Also for: Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox One
Finally, as I plow through the history of Kingdom Hearts-games, I feel
like I'm getting my money's worth. In the months leading up to this entry I've
endured two games of mediocre to bad quality (the original PS2-classic
Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories, respectively)
and one cinematic retelling (the Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days "movie") of
previous events.
In several crucial ways, Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix succeeds where previous entries failed. It distributes its emotional tides well across the playthrough, keeping my interest alive in spite of the confusing and, let's be honest, downright bad story. More importantly, it rectifies most flaws in both controls and level design, making it a frictionless game to actually play.
Like traditional JRPG:s, this is a mix of world exploration, combat and mini-games, all tied together by a melodramatic storyline. Once again, you control the keyblade-wielding boy Sora (voiced by Haley Joel Osment) on a grand adventure across a number of Disney-themed worlds. The royal knight Goofy (Bill Farmer) and court wizard Donald Duck (Tony Anselmo) accompany him as he keeps looking for his lost friends Riku and Kairi, as well as Mickey Mouse, the absent king of Disney Castle. Darkness looms over every world they visit, and Sora must seal it away using the power of his keyblade.
The charm of Kingdom Hearts II lies in nostalgia - of reconnecting with childhood favorites like Donald, Goofy, Ariel and Simba as well as Final Fantasy-characters like Cloud, Aerith, Auron and Vivi. Their parts are small, but their impact might be immense, depending on your familiarity with them. One of the game's highlights is going totally blind into any world, wondering what sort of challenges and wonders it may hold. The substories told within each one summarize the movie upon which it is based, neatly weaving Sora and his companions into the mix.
Since the end of the first mainline game, a new threat has emerged beside the Heartless. They call themselves Nobodies, and are former humans devoid of feelings. To fully understand their role you need to have played the Chain of Memories fiasco and watched the nearly 3-hour narrative recap Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days (or played the Nintendo DS game of the same name). Both of these take place simultaneously and lead up to the events of Kingdom Hearts II - although 358/2 Days was originally released afterwards, as a prequel.
You see, the bewildering saga of Kingdom Hearts is like a running gag - a russian doll of stories inside of stories and realities inside of realities. It feels like the baby steps of A.I.-generated storytelling. Almost every line of dialogue is expository, explaining one thing only to raise a handful of new questions. It involves way too many characters, their motivations are vague, the plot is structurally confused, and the writers fail to create a ruleset of what is or is not possible within its universe.
Just watch YouTube-comedian dunkey valiantly attempt to summarize the series in around four minutes. Most of what he says is true (only the Tigger, Pumbaa and Eeyore remarks are jokes):
Individual scenes can be great, but the overarching plot makes absolutely no sense. And all the exposition might scare players away from making their own interpretations. All you can do is go along for the ride and hope the words chime in with the melodies to form some sort of musical odyssey. It speaks directly to your feelings - not to your intellect or reason.
The way it succeeds more often than it should is a testament to the genius of composer Yoko Shimomura. Her work elevates the dialogue to levels that must have surprised even the writers themselves. She almost single-handedly carries this game as an emotional rollercoaster of a journey.
This nonsensical approach is why you play the first few hours as an unknown boy called Roxas, resident of a paradise called Twilight Town, as you try to learn the control scheme and different mechanics. He's trying to solve a mystery concerning a thief of photographs. The culprit not only steals the photos - he steals the word 'photo', too, making it impossible to utter. Roxas' pursuit brings him on a wild goose chase that eventually restores things to their natural order, and you once again get to play as Sora.
One problem with Kingdom Hearts II is that this glimpse of Roxas' sad fate is so effectively told, it becomes the emotional heart of the story. Afterwards, Sora and his friends feel comparatively dull. Although Roxas plays an important part in what unfolds, he gets brushed aside, and is mostly just referred to in some of the countless plot expositions. He deserves a better treatment, which I suppose only adds to his tragedy.
Story problems aside, Kingdom Hearts II is a fun, engaging action-RPG. I'm impressed by the handling of skills as they relate to your combat performance. By levelling up and defeating certain bosses, you quickly gain an assortment of useful abilities. However, to activate them you need to distribute your hard-earned ability points. You never have enough to activate all skills simultaneously, so you need to prioritize and redistribute according to the situation.
This approach reminds me of driving simulators, and the way you optimize your car for the upcoming race. With a few alterations, you can transform from a fighter to a mage or a tank. However, on the normal difficulty setting, Kingdom Hearts II rarely warrants much experimentation. Most battles you can win by spamming the attack button. This trivializes much of the well-conceived combat system, and also leaves you unprepared for a few difficulty spikes.
