Kingdom Hearts 2

I’ve finally started playing Kingdom Hearts 2 on the PS2. It’s been out in the US for six months (and in Japan for almost a year) but for some reason Square kept Europe waiting. I have no right to complain, if I’m brutally honest, as I never actually got around to completing the first one and, as I never had a a Gameboy Advance, have only just got hold of Chain of Memories (a kind of portable Kingdom Hearts 1.5) to play now I’ve got a DS Lite to play it on.

Still, as a fan of the original that I never played properly, I *needed* to see KH2!

If you haven’t heard of the series, it’s kind of a mashup of characters from Disney and Final Fantasy (mostly the former) in a story lead by a number of characters unique to the plot. Wikipedia has much more information than I could ever care to provide, so I won’t bore you with all of that.

Anyway, to cut a long story short (and it *is* a long story, with many many cut-scenes), I’m loving the game so far. Yes, it’s rather easy (so far) in standard mode but this, to me, isn’t really a bad thing. The problem I have is that if I find a game too hard I’ll end up giving up. I never completed Devil May Cry because I just couldn’t get out of the castle within the time limit on the very last level! It’s not so easy as to be boring (and if you fancy more of a challenge, there’s always the harder mode), and the story and visuals are fascinating enough for me to see the game itself as almost secondary to the plot!

That said, I’m only eight hours into the game (we don’t meet the lead character, Sora, again until the titles kick in at around 3 1/2 hours into the game!) so my opinion could very well change.

One thing I realised, possibly too late, is that Jiminy counts the treasures you’ve discovered in each of the lands, and I don’t have all of them from the first, Twilight Town. This isn’t a problem with the others, but Twilight Town has disappeared and I can’t go back to it! I hope this doesn’t mean I’ll get the “bitch ending I deserve“.

My verdict? I love Disneyland and videogames with a plot, and I’m really enjoying it. Take from that what you will.