Disney + RPG = PERFECT (Kingdom Hearts (PS2))

Member Name: Ovetta2001

Product:	Kingdom Hearts (PS2)
Date:	07/01/07 (121 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Amazing graphics, great story, DISNEY!!!

Disadvantages: Losing months of my life. Bashng the X button

Kingdom Hearts. If it was a person I would be in love and married already. I have always loved RPG games but my true passion (but don't go spreading this around) lies with Disney. Every aspect of it. And the idea that it is in a game but not all about Disney was GENIUS. There are few faults that I can personally find with this game except that I lost several months of my life and the replay value is so good I have completed it three times now (hence wasting more time in my room). For FF fans there is a treat too. A lot of the characters that are not Disney are from the previous FF games including Cloud and Wakka. It's funny to see them in a different and sometimes different light. I would recommend this game to all FF and Disney fans!

*NOTE - I know there are spelling errors and I'm sorry. My Word program is going a bit crazy and keeps mixing counties spelling corrections. As soon as this is fixed I will change it all - Thank you!

> Story Line <
NB: I know this is a bit long but I have seriously cut it down! The game has a lot of things crammed in before the main stuff begins so bear with me.

The game starts with fantastic graphics of Soras (the main character of the game) dream. This is like a tutorial and your decisions made here affect the rest of the game. They include choosing between three weapons. A sword, shield and wand. The one that you pick means that stat will level up faster. Then the one you reject will be the one that levels up slower. This means that you have to think carefully about what you are best with and what you want to achieve. Another thing that you encounter during the tutorial is a door. A voice is telling you that you will be the one to open the door, the light. There is no rush but he must be careful along his journey then the first battle begins. This is against a huge shadow but if fairly straight forward. At the end of the battle a voice whispers "You are the one…who will open the door".

After this Sora awakes and you fully realize it is a dream. He is in his home on Destiny Island. On this island are his two best friends Riku and Kairi. They all have the urge to get off the island and find what is beyond it. This is because Kairi didn't always live on the island, she moved there from a young age. Your first big task is to collect items to build the ship and collect supplies. They are dotted all around the island and along the way you can meet a few old FF characters including Wakka and Tidus. After finding them you have to race Rikku to choose the name of the ship and whoever wins gets to share a fruit with Kairi. Kairi is admired by both Rikku and Sora but she likes Sora more. There is always constant competition between the two boys.
During all this you also come across a 'Secret place' that you encounter a dark figure. The person says "This world has been connected. Tied to the darkness. Soon to be completely eclipsed. You have so very much to learn, you understand so little. A meaningless effort... One who knows nothing can understand nothing." Then when Sora turns away for a second he disapeers.

During that night a huge storm erupts causing Sora to wake. He worrys about the Raft and rushes out to salvage what he can. While on his way he is attacked by the small shadow creatures from his dream. Sora returns to the 'secret place' where he sees Kairi. While running towards here a door apears where the dark shadow stood earier. It suddenly opens and a gush of wind comes through pushing Kairi towards him but to Soras surprise, Kairi goes striaght though him like a ghost and disappers. He then runs to the small islands end where Riku is being consumed by a fog of darkness. Sora trys to get to him but cant reach. As Riku disapeers in his place the keyblade places itself in Soras hand. That's when the shadow from the dream appears and Sora is forced to battle him. Despite beating the shadow the darkness still consumes the island and scatters Rikku, Kairi and Sora into the unknown.

After this you are woken up by Pluto licking your face. You soon learn you are in twinkle town. A new land from where you have been. You soon find out that the keyblade is the only thing that can close 'the door' and save the planets from disapeering - just like yours. Soon after you meet Donald and Goofy and you work together, traveling the planets to find the door and save everyone from the darkness.

> Playing the game <
The main three characters of the game are Sora, Donald and Goofy. However, while visiting different worlds you also have to choice to change Donald or Goofy for a guest character connected to the world. While in Atlantis you can be Arial or when in the jungle you can be Tarzan. Some times you have to use the addictional character within their land to advance within the game. For example, when in Agrabar you have to use Aladin while in the caves of wonder. This is so that you can use his monkey apu to reach places the rest of the characters cant. The main disadvantage to the game I found was that while battling, your dormant character doesn't level up. This means that a character you will only be able to use in one land may level up 10 times but Donald will be 10 behind for the rest of the game. Very frustrating!

You travel from world to world using a gummi ship. The first time you travel to a world you need to do it maunally. You have your gummi ship and ahead of you is a little space like race track. The journeys start off lasting about 3 minutes but by the last journey it takes about 7 minutes. You have health, sheild and power for your ship. You can also shoot.While getting from A to B there are a few unmoveable obsticules and enermy battle ships. The battle ships can be shot at and when destroyed they leave behind a small 'prize'. These prizes range from health or shield pieces to gummi ship blue prints and the pieces that build it. Later on in the game you are able to upgrade your ship to make the harder journeys smoother. I would seriously advise upgrading speed and weapon power as they help the most. It is a cool little mini game - inless you keep dying. Then its annoying. After that though you can warp from land to land which saves a lot of time. There are several different lands too, most themed on a Disney movie and of course the characters within it are in the movie too.

