enix
Country of origin
Japan
Genre
RPG

First Look at Kingdom Hearts II

By David Rasmussen
2nd Apr 06

Admit it! You were waiting for this one as much as the rest of us!
Chronically delayed and forever pushed back sequel Kingdom Hearts II FINALLY (FI-NA-LLY) gets a release date! It’s been months since the triad of highly anticipated RPGs (Kingdom Hearts II & Final Fantasy XII for the PS2 and Legend of Zelda : Twilight Princess for the GameCube) got delayed… probably to, evil evil evil, give Disney’s big hoohah game The Chronicles of Narnia : The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe a chance to… bleah… “shine”. But now that you’ve had a chance to taste the wares of Final Fantasy XII (via Dragon Quest VIII’s full demo) and -- well -- nobody has yet given anyone a taste of Zelda yet… and no I don’t mean like THAT… we’re now finally getting our Keyblade on with the release of the Kingdom Hearts sequel, Kingdom Hearts II!

Noted in a November 30th article as “the biggest PS2 title of the year in Japan”, Kingdom Hearts II apparently didn’t have the same problems as it did here, seeing how it supposedly hit in Japan at Christmas time but we… well, we got the shaft… thank you people who hyped Chronicles of Narnia! Anyway enough of my dislike of the Narnia game (don’t buy it), let’s talk KHII as we pop open your first look at the long awaited SquareEnix/Disney sequel.

First off, if you know a friend who can read Japanese, or just know a Japanese friend, you might have heard word of KHII man Nomura talking about KHII sporting a Tron world! This is news, especially since Disney’s been… ahh… how do I put it… “fudging” the release of a highly rumored Tron 2 game, the game that would have been the sequel to the classic Bruce Boxleitner Tron movie and would have starred Bruce Boxleitner as he reprises his role as the guy who “created” Tron (and supposedly ends up being dragged into the virtual world to “replace” Tron who has gone missing -- or something like that). Also they’ve been … fudging … yeah, fudging a possible Tron 2 movie, especially since it was rumored that the Tron 2 movie people didn’t get along with the Tron 2 video game people (or something like that).

So, then, what does a Tron world mean?
Do we have to fight Sark? Does this mean the return of the Master Computer? Will we get to play with all the pretty vehicles like light cycles and tanks and those huge flying support craft?
First off, good news… or bad in my case… the game will mean the return of the Light Cycle sequence… which sucks for me since I was never really any good at light cycle piloting as my early days with the original classic Tron game attests to in fully digital gory detail… yeah, I sucked at that.
You know the drill. You have a bike that generates a light wall, object is to wall up your enemies and cause them to crash without crashing yourself. Part racer, part strategy since you had to outwit your enemies without outwitting yourself … so to speak. I was always good at outwitting myself, just so you know.
Of course this could be one on one, or multi competitors which is madness -- but let’s not jump ahead since we don’t know what kind of challenges you’ll face in the Light Cycle arena… except for this… if you are a purist of the original Tron game from way back when (and hence a purist of the movie) you might have a bone to pick with SquareEnix/Disney because they have tampered with the classic Light Cycles!

Ok, before the torches and “I Heart Lynchmobs” shirts come flying out of storage let’s try to get some focus in on this. Specifics were not given, as you might have suspected already, but there is a promise that you will have a “similar feel” to this in concern to the original in that “walls suddenly appear and you have to avoid them while moving forward”… wait, that spells it out clearly.
Something tells me this isn’t going to be the same, but more like a -- dare we fear it -- First Challenge clone.
Yeah, I mean the First Challenge from Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire where you dodge Harry back and forth between trees to avoid an angry dragon. If it turns out to be like this, removing the sheer joy of what could have been a massive mini game speed rush, then talk about selling yourself short virtually! If you were hoping for the pure adrenaline rush of pounding a light cycle through light wall mazes while trading virtual paint with other cyclists you’ll probably be majorly bummed by the version they give you… sad.
Let’s hope the eventual release of Tron 2 brings a real light cycle melee to players hungry for the speed of old school light cycle road rage.

