Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

[Spongedaddy]

I loved the first Kingdom Hearts. It suffered from a few problems (camera, japan rpg cliche of fighting the same boss several times, etc.) but it was a wonderful game that my kids and I could both enjoy. I love a good story in a game and KH provided that. So even though I have my new 360 toy, I could not resist playing KH 2 and I am glad I did.

I have played about four hours of the game and the production levels are through the roof. I never got to play KH Chain of Memories on the GB so I was a little lost on what happened between KH 1 and 2 but the game did an excellent job on filling me in. The combat is the same, but the camera works a little bit better than the first game. Square has also implemented special action moves that can be triggered when fighting certain enemies. I still haven't figured if you can use these moves all the time, but it adds some fun to the combat. There are some mysteries in the first three hours or so, but I wont add any spoilers here.

It has been hard for me to play the PS2 since I purchased my 360. The high-def graohics and clarity are a dream come true. However, KH 2 has such a great style that the "step down" in graphics doesn't bother me a bit. Also the music and voice acting is excellent. I did not think that anything would have pulled me away from Oblivion this month, at least not until baseball hits the 360, but KH 2 has sucked me in. I want to know what happens next and to me that is a big time quality I want from a game.

[Rodster]

Re: Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

I know whatcha mean. I feel the same way about my 360 but I broke down and bought Dragon Quest VIII the other day, awesome awesome game.

I've never played any KH games but all the reviews say just like you did the production values are high while they mention the game is on the easy side. DQVIII on the other hand is a very challenging game.

[goh]

Re: Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

I have no intrest in it but a friend has it and she says it's really fun and great after the 3 hour tutorial.

[chknwang321]

Re: Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

I loved the first kingdom hearts and beat it. I bought kingdom hearts 2, but i havent played it yet. Im gonna wait to start playing it untill i finish with oblivion and far cry.

I dont want to be in the middle of two time consuming rpg's at once

[aukevin]

Re: Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

I've enjoyed it quite a bit. I got it Friday night and have played it a good bit. I'm at about 12 hours of gametime and am at Hercules' area. The tutorial part with Roxas was pretty fun, but I was happy when I finally finished that part. There have been a couple hard parts, so that good. I think I've had to continue 3 or 4 times already.

The form changing is awesome. I am still with the Valor form, but it awesome and you can really kick some butt with it.

Also, I loved that one of my favorite FFX characters made a return

[Defel]

Re: Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

The first 3-4 hours were brutal for me. The tutorial with Roxas was so boring because it's just full of tedious tasks and flashbacks for the most part.

The presentation is probably the best I've ever seen in a game. The menus and title screens when you enter a new area are gorgeous. Combat is also very pleasing to the eye.

I've actually found it more difficult than the first KH. It's probably because I used the dodge roll move all of time and I heard it's not even in KH2.

This game is good, but it could have been a lot better if areas were as fun to explore as the first game. Too linear now.

[bcruise]

Re: Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

Awesome game. I got it the day it came out, and just beat it late last night. I logged about 35 hours on Proud mode because I wanted a challenge and had heard that the standard one was too easy. It still gets a little repetitive at times with the "X" mashing, but the extra things thrown in there take away some of that tediousness. I love the reaction commands and the (slightly unpredictable - you'll see what I mean) Drive command - at times like that the X mashing becomes much more fun because of all the different animations and abilities in the drive form. I abused the heck out of drive, but almost didn't need the summons at all, which was a big change from KH1 (needed Tink on almost every late-game battle - in NORMAL mode).

I really don't want to spoil anything story or even world-related, at least until enough other people have finished the game. But I think that Squeenix did a great job as always with the story. I read a game script of KH:COM prior to playing this so the intro sequence made enough sense to me, but some people who'd never heard of that game would be completely lost, and that's really the only complaint I have with the story. Things get easier to understand once Sora's back in the picture, though. I also think the Disney influence was better this time around - new characters, a few returning ones, and some very diverse worlds (like I said, I don't want to spoil, but some of them came from very unexpected sources)

Finally, FF fans are not going to be disappointed - there's a sequence around the halfway-3/4 mark which is just AMAZING, combined with a battle which I consider to be the defining moment of this (so far) 2-game series. You really have to see it to believe it, and I actually enjoyed this part more than the ending.