On the plus side, this ease adds great pace and fluidity to story progression. You rarely hit a wall, and the few times you do feel like important moments that deserve to leave their mark. Besides, even though repeatedly pressing the 'X'-button hardly feels cool, the astounding animations certainly makes it look cool. And to further aid progression, Square Enix no longer attempts to make elaborate 3D level designs. Simple corridors replace the awful, maze-like world structures from previous games. Precise platforming is also mostly gone, and jumping exists primarily as a way to avoid enemy attacks.
The handful of wizard spells you can cast are a little underwhelming, but in a losing battle you have other ways to shift the power balance. Summoning help from allies (like Peter Pan, Chicken Little or Stitch) is one, unleashing severely damaging limit breaks is another. The third, most intriguing, is the system of drive forms, which allow you to unlock Sora's full potential for a moment. Some allow you to dual-wield keyblades. Others greatly amplify your magical powers. All of them boost movement.
In spite of an endless amount of tutorials, the game fails to give players some vital instructions. Drive forms can be upgraded by different means, and by doing so, their powers seep into Sora's ordinary skillset. Some of these are almost required to win certain boss fights. For instance, even close to the end I thought the dodge-roll was unobtainable outside of drive forms, which is not the case.
Nevertheless, I'm glad to witness the promises of the series finally come into fruition. Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix wins by a thousand cuts - it contains loads of smaller parts that work together well enough to carry the player through to the end. It's a gift that keeps on giving. The artful presentation should convince any player to give the story the benefit of the doubt. Skilled players can prove themselves in optional hidden areas and crazy boss fights hidden away in the universe. Simply put, there is something here for everyone.
Kingdom Hearts II is how far I got back in the days, before the prolonged wait for Kingdom Hearts III made the entire series fade into obscurity. As it finally arrived I'd lost all interest in going back. Watching story recaps hardly jogged my memory.
Only by finally replaying Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix do I remember the appeal. It's in all those small moments, like Donald and Goofy discovering how they looked in the 1930:s. Or Sora failing to grasp why he's heartbroken about leaving Twilight Town for the first time. Or finally tweaking my abilities just right to beat that hooded boss in The World That Never Was.
And whenever the story loses its hold over me, I can just shut my eyes, zone out and absorb that wonderful music. At its best, Kingdom Hearts II works like a dream of reliving youth, and unlike previous titles, it's the best moments that linger in my mind.
In several crucial ways, Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix succeeds where previous entries failed. It distributes its emotional tides well across the playthrough, keeping my interest alive in spite of the confusing and, let's be honest, downright bad story. More importantly, it rectifies most flaws in both controls and level design, making it a frictionless game to actually play.
Like traditional JRPG:s, this is a mix of world exploration, combat and mini-games, all tied together by a melodramatic storyline. Once again, you control the keyblade-wielding boy Sora (voiced by Haley Joel Osment) on a grand adventure across a number of Disney-themed worlds. The royal knight Goofy (Bill Farmer) and court wizard Donald Duck (Tony Anselmo) accompany him as he keeps looking for his lost friends Riku and Kairi, as well as Mickey Mouse, the absent king of Disney Castle. Darkness looms over every world they visit, and Sora must seal it away using the power of his keyblade.
The charm of Kingdom Hearts II lies in nostalgia - of reconnecting with childhood favorites like Donald, Goofy, Ariel and Simba as well as Final Fantasy-characters like Cloud, Aerith, Auron and Vivi. Their parts are small, but their impact might be immense, depending on your familiarity with them. One of the game's highlights is going totally blind into any world, wondering what sort of challenges and wonders it may hold. The substories told within each one summarize the movie upon which it is based, neatly weaving Sora and his companions into the mix.
Since the end of the first mainline game, a new threat has emerged beside the Heartless. They call themselves Nobodies, and are former humans devoid of feelings. To fully understand their role you need to have played the Chain of Memories fiasco and watched the nearly 3-hour narrative recap Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days (or played the Nintendo DS game of the same name). Both of these take place simultaneously and lead up to the events of Kingdom Hearts II - although 358/2 Days was originally released afterwards, as a prequel.
You see, the bewildering saga of Kingdom Hearts is like a running gag - a russian doll of stories inside of stories and realities inside of realities. It feels like the baby steps of A.I.-generated storytelling. Almost every line of dialogue is expository, explaining one thing only to raise a handful of new questions. It involves way too many characters, their motivations are vague, the plot is structurally confused, and the writers fail to create a ruleset of what is or is not possible within its universe.