Now we focus more on the world of Tron (which is NOT known as Space Paranoids despite what the original article writer stated. Space Paranoids is just the tank/air vehicle subroutine, the whole of the world is the vast internet of that time and not just that one game… you know, just in case somebody asks).
If you haven’t seen this movie? Then by all means go get it… which is what the original author of the article I’m quoting should have done since he/she doesn’t seem to have all their facts straight.
Sora’s role in this level is as a “gladiator”… I guess the author means the digital combatants that fought in the “games” set forth by the Master Computer. Completing the retro look is a world filled with 80’s computer effects and -- hopefully -- an “old school” graphics presentation with everyone getting an old style Tron look to complete the trip down memory lane. The author, by the way, can’t stop telling you in his/her piece to watch the movie… and for once I agree, go get the DVD and spin it a couple of times, you’ll enjoy the game more that way… or find more ways to crucify the game once you garner some “expectations” about what a Tron world should be.

Here we go. The worlds of Kingdom Hearts II (what we’ve all been waiting for)…
World of Aladdin : Because we can‘t seem to stop going to the world of Robin Williams (who didn‘t appear in the original Kingdom Hearts) we go back once again to the Middle East and Aladdin… why? I don’t know, I didn’t really like the World of Aladdin the first time around so why go back?

World of Beauty & the Beast : We really didn’t get to go there the first time out, we only saw them at that new world and that’s it. This time out we get to go visit them in their world… does this mean the generously endowed women with the big breasts will be in town in this game? Like in the movie?

Disney Castle : Throughout the last game you never had a chance to report for “duty” at the major castle. This time out you’ll do that as you get to drop in on the place of power where Mickey holds court… or did before Kingdom Hearts (original) when he did that disappearing act.

World of Hercules : Guess that means the return of the coliseum… or maybe something more. Anyway let’s see if Danny Devito can actually drop in to do his own character this time out… can’t remember if he did the last time.

World of the Lion King : Another world we didn’t get to see because it was destroyed last time out. Now we get to get lost in the jungle (the mighty jungle) because Matthew Brodderick may or may not be asleep tonight… heck, Matthew Brodderick may or may not be in this game, and considering he WAS in the TV Series Timon & Pumbaa as Simba (aka the Kimba the White Lion clone) he should be in this game! What! Is being in Two & Half Men too much for him?!?

The World of the Little Mermaid : … guess it’s too late to say I have a mad phobia when it comes to deep water, isn’t it… another one of the worlds I wouldn’t have missed if it didn’t come back from game 1, it looks like we’re going back “under the sea”… especially if the story this time out follows the Little Mermaid sequel and the introduction of Ariel’s daughter.

The World of Mulan : Yeah. Let’s go piss off Chinese critics again by revisiting the World of Mulan!
Apparently nobody told Disney that some Chinese critics didn’t like their movie too much. Ditto for the chinese film community to the point that I heard rumors that some Chinese movie producers ran quickly to make their own versions of Mulan which, from what I heard, consisted of both a live action and possibly chinese made animated version… or something like that, news of the chinese film industry doesn’t exactly get reported on a regular basis on the sites I visit. Anyone know if any of these Mulan versions were completed and shown yet? Anyway I do expect Disney to not mess this world up, and do it right!
For Pat Morita, people! For Pat Morita!

The World of Pirates of the Caribbean : Yeah. Apparently Disney (who promised they wouldn’t make a third sequel of this movie and then went back on their word and started planning a third sequel) can’t get you into this world enough! Damn! If you liked the movie, you’ll like this… if not? Play quickly and move on to the next world.

World of Steamboat Willie : Now this, whether Disney knows it or not, might speak volumes of the state you find King Mickey in when you actually catch up to him! It seems that this hints that you, yes, do catch up to Mickey… and you are probably not going to find Mickey in a good condition!
Seems to me you’re going to go visit Mickey’s past life if there’s a Steamboat Willie world… is the king in a coma or something when you find him? Maybe that also means we’ll see other worlds like Fantasia World and so forth if we’re digging into the deep past of the mouse? Then again maybe it’s just filler content so who knows.

The Nightmare Before Christmas World : Booyah! If there was a world that I wanted to make a return to in KHII it’s this! Now that’s more like it! Go back to the world of Jack Skellington for another go in the land of Halloween Town… does this mean we have to see “Pee-wee Herman” again?

The World of Tron : No, no, no, Space Paranoids was NOT the world! It was just the subroutine for hover tanks and the air support ships. Period.

