KH 2 Journal I

Okay, let's see how this goes. I got the call at about 2 from EB that I could go pick up my game, but I was busy with Jackie at the time elsewhere, and since my life was about to be sucked up by the exploits of Sora and Co., I decided I should show her a little extra attention. I got to the mall as soon as possible, though, picked up my game, and asked about the special "limted edition" version of the guidebook. Apparently, I couldn't have that one unless I preordered it. Thanks for telling me that in advance, EB. x_x! I grabbed a copy of the regular guide, with the promise that if anyone didn't pick up their guide after 48 hours, I'd get a call to get that one. I wasn't planning on using the guide, just looking at the artbook, but I'm a sucker for spoilers. I may well take a peek in (at least for the parts I've already done.)

So anyway, I didn't end up getting the game home until about 4. I immediately put it in the PS2 and started a file. For a bit of an idea as to my experience, I've got what you might call a killer set-up at home. 5.1 Bose speaker system, S-Video inputs all around, and to top it all off, a gigantic 72 inch WIDE projection screen. Yeah, that's 6' feet across. I'm not sure about the diagonal, though I could figure it out if so inclined... It's not HD or nuthin', but I don't have an X-Box 360. This is probably about the best thing you could do for a PS2, more or less. And I've gotta say, Kingdom Hearts 2, at least (not to mention the first KH, and all the other games I've played on it for that matter) looks fantastic on it. The full motion video at the beginning was a treat, though it was a little disorienting to hear Passion- er, Sanctuary- sung in English, and I think I still prefer the Japanese version over it, even though I have no idea what's being said. But pretty much the visual and audio representation of the game is just perfect for my purposes. No complaints there.

I do have one complaint, though, one that shows up a lot at the beginning, which is heavily story-oriented. A lot of the voice acting is, well... sub-par. This is a Disney game, right? The people who made some of the best animated movies of all time? Granted, it's by Square too, and I've had some troubles with the acting in their other games. I think, mostly, that's where the trouble lies. All the Disney characters, especially the one's whose roles have been reprised by the original actors, do great jobs. And Haley Joel Osmand has improved his Sora voice as well, which is to be expected from experience. But... well, when you play the game, get ready to cringe at every word Aerith says to you. Something ain't right with that girl. A few of the other Final Fantasy characters in Hollow Basteon have similar problems, though not as bad as Aerith's. It seems that Square-Enix decided to get "star quality" actors for their characters, not realizing that most of their acting experience comes from live-action, working in a real environment with real people. When I listen to a lot of the people talking in Hollow Basteon (Leon comes to mind, now), its really very obvious that the lines are being read off a script by a person who feels that this silly video game isn't really worth their time, or just doesn't understand the game and what they're talking about. I suppose it'll be a while before video games are taken seriously by mainstream Hollywood, especially one about Mickey, Donald, and Goofy fighting off the darkness in people's hearts across a plethora of Disney themed worlds. Ah well. All in good time, I suppose. By the way, I have to say that this isn't a major thing. Christy Carlson Ramano (Kim Possible / Yuffie), for one, does a great job, as do most of the others. I guess, though, it just takes a few bad apples to spoil a good experience.

Okay, enough about the cinematic experience. On to the game. By the way, I'm playing on the Normal level, though in retrospect, I might have wanted pick Easy, since I'm mostly in it for the story. Ah well, struggling for the happy ending will make it all the better.

****SPOILERS!!!! THE WHOLE LOT OF 'EM!********

Twilight Town


I started out as Roxas, a seemingly-normal kid in a seemingly-normal town. Lemme summerize this section of the game by saying this: LONGEST. TUTORIAL. EVAR! Seriously, I think it was about 3 and a half hours for me before I got through the Roxas section of the game. Granted, I ended up pausing the game a bunch because I had a few distractions to deal with, but still, that's a three-hour tutorial. Actually, that's not fair. It is more than a tutorial. Dive into the Heart from the first KH was a tutorial. Twilight Town had a bunch of other goals to accomplish.

Recap what happened in the first game, plus hint / remind us of the events in Chain of Memories.

