Kingdom Hearts II
Typically, I’m leery of sequels in general. I was obliged to observe the play of Kingdom Hearts II originally by an ex-boyfriend of mine who was a fan of the first one. I had watched him play that and it was possibly the only one that I had actually displayed any interest in, so he was keen to actually have something else which we would both be interested. (Does anyone wonder why he’s now an ex?) Aside from that, if one is even moderately interested in video games, it is nearly impossible to avoid sequels nowadays. Final Fantasy XIII, anyone?
Eventually I did play it myself. Of course, since I don’t enjoy 40+ hours of constant frustration, I played it first on Beginner Mode and more recently on Standard Mode. Having seen the difference between both versions, it seems that both are reasonably segmented in difficulty. Beginner Mode was too easy for me, even the first time, but I was insistent that I would finish it since I had started it. I think I would be most comfortable somewhere between Standard Mode and Proud Mode - which was far too hard for me.
Gameplay in KHII is incredibly improved. Options were added to allow for manual camera adjustment and even if I found that the camera automatically liked to settle a bit lower than preferred, if I was willing to keep my thumb on the control stick at all times, it would stay up where I wanted it. The fact that I could move it around as necessary was a much needed improvement and I am glad that Square-Enix took that to heart. The Gummi Ship levels still exist but don’t appear to be quite as hacked together as they were in KHI. They’re still annoying, but if nothing else, much prettier. All the same, they are extraneous and not required except to open the paths between worlds.
Easily the most annoying part of the game at first is getting used to the reaction commands, particularly when going directly from KHI to KHII with no game or time gap in between. The X button was the main button for use in KHI, whereas some events might require an X in KHII, while others require the triangle key. I got very good at pressing this key through the course of the game, as some battles require very quick fingers with it to even hope to win.
I started play with the same expectations as everyone else who had played Kingdom Hearts I: I would be reacquainted with Sora, Kairi and Riku and for some reason we would be playing Sora and be apart from Kairi and Riku. I started the game and look, there’s a blonde-haired boy, ahhh, I’ve begun.
It doesn’t take long to realize that, while their facial structures are similar, the boy who we start out playing and Sora are not one and the same. So, if this is Kingdom Hearts and Sora is to save the worlds again, who the hell is this? The story for the first three hours or so (depending on how fast you decide to play it could probably take less time, but each time I’ve played it has taken me around three hours or more to get to the part where things start to make sense) is convoluted and confusing. You get bits of story here and there and particularly if you haven’t played Chain of Memories (which I have not), it can be puzzling at best. Eventually, things do become a bit clearer and after what seems like days of cut scenes and monologuing, we get to the actual plot of the game. It involves Nobodys, the Heartless from the first Kingdom Hearts game making a reappearance, the magical reappearance of Maleficent, and Organization XIII.
The story itself is alright. There is enough motivation to move forward through the plot and unlike Kingdom Hearts I, things seem straightforward enough to follow through the game. There isn’t as much guesswork as to what comes next. Players are free to choose which worlds they want to do next and traipze around between chapters as much as they like. The story kind of pulls itself through, and of course we do get Sora eventually, as well as some new clothes for Sora, who appears to have grown a full foot in the year that apparently passed since the end of the last game.
The trinities which seemed to take up half of my gameplay time in KHI (just trying to find some of them!) are absent from KHII and I can’t say they’re much missed. Treasure chests are all over the game and while some are very necessary to find in order to progress through the game, most are just trinkets used for synthesis or items which very quickly become useless as you synthesize new ones.
Summons return in this one and are equally as annoying as they were in KHI. They are, I think, more useful somehow in this one, though. Forms show up here, and they’re annoying on the one hand and incredibly useful on the other. It’s a part of the gameplay which seems to take away from the story unless you’re willing (and thinking far enough ahead) to try to level them up during regular gameplay rather than realizing later that you need to do it. My favored forms are Final Form (which seemed to take me hours of specifically trying to spawn it to actually get - it’s a randomly acquired form) and Master Form, which is both strong on attack and magic. The skills that go with them are nice, too. Glide is a great skill to have, even if we had no Peter Pan world through which to acquire it. Forms are quite nice, though, and I hope to see them in a KHIII, should there ever actually be a specific KHIII.
Really, I think one could say that despite the story being a bit odd and confusing in spots, II far exceeds I in graphic quality, background music, gameplay functions and overall interest. Sure, the original Disney characters are bastardized to force a story through, but who wouldn’t expect that? It’s a game that I think I could play through completely at least once more and as someone who considers herself only a peripheral gamer, I think that’s saying something.
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