[bcruise]

Re: Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

Also, I loved that one of my favorite FFX characters made a return

Not only that, but he has what I think is the best line in the whole game (assuming you've played FFX, of course). And he says it right when he makes his entrance.

[aukevin]

Re: Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

I like the drives too. I'm assuming there will be an ability to increase your drive recover time right? I haven't gotten that yet if it does exists. I wish the drive would fill quicker because I love using it.

I didn't play the original KH, did it have the limit moves? I can't really figure those out. Your characters fly around so much with those. Am I suppose to do something or just watch?

Also, is there a way to get your party members to pick up the health orbs that fall? I wish they made more of an effort to pick them up after a battle instead of just me picking them up.

[aukevin]

Re: Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

Not only that, but he has what I think is the best line in the whole game (assuming you've played FFX, of course). And he says it right when he makes his entrance.

yeah I love the way he returns in this game.

[bcruise]

Re: Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

I like the drives too. I'm assuming there will be an ability to increase your drive recover time right? I haven't gotten that yet if it does exists. I wish the drive would fill quicker because I love using it.

I didn't play the original KH, did it have the limit moves? I can't really figure those out. Your characters fly around so much with those. Am I suppose to do something or just watch?

Also, is there a way to get your party members to pick up the health orbs that fall? I wish they made more of an effort to pick them up after a battle instead of just me picking them up.

If I'm not mistaken, the drive time gets longer the more you use that form. I think it says "form gauge increased". At the final save I ended up with a max drive of 5 which increased to 7 when I was in Valor. Like I said, I seriously abused Drive throughout the game, partly because you can learn the abilities from those forms and be able to use them as normal Sora (had a level 2 high jump by the end, among other things). And about the recharge time......It will recover gradually while you're in MP charge, so it's kind of an incentive to use magic.

KH1 didn't have limits, only summons. Well, actually, there was one limit, if you want to call it that - Trinity, which consumed the entire party's MP to deal out some massive damage and could only be used with Sora, Donald and Goofy (no MP charge back then, which made this relatively useless). Sora had a bunch of flashy abilities only he could use, but I wouldn't call them limits.

There's an ability called Draw which allows characters to pick up orbs without actually walking over them. If you equip your other characters with that, they might be able to get the orbs before you do. This was kind of a pain in the last game, too.

[aukevin]

Re: Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

KH1 didn't have limits, only summons. Well, actually, there was one limit, if you want to call it that - Trinity, which consumed the entire party's MP to deal out some massive damage and could only be used with Sora, Donald and Goofy (no MP charge back then, which made this relatively useless). Sora had a bunch of flashy abilities only he could use, but I wouldn't call them limits.

Do you have to participate in the limits in KH2 or just start them off? I can't tell what to do after I press the triangle to start them off.

[aukevin]

Re: Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

There's an ability called Draw which allows characters to pick up orbs without actually walking over them. If you equip your other characters with that, they might be able to get the orbs before you do. This was kind of a pain in the last game, too.

I'll look for that, thanks. Mulan had something similar to that and she picked up well. I just wish Goofy and Donald would.

[bcruise]

Re: Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

Do you have to participate in the limits in KH2 or just start them off? I can't tell what to do after I press the triangle to start them off.

Yes, you control most of them all the way through the sequence. You basically press 2 buttons - "x" to attack with Sora and triangle to attack with the other character. Then after a certain number of attacks, either button press will trigger a large combined attack to end the limit. Also, the gauge will run out if you don't do anything, also ending the limit sequence.

[aukevin]

Re: Kingdom Hearts II Impressions

Yes, you control most of them all the way through the sequence. You basically press 2 buttons - "x" to attack with Sora and triangle to attack with the other character. Then after a certain number of attacks, either button press will trigger a large combined attack to end the limit. Also, the gauge will run out if you don't do anything, also ending the limit sequence.

cool, I think that happened to me when I was with the Beast. He was so big, I couldn't tell what was going on. I didn't have that problem at other times, just with Beast I think I was doing it wrong. Thanks.