Just watch YouTube-comedian dunkey valiantly attempt to summarize the series in around four minutes. Most of what he says is true (only the Tigger, Pumbaa and Eeyore remarks are jokes):
Individual scenes can be great, but the overarching plot makes absolutely no sense. And all the exposition might scare players away from making their own interpretations. All you can do is go along for the ride and hope the words chime in with the melodies to form some sort of musical odyssey. It speaks directly to your feelings - not to your intellect or reason.
The way it succeeds more often than it should is a testament to the genius of composer Yoko Shimomura. Her work elevates the dialogue to levels that must have surprised even the writers themselves. She almost single-handedly carries this game as an emotional rollercoaster of a journey.
This nonsensical approach is why you play the first few hours as an unknown boy called Roxas, resident of a paradise called Twilight Town, as you try to learn the control scheme and different mechanics. He's trying to solve a mystery concerning a thief of photographs. The culprit not only steals the photos - he steals the word 'photo', too, making it impossible to utter. Roxas' pursuit brings him on a wild goose chase that eventually restores things to their natural order, and you once again get to play as Sora.
One problem with Kingdom Hearts II is that this glimpse of Roxas' sad fate is so effectively told, it becomes the emotional heart of the story. Afterwards, Sora and his friends feel comparatively dull. Although Roxas plays an important part in what unfolds, he gets brushed aside, and is mostly just referred to in some of the countless plot expositions. He deserves a better treatment, which I suppose only adds to his tragedy.
Story problems aside, Kingdom Hearts II is a fun, engaging action-RPG. I'm impressed by the handling of skills as they relate to your combat performance. By levelling up and defeating certain bosses, you quickly gain an assortment of useful abilities. However, to activate them you need to distribute your hard-earned ability points. You never have enough to activate all skills simultaneously, so you need to prioritize and redistribute according to the situation.
This approach reminds me of driving simulators, and the way you optimize your car for the upcoming race. With a few alterations, you can transform from a fighter to a mage or a tank. However, on the normal difficulty setting, Kingdom Hearts II rarely warrants much experimentation. Most battles you can win by spamming the attack button. This trivializes much of the well-conceived combat system, and also leaves you unprepared for a few difficulty spikes.
On the plus side, this ease adds great pace and fluidity to story progression. You rarely hit a wall, and the few times you do feel like important moments that deserve to leave their mark. Besides, even though repeatedly pressing the 'X'-button hardly feels cool, the astounding animations certainly makes it look cool. And to further aid progression, Square Enix no longer attempts to make elaborate 3D level designs. Simple corridors replace the awful, maze-like world structures from previous games. Precise platforming is also mostly gone, and jumping exists primarily as a way to avoid enemy attacks.
The handful of wizard spells you can cast are a little underwhelming, but in a losing battle you have other ways to shift the power balance. Summoning help from allies (like Peter Pan, Chicken Little or Stitch) is one, unleashing severely damaging limit breaks is another. The third, most intriguing, is the system of drive forms, which allow you to unlock Sora's full potential for a moment. Some allow you to dual-wield keyblades. Others greatly amplify your magical powers. All of them boost movement.
In spite of an endless amount of tutorials, the game fails to give players some vital instructions. Drive forms can be upgraded by different means, and by doing so, their powers seep into Sora's ordinary skillset. Some of these are almost required to win certain boss fights. For instance, even close to the end I thought the dodge-roll was unobtainable outside of drive forms, which is not the case.
Nevertheless, I'm glad to witness the promises of the series finally come into fruition. Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix wins by a thousand cuts - it contains loads of smaller parts that work together well enough to carry the player through to the end. It's a gift that keeps on giving. The artful presentation should convince any player to give the story the benefit of the doubt. Skilled players can prove themselves in optional hidden areas and crazy boss fights hidden away in the universe. Simply put, there is something here for everyone.
Kingdom Hearts II is how far I got back in the days, before the prolonged wait for Kingdom Hearts III made the entire series fade into obscurity. As it finally arrived I'd lost all interest in going back. Watching story recaps hardly jogged my memory.
Only by finally replaying Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix do I remember the appeal. It's in all those small moments, like Donald and Goofy discovering how they looked in the 1930:s. Or Sora failing to grasp why he's heartbroken about leaving Twilight Town for the first time. Or finally tweaking my abilities just right to beat that hooded boss in The World That Never Was.
And whenever the story loses its hold over me, I can just shut my eyes, zone out and absorb that wonderful music. At its best, Kingdom Hearts II works like a dream of reliving youth, and unlike previous titles, it's the best moments that linger in my mind.
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