The World of Winnine the Pooh (aka Hundred Acre Woods) : I wonder if this means we’ll see the new female character in the Pooh world? They just introduced her sometime ago so I wonder if she makes an appearance in the game or not. Also I wonder if we’ll see the heffalump in this game? Anyway I thought the Hundred Acre Woods was whimsical and fun the first time out (except for certain frustrating mini games) so I’m hyped about making my return to the woods.

Kingdom Hearts Original Creations : …for a game that supposedly hyped to excess it’s ties to Final Fantasy last time around it seems to have zero Final Fantasy world content (once again)… noticed that?
Chief amongst the new lands is a place called “Twilight Town”, which seems to be a restored Hallow Bastion (where you’ll find Leon, Yuffie-chan and Cid (advocate for stop smoking campaigns in the KH universe)). Oh, and the good word is that there will be a bigger smathering of Final Fantasy characters to expect… whether or not that means we’ll get, maybe, an appearance by the Gullwings (FFX-2) or other characters from your favorite FF games… well, you’ll see when you play the game.

Now onto the thing that you probably noticed about the game.
The game, as you noticed, brings back several worlds from the original Kingdom Hearts… but what this game promises is that despite the fact that you revisit these worlds you won’t be stuck doing the same things you did back in the original Kingdom Hearts… hopefully.
However look at the worlds you are revisiting! With the exception of Winnie the Pooh and Hercules (which didn’t have sequels or, in Winnie’s case, a world which has the potential for something new every revisit) the rest of the worlds are of worlds whose sequel movies rehashed old enemies all over again! And if this game uses those sequels as fertal ground for the worlds then you are not getting much new here.
Little Mermaid sequel? Had Ursula in it. At least one Aladdin sequel had Jafar in it again. Even the Nightmare Before Christmas “sequel” (PS2’s Oogie’s Revenge) had … you know.
But here’s a taste of the new. For instance you can now play a Pooh game where you carry Pooh on your back like a backpack… damn, I wish I knew how to quit you… as you collect honey jars and avoid falling snowball… singular. Yeah, that sounds fun. Next is the world of Hercules which promises a talkative Hercules… a very talkative Hercules… stop talking, please, stop.

In the new area realm we have more promise.
Disney Castle is explorable, which is something you didn’t get to do in the first game (it was only seen via cutscenes), so I hope you like it because the work to map out this entire “world” was apparently painstaking and energy sapping on the game creators.
Of course this isn’t the only new world in Kingdom Hearts II, there’s more.
We have the years long rumored and spoken of worlds, like Pirates of the Caribbean and Mulan.
But we also have new never before spoken (or seldomn spoken) worlds like Tron and Steamboat Willie (going back to the b/w look with classic audio… though whether or not this means you’re getting into King’s Mickey’s head or not to see this is something else).
And then’s there is The Lion King… we only saw Simba as a summoning creature last time, but now we get to spend time in his world… yeah, I hope James Earl Jones shows up too… wait, not happening, dammit.
Of course if you want to look at the skies and wait to see Simba’s dad’s spirit yelling “NNnooooo….” then… oh, wait, that’s Star Wars Episode III : Revenge of the Sith.
Well, according to the original article on the game this was supposed to have been in the original game! But the original KH game engine apparently wasn’t very good with four legged characters… or maybe it just had a grudge against Kimba the White Lion ripoffs… anyway it didn’t make it in the original but it’s here.
Taking center stage (because the writer has a mermaid fetish it seems) is the Little Mermaid world (from the original game). In KHII you are promised that the Little Mermaid world will be a “special world, where progression is almost entirely through events and music.”… I’m afraid now.
It can only get worst as Kingdom Hearts man Nomura says we can look forward to a recreation of the big award winning song Under the Sea (from the original Little Mermaid)! That’s just great in my opinion, because we were waiting forever for that… right after we get cast as extras in Advent Rising 2 : The Return of the Million Dollar Lie for the Xbox360... Yeah.
Let’s see… the underwater battles from the original (which was a pain in the butt due to the fact that water combat provides way too much freedom of movement which just didn’t work out well). That sounds good, right? Instead that this has been replaced by “musical battle”… uh… this isn’t going to be like rhythm mini games, is it? Won’t remind me of Rave Master for the PS2 will it? Huh? Oh, and Sora changes form in a few of these worlds… aka I guess you’re back to being a mermaid in this game.

