MERCH!
Giant Bomb - a website about video games and the people that make them

Pure Win

Published July 21, 2008
5 out of 5 starsScore: 100/100
Kingdom Hearts 2 is the sequel to Kingdom hearts one, which was one of the best Square Enix game. One year after Kingdom Hearts one; Sora, Donald and Goofy awake from a deep sleep after the events of chains of memories. Now awake, they embark in one final adventure to find the king, and Riku. You travel through Disney Worlds and original, hoping to find them however you stumble across and organization called: Organization 13; a bunch of nobodies who want one thing; to be somebodies. A nobody is a creature that is born when ever a heartless is defeated. You first play as Roxas; a boy living in Twilight Town who keeps having dreams and flashbacks about Sora's adventure in Kingdom Heart 1. You then encounter nobodies and have a keyblade. Why does Roxas have flashbacks, why did a keyblade choose him and why are there people in hoodies chasing him? I won't spoil it, or tell you what happens you'll have to find out yourself.

The gameplay has improved. You now can control who Donald and Goofy fight, so that it's easy for you. They decided to make the game user friendly, rather than before. The AI has improved; making the game more challenging. You now have a drive from, meter. Drive form is when you combine either Donald or Goofy into yourself and you end up with astonishing results. You become faster and even have two keyblades, with Goofy meaning your strong as hell. With Donald you become extremely slippery, smooth and fast. You also are able to shoot with your Keyblade at far enemies. Also if you join them together you get master form; I won't spoil that for you. You get these at different stages of the game. Using this drains your drive meter. You also have levels for your drive form and when you ascend you get more abilities.

You still have magic and all off that. You can now equip yourself with abilities; these could be from having a strong block or even increasing a magic spell. You also have an AP meter, which allows you to use up to a certain number of abilities. You also now have a limit meter. When you're in a tight spot or with a party member you can use a limit command and you do a combo move with the certain party member. If you got to abilities you can use this as a reaction command. A reaction command is when you can press triangle and you do a reaction. For example, you're facing a nobody and you press the reaction command; you then go behind them and attack. You can summon like before but this time it wastes you drive gauge.

The graphics haven't improved greatly from the first Kingdom Hearts and at times look outdated. However special cut scenes look marvelous. The sound is at its best. After playing you'll go out humming the music which makes you experience the game more and more. The Disney characters and worlds in the game have improved. There are more worlds from cartoon to real. Also if you enter a world you become adapted to that world via appearance or costume e.g. In the Lion King World you become a lion and in Halloween Town you wear a scary costume. There are many worlds from Pirates of the Caribbean to Mulan's world. It's a game filled with many cameos. One of the major cameos is Auron but I'm not going to go into that. Over all Kingdom Hearts 2 is a game that will keep you occupied, happy and is worth your money.

The views here are this user’s only and are not representative of Giant Bomb's thoughts and opinions on the discussed video game. GB's official reviews reside at giantbomb.com/reviews.