Kingdom Hearts 2 - Final MixOne Act Closes, The Next Begins.
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8.5/10
Scott Mayanrd |
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DEV: Square Enix
PUB: Square Enix
RELEASE DATE: 05/12/2014
FORMAT: PS3
December 2014 we in Europe finally got an official release of the full version of 2 more Kingdom Hearts games in the 2.5 Remix bundle which came packaged with Kingdom Hearts 2 Final mix, Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep Final Mix and the Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded movie which is the cutscenes spliced to make up the story of Re:Coded. However today we are going to concentrate on the main story game Kingdom Hearts 2 Final mix.
Okay so bear with me on this I’m going to try and explain how the story goes with as few spoilers as possible which is not going to be easy because the Kingdom Hearts plotline is actually quite complex and the games are not chronological some games were released later on to bulk out the lore and fill in some blanks, there will be some spoilers to Kingdom Hearts 1 though so please forgive me. In Kingdom Hearts 1 you play as a young care free boy called Sora. Along with his friends Kairi and Riku Sora spends his days enjoying life on Destiny Island until one day when their world is plunged into literal darkness. When this happens Sora discovers he is a chosen wielder of a unique weapon, the Keyblade, and after fighting off creatures of darkness Sora wakes up in an alley on another world. Alone and confused Sora soon learns that other worlds are also being lost to darkness, the creatures behind the evil plot are called heartless and are spawned from the evil within a person’s heart. As chosen wielder of the Keyblade Sora must go on a quest not only to find his lost friends but to seal the gateways between the worlds and stop the heartless, led by a man called Ansem, from gathering enough hearts to open the door to a world known as Kingdom Hearts. Through the game you visit several Disney themed worlds (like Agrabah and Halloween Town) with your party of Donald a top mage and Goofy a shield wielding knight, and as you journey you use the Keyblade to seal the keyholes linking the worlds. At the end of your journey the King (aka Mickey mouse) and Riku show up as your battle with Ansem draws to a close and Kingdom Hearts begins to open, Ansem is ended and Mickey and Riku are lost in the realm of Darkness while resealing Kingdom Hearts. Sora, Donald and Goofy then set off on a Journey to find King Mickey and Riku. Their search leads them to Castle Oblivion and the events of Chain of Memories which eventually see's Sora, Donald and Goofy in a kind of stasis while someone tries to piece back together their memories and hearts. This is where Kingdom Hearts 2 picks up, the game starts you off playing as a character named Roxas while a small group of 3 are slowly repairing Sora and co's hearts. Eventually the process is complete and we take over playing as Sora, Donald and Goofy and continue our quest to try and find King Mickey and Riku. Early on Mickey appears briefly during a fight but simply tells you he is taking over and to flee on a train it will take you where you need to go and you'll learn what’s happening then. The train brings you to a tower which belongs to Mickeys mentor Master Yen Sid (the magician from Fantasia) he explains that new creatures that are attacking are called Nobodies when a person’s heart succumbs to darkness and a heartless is created a nobody is also created. Several powerful Nobodies have retained their human forms, formed together to create Organization XIII and are out to open Kingdom Hearts again so that they can claim hearts of their own and become complete. In order to save the worlds from vanishing Sora Donald and Goofy must visit the worlds opening new routes between them, quell the Heartless and Nobody invasions, make new friends and take out the Organization all while trying to find Riku and Kairi who has been kidnapped by a renegade Organization member.
PUB: Square Enix
RELEASE DATE: 05/12/2014
FORMAT: PS3
December 2014 we in Europe finally got an official release of the full version of 2 more Kingdom Hearts games in the 2.5 Remix bundle which came packaged with Kingdom Hearts 2 Final mix, Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep Final Mix and the Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded movie which is the cutscenes spliced to make up the story of Re:Coded. However today we are going to concentrate on the main story game Kingdom Hearts 2 Final mix.
Okay so bear with me on this I’m going to try and explain how the story goes with as few spoilers as possible which is not going to be easy because the Kingdom Hearts plotline is actually quite complex and the games are not chronological some games were released later on to bulk out the lore and fill in some blanks, there will be some spoilers to Kingdom Hearts 1 though so please forgive me. In Kingdom Hearts 1 you play as a young care free boy called Sora. Along with his friends Kairi and Riku Sora spends his days enjoying life on Destiny Island until one day when their world is plunged into literal darkness. When this happens Sora discovers he is a chosen wielder of a unique weapon, the Keyblade, and after fighting off creatures of darkness Sora wakes up in an alley on another world. Alone and confused Sora soon learns that other worlds are also being lost to darkness, the creatures behind the evil plot are called heartless and are spawned from the evil within a person’s heart. As chosen wielder of the Keyblade Sora must go on a quest not only to find his lost friends but to seal the gateways between the worlds and stop the heartless, led by a man called Ansem, from gathering enough hearts to open the door to a world known as Kingdom Hearts. Through the game you visit several Disney themed worlds (like Agrabah and Halloween Town) with your party of Donald a top mage and Goofy a shield wielding knight, and as you journey you use the Keyblade to seal the keyholes linking the worlds. At the end of your journey the King (aka Mickey mouse) and Riku show up as your battle with Ansem draws to a close and Kingdom Hearts begins to open, Ansem is ended and Mickey and Riku are lost in the realm of Darkness while resealing Kingdom Hearts. Sora, Donald and Goofy then set off on a Journey to find King Mickey and Riku. Their search leads them to Castle Oblivion and the events of Chain of Memories which eventually see's Sora, Donald and Goofy in a kind of stasis while someone tries to piece back together their memories and hearts. This is where Kingdom Hearts 2 picks up, the game starts you off playing as a character named Roxas while a small group of 3 are slowly repairing Sora and co's hearts. Eventually the process is complete and we take over playing as Sora, Donald and Goofy and continue our quest to try and find King Mickey and Riku. Early on Mickey appears briefly during a fight but simply tells you he is taking over and to flee on a train it will take you where you need to go and you'll learn what’s happening then. The train brings you to a tower which belongs to Mickeys mentor Master Yen Sid (the magician from Fantasia) he explains that new creatures that are attacking are called Nobodies when a person’s heart succumbs to darkness and a heartless is created a nobody is also created. Several powerful Nobodies have retained their human forms, formed together to create Organization XIII and are out to open Kingdom Hearts again so that they can claim hearts of their own and become complete. In order to save the worlds from vanishing Sora Donald and Goofy must visit the worlds opening new routes between them, quell the Heartless and Nobody invasions, make new friends and take out the Organization all while trying to find Riku and Kairi who has been kidnapped by a renegade Organization member.