Introduce a whole new character (Roxas) and his world.

Set up the upcoming storyline.

Hint at what all became of a few key characters from the first game.

Act as a whole level upon itself.

I wanna say they did this all pretty well. I suppose the only part of Twilight Town I have an issue with, really, is the section where Roxas needs to do odd jobs to raise money. He needs to raise 800 munny, but he only has 3 jobs to choose from, each with a MAXIMUM payoff of 50. You started off with maybe 150 munny from the one enemy you've killed so far in the game, leaving you with 650 munny to accumulate. Assuming you can do each of the jobs as well as required (I didn't), you need to preform 13 of the tasks. And, since each task kicks you back to the overworld when you're done, you have to go through the menu system of applying. The jobs themselves aren't really difficult (okay, that one ball juggling one was), but they are tedius, and doing them 15 times in a row is even more-so.

However, aside from that one little bit of practice / torture, the rest of the level plays out fairly straightforward. Most of the tasks are simply "Go from point A to point B and watch a cutscene / kill a few easy guys". Again, this is a prologue. You're not in the main game yet, and there's a story to be told here. The storyline was rather interesting to watch, seeing Roxas' world fall apart around him and sharing in his confusion. And most of the tasks, while simple, were also rather fun to do. One of the best events here was in Roxas' own version of "Dive into the Heart", where he fights a gigantic Nobody reminiscent of Darkside from the original Kingdom Hearts. However, rather than it being a simple case of "go to boss, hit repeatedly, don't get hit back, repeat," this boss fight made great use of the new reaction commands. Using the Triangle button on cue preforms more complicated, though basically scripted, actions, turning the battle from a dull case of whittling down an HP bar into a near cinematic experience of tumbling, dodging, and using spectacular special attacks. It was really fun to play and watch, even if it was just a case of hitting the triangle button every couple of seconds.

So anyway, eventually Roxas' tale ended just as Sora woke up. After another quick tutorial session featuring a new outfit and some new special powers, plus an improved gummy ship, which is very spiffy, we were off, headed to:

Hollow Bastion

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I've already said my piece on the characters here, and mostly that's all there is to this level. You show up, get the ability to use magic again (finally) and get to figure out what everyone in town is up to just in time for you to duck out on all the hard work. Of course, not before you have a tough event battle where you fight off waves of nobodies to guard a gate. This game introduced a new concept to me, at least different from what I was expecting. In the origial game, the only inanimate object with a life bar was the controls for Alice's cage in Wonderland. Here, life bars have been handed out willy nilly (at least to gates). There are a few levels where your job is not just to defeat all the enemies, but to keep them from breaking through a gate or door. I gotta say, I hate these missions. Seriously hate them. I have no problem keeping myself alive in a fight, but having to defend a door is a little tricky. Ah well. Once you finish them off, you get a little story mode, then head off to new worlds.

The new gummi ship is, I have to say, a real treat to fly. It's BASICALLY the same thing, only the camera shifts around for you, and it's in general a more exciting ship to play. I also like that, after you clear a path once, you don't need to wait for any "warp drives" or anything. You just choose the world you wanna get to, and you go there. No problems. A great improvement over the origial. Anyway, after tooling around in the gummi ship for a while and clearing everything I could, I headed for

The Land Of Dragons

There was a fork in the rood, and I wanted to start in the Beast's Castle, but the dragon land was looking to be set for a lower level character. I'm really glad I did, too, because Mulan's world was just barely my speed. I had a blast playing it, though. I've never actually watched Mulan (maybe I'll get Clara to watch it with me tomorrow morning), but the level gave a pretty quick summary of the story. I'm not gonna go over it here, because a basic summary of a basic summary would be retarded. Anyway, the one thing I was disappointed with was that the level went through pretty short. Granted (after looking at the guide) I know there's a little more to do, but considering that it took me almost 4 and a half hours to get out of Twilight Town, I was a little disapointed that I'd managed to clear (at least initially) two worlds in less than half that time. Oh well. It means more time for the other worlds tomorrow evening. Until then...