It’s the way this change works in new worlds that is important to check out.
For instance in Steamboat Willie you’ll find yourself (Sora) as classic retro Sora… yeah, that means you look old school though you play the same as before.
In the Lion King world Sora becomes… a lion cub! CUTE!! And look! There’s Sakaki and she wants to pet him…. Oh, wait, not happening. Damn. However this is cool since it means you have a whole new means to do your work (no drive moves in this world) so be mindful of your limitations in this world.

As in the original we’ll have characters appear who don’t have their own worlds, and by that I don’t just mean the Final Fantasy characters who Disney seems (bleep bleep) to make Final Fantasy worlds for.
Hopefully this means we won’t be looking for 101 Damnations… uh… I mean Dalmatians… uh, right.
Promised appearances will be Yensid… yeah, yeah, “Disney” backwards (evil)… from Fantasia.
And you get to summon…Lilo & Stitch? Does this come with a free chicken katsu plate lunch?

So far there’s only word on a few areas of the game. If you’ve seen any of a number of clips and images from the game you’ve seen a taste of a boss battle, or looks at a world, or something… but nothing to combine all these little tastes into a big final thought.
Let’s see what I can gather together on the game.
First off shooting with the Gummi Ship returns… Gummi Ship… tasty… anyway this time it’s supposed to be better than the shooting sequences in the last game, with sequences like “Ancient Highway” and “Phantom Storm” I guess we’re going to get better than we have in the past.
As in the original game these sequences link world to world… until you get ahold of a Warp Drive then you can skip these when traveling between worlds you’ve already went to. Anyway this should be fun.
Next is word on Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas world.
In a new twist it looks like Jack wants to rule over the land of Christmas… uh… that’s new? Anyway things go horribly wrong faster than you can say “Golden Ticket” and you end up in the blender… again. Waitaminute, didn’t he do that in the movie… oh, yeah, he did.
The world is supposed to look nice (as nice as the rest of the KHII worlds), you are supposed to have a combo move to do with Jack, and everything falls into place nicely here.

Now, about those Final Fantasy characters. Let’s see who made it back (or whose new).
Cloud - Yeah, the guy from Final Fantasy VII is back again.
Aerith - Yahhh!… uh, yeah, she’s back too (Final Fantasy VII).
Yuna - Uh? You mean Yuna from Final Fantasy X & X-2? Really? Cool.
Rikku - …I take it you mean the cute Rikku from Final Fantasy X & X-2 and NOT the loser from Kingdom Hearts… right?
Paine - Hey! Guess that means we’re having a Gullwings reunion in FF-X2... Can we play sphera?
Leon - You know that one already.

Oh, and MICKEY is in this game… uh… isn’t he a main character or something… so why is the author of the original article so surprised about Mickey being in this game. Oh, Mickey ACTUALLY APPEARS in the GAME… and not just hinted at or does a cameo… ok. And Mickey actually fights in this game… wow.
Let’s see, who else is in this game. Oh, I know! Summons! Summons! Let’s talk summons!
Because the people at Kingdom Hearts couldn’t, I don’t know, give you COOL summons like Behemoth or that giant dragon one (whatsitsname), you get stuck with such summons as…
Peter Pan - Because we could all use a boy who can’t grow up in our lives… and because Michael Jackson moved to Bahrain so we have to make do with what we got.
Lilo - Uh… don’t you mean Stitch… what is her power again, the power to … what… hula?
Chicken Little - Because you do need to eat… oh, wait, forgot about the H5N1 virus… maybe he’ll make the sky fall or something.
Of course if they could work in Chicken Little in this game that means they could work in Ariel’s daughter (doesn’t look like it though) or (more recently) the new female character in the Winnie the Pooh series. I wouldn’t count on it, of course, but just in case…

There are also mini games.
Sora on a Skateboard… what? Why?!?
Sora plying his light cycle skills in the Tron world… uh-huh.
Sora trying out his new Persian in an Agrabah flying carpet sequence… right.
A 3D Winnine the Pooh mini game… oh, joy.
Oh, and for those of you hip to the Japanese music scene we have Utada Hikaru belting out Passion… which will probably be as big a hit as the original game’s theme song was.

Otherwise there’s supposed to be a new layer of gameplay to ooh and ahh over.
New drive moves to summon and join with other characters in combo attack moves is the highlight of the newness of gameplay, which is supposed to be “pretty amazing” and show off the effort that went into the development of the game… so much so that I guess you are suppose to be forgiving of the long length of time it took for the game to come out because of all these new innovations. We’ll see if you’re that charitable when the game releases.