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Right sorry that took up a big bulk of the review I’ve been as
basic as I can there’s a lot more meat to those bones in all of the games. The
Kingdom Hearts series is a joint franchise between Disney and Square Enix. This
is why the games full of Disney locations and both Disney and Square
characters. It sounds a bit odd but it works very well. The game has a cartoony
feel to it but it has that Square polish it all looks pretty good with the
minor exception of some of the facial animations which are a bit scary. There’s
plenty of varieties of enemies between Disney villains, a large number of
Heartless and Nobodies, Bosses and the organization members themselves there’s
a massive variety with interesting designs and mechanics. Sound design is also
brilliant, I will note that in the original release some tracks (Pirates of the
Caribbean world) sounded quite poor and some of the voice actors weren’t quite
up to snuff on the Disney characters. However in the Remix version that’s all
been fixed the Voice acting is still top notch even when you can tell it’s not
the same voice it still passes and the musical tracks outside of classic Disney
tunes is very unique and really suits the game well especially when you’re in
unique boss fights the tracks used are great. It’s also worth mentioning that
this game has a mixture of old returning worlds (like Agrabah and Halloween
Town) as well as its share of new worlds like Land of Dragons and Beasts
Castle. But the returning worlds have been given a pretty decent makeover and
feel new and fresh.
The game plays quite uniquely it’s an action RPG when an enemy appears you can choose to combo together basic attacks and special combo abilities using your attack command, there’s a whole host of magic’s to help to from your basic elementals to healing and other helpful spells. Limit commands are available for use by expending all of your MP to start a special string of attacks, Summons are back and also cost all of your MP and give different beneficial effects from aiding in battle to providing a free raise if you get KO'd. On top of all that there’s also the Triangle reaction commands these let you open doors and chests, activate switches and also provide unique combat moves. Just as an example there’s the bat cry which allows you to swing an enemy round like a baseball bat. The games packed full of extras and collectibles to boot, there’s a host of special bosses such as the returning Sephiroth and of course the Coliseum tournaments make a return. There’s also the Moogle synthesis to get all the best equipment and to push you to explore the worlds as much as possible. Final mix however added in a massive amount of new content, there’s special Heartless that appear that present special challenges, new extra bosses scattered among the worlds in the form of Organization members not present elsewhere in the game. There’s also a few new areas including a pretty lengthy dungeon with Data Battles against all of the Organizations members, these battles are incredibly more difficult than the rest of the game and provide a sort of completionist challenge a final gauntlet if you will. Lastly theres the Gummi missions, these are the mini flight missions in between the worlds that open the new pathways. These missions are massively improved over the first games the control is far less stiff and you dont feel so helpless. There is also a greater range of ship blueprints and a more diverse set of blocks for you to build your own ship with as well as new weapons and equippable abilities and new challenge missions to boot.
Overall I feel personally that while still not perfect Kingdom Hearts 2 is a massive improvement over number 1 and even more so with the Final Mix version we finally got in the collection pack on ps3.
The game plays quite uniquely it’s an action RPG when an enemy appears you can choose to combo together basic attacks and special combo abilities using your attack command, there’s a whole host of magic’s to help to from your basic elementals to healing and other helpful spells. Limit commands are available for use by expending all of your MP to start a special string of attacks, Summons are back and also cost all of your MP and give different beneficial effects from aiding in battle to providing a free raise if you get KO'd. On top of all that there’s also the Triangle reaction commands these let you open doors and chests, activate switches and also provide unique combat moves. Just as an example there’s the bat cry which allows you to swing an enemy round like a baseball bat. The games packed full of extras and collectibles to boot, there’s a host of special bosses such as the returning Sephiroth and of course the Coliseum tournaments make a return. There’s also the Moogle synthesis to get all the best equipment and to push you to explore the worlds as much as possible. Final mix however added in a massive amount of new content, there’s special Heartless that appear that present special challenges, new extra bosses scattered among the worlds in the form of Organization members not present elsewhere in the game. There’s also a few new areas including a pretty lengthy dungeon with Data Battles against all of the Organizations members, these battles are incredibly more difficult than the rest of the game and provide a sort of completionist challenge a final gauntlet if you will. Lastly theres the Gummi missions, these are the mini flight missions in between the worlds that open the new pathways. These missions are massively improved over the first games the control is far less stiff and you dont feel so helpless. There is also a greater range of ship blueprints and a more diverse set of blocks for you to build your own ship with as well as new weapons and equippable abilities and new challenge missions to boot.
Overall I feel personally that while still not perfect Kingdom Hearts 2 is a massive improvement over number 1 and even more so with the Final Mix version we finally got in the collection pack on ps3.