However the first days of the Japanese release yielded the first problem that might plague players.
After a few hours of playing the game it seems that the original reviewer had a hard time getting away from Twilight Town (the launching point of the game). This might be bad if you have to play several hours just to get off planet (which wasn’t the case in the original where, once you got the hang of it, you were off and world hopping within the first hour or two.
Reports of fighting early on is mentioned, but the start of the game is basically reported as slow as you end up getting fed instructions on how to control Sora, as well as background story (linking this to the original and Chain of Memories). So that means basically you don’t need to throw down $30 or so dollars for Chain of Memories since this game will tell you all about that one without you having to buy it. Lucky you!
Of course if you are a Kingdom Hearts fanatic or want all three games at once hope that the release in English comes with a “Trinity” set, which should be about $150 and have all three titles (Kingdom Hearts, KH : Chain of Memories & Kingdom Hearts 2) in one set. Of course this has only been done in Japan so whether or not you’ll find a Trinity set in English release remains to be seen.

However if you do want to know what’s going on… I don’t know. Damn original article writer won’t say, he/she is treating it like “The Crying Game” or something… though hopefully not like “The Crying Game”, if you know what I mean… you don’t, do you… that’s ok, never mind.
Hint : The game kicks down your expectations right off the bat with “surprises” about Sora, whether you wanted surprises about Sora or not.

For you tech junkies Kingdom Heart II offers up the latest in customizing gameplay… but not in the right way. Yeah, you can choose to play the game in Pro Logic II audio, you can’t make a Progressive Scan option ala Shadow of the Colossus or other most recent releases. That sucks. Sure, I don’t have those options but it still sucks if you do. Otherwise you’ll be happy to know KHII is a vast improvement in all areas in comparison to the original Kingdom Hearts, so you’ll be happy with this in at least that dept.
You’ll also have the ability to customize the gameplay in three options. Easy, standard and proud (hard level). Also while you play the game you can set the command window to retro KH style or a special KHII style where each world affects the command window’s style (to fit the world you’re in).
Also in this game, unlike the original, you can move and act in First Person mode (which should be good if you can fight like this which will make certain battles smoother -- or not since you constantly get bumped back into 3rd person mode when you try to lock on).

Finally we have your shopping list of talent in the game. Will it hit, or miss?
I only wish the person who wrote the original piece matched characters to names… that would have been nice since I don’t have a Who’s Who of Kingdom Hearts dictionary on hand with me right now.
Haley Joel Osment (of The Sixth Sense & The Country Bears) as Sora.
David Gallagher (of 7th Heaven & Angels in the Endzone… yeah, the movie that tried to capitalize on the success of the Christopher Lloyd/Danny Glover movie Angels in the Outfield) as Riku (male).
Hayden Panettiere (of Racing Stripes & Bring It On 3... The direct to DVD disaster) as everyone’s favorite yet seldomly seen female character Kairi.

Also included in the cast…
Christopher Lee (Lord of the Rings trilogy)
Rachael Leigh Cook (nostalgia bomb Josie & the Pussycats and The House of Yes)
Mena Suvari (American Beauty & American Pie)
Jesse McCartney (pop singer and twice nominated for Daytime Emmy for All My Children)
James Woods returns as Hades.
Zach Braff returns as Chicken Little… really. Guess his work in Scrubs isn’t keeping him busy enough.
Utada Hikaru returns to sing the game’s opening credit song. In this case the English version will be “Sanctuary”, an English version of the original Japanese theme “Passion” written just for this game.

And that, as they say, is that. Hopefully this has given you an idea…
Oh, who am I kidding! Like NintenDogs (Nintendo DS) one look at this game has already spoken volumes as to whether you’ll be jumping onto the bandwagon or not! Either your in or not.
The game retails for $50 and goes on sale at the end of March in America… however when the UK release of the game is is something I have no idea on… sorry. I’ll see if I can dig up some news for you on that from some sites concerning when a possible UK version will roll out.
Me? That’s that for me. I’m out of here. I’ll be reviewing this soon to completion so stay tuned!

-- David Rasmussen 2nd Apr 06

Playstation 2 Kingdom Hearts II Images