Battling is constant within most areas in every world. The level of the world is stated with stars before you enter it. The most star, the harder the bad guys are to defeat. Meaning you will need to level up lots, by battling more! If you aim for 5 to 7 levels per land then you are on the right track. Of course the higher the level, the longer it takes but simply skipping through soon brings you to realise that the final boss is either impossible or extremly difficult.
There are 4 main elements to battling. Yourself (Sora), Your companions (Donald/Goofy and/or worlds playable character, magic and summoning.
Sora - Battling as Sora is straight forward. Most of the time you will have the keyblade which is a powerful weapon. To attack you simply press X and the more times you press it, the more combo's you do. Unfortunatly pressing X constantly soon becomes repetative and there is no still to it. Your finger soon starts to hurt! You automatically target and attack the nearest enermy. If you press R1 you will lock on to them too. This is useful when in a big battle and you want to concentrate on one part at a time. While in battle you can use potions to help you or your compaions with their health or MP. You need to stock up whats in your pockets before each battle. You do this by going into the menu (which can be accessed during battling) and moving potions from the stock room to the character. Each character has a different maximum amount of things they can carry. Goofy always has the most space and the more you level them up the more items you can all carry. Potions are a crucial part of the game if you intend to survive during boss battles so make sure you stock up before each one!
Your compainons - They will automatically attack anything in their way using their personal strengths. For instance, Donald tends to use magic where Goofy will use his shield for attacks. If you want them to attack a particular thing all you have to do is lock on it yourself and press triange twice. Both of them will say something like 'Come on!' to indicate they are following orders followed by an explanation mark above their heads. Their health point portraits will also glow on and off. This is useful when you want help on a particular enermy. It can also give you the advantage of getting them to attack while you run around in circles and try to avoid being harmed. Your companions have health just as you. When you die, the game is over. When they die they will say something that lets you know they are down then will sit in a slumped position with a circel of stars above their head. They will stay there till either someone uses a health potion on them or after a minuite or so they will automatically wake up with a quarter of their health. They are able to carry potions that improve health and MP and like Sora it can be used to help one of the three guys in battle. However, unlike Sora you have no control over when used or who it is used on. It is SO annoying when you use a potion to help someone and one of the other two does it at exactly the same time.
Magic - This is not accessed straight away but rather a couple of lands into the game. Your magic is powered by MP (Magic Power). MP is collected by either using a potion or collecting it from the orbs left behind by bad guys. There are several diffent types of magic by the two main types are elemental (fire, air etc) and summoning.
Summoning - While traveling you may come across a gem. When taken to the fairy godmother she activates and this gives you a new summon. Each summon can be used during batte using all of your MP. They replace your compaions while they are on the battle field with you and each have their own special ability. Bambi prances around dropping MP and Health Orbs where the genie targets a bad guy and attacks non stop for a coupld of seconds either killing them or seriously depleting their health. In my personal opinion the best summoning gem is tinkerbell. When summoned she doesn't replace your compainions and she flys around the three of you slowly healing you bit by bit. If Soranhappens to die then she disapeers but heals you fully giving you a second chance. She is extremly helpful. Especially if you are due to die, You can just run around inc ircles away from the bad guys until tinkerbell heals you enough for you to battle again!
Others- There are other important things. A big one being health. To replemish your health you either need to use a potion or collect an orb that a defeated enermy drops. If your health reachs zero then you die and go back to your last save point or back to just before a big boss battle begins.

There are loads of extras within the game. The basic storyline can be completed within 10 hours max but like many other Square Enix games, the extras can triple that time easy. Some of the other things include collecting recepie items from defeatinf bad guys to make the perfect keyblade - which is extremly helpful for battle! But can take a long time to finally get. Finding hidden bosses is another thing, but they are extremyl diffcult too! Like the Phantom by Big Ben in Peter pans world who can only be hurt

> Sound <
I loved the soundtrack to this game so much I ended up buying it! The music has been carefully put together. There is a song (one of my favs) called 'Simple and Clean' which both opens and closes the game. At the start it has a fast tempo and has been remixed really well. At the end it is slow and more acoustic. Both fit the mood of the game perfectly. All the worlds within the game have the same music as in their movies. So when visiting Ariel you have 'Under the sea' in the background which is cool! Like the FF range though, when battling bad guys the same music gets extremely annoying and you start to dread batting. The voices of all the Disney characters fit those from the movie which is fantastic. If they where different I think that would seriously upset all Disney fans!

> Controls <
The controls are straight forward. You use the R stick to move Sora around and the X to attack. As said before you can use the triangle button to concentrate your companion's attacks. There is what I could best describe as a drop down menu to use summons and magic. If you use particular magic spells a lot then you can put up to 4 onto a shortcut menu which can be accessed pressing L2.
Like I said though, pressing X while fighting gets extremely repetitive and can become easily annoying!

> Availability <
Availability and price are great. Stores sell the game for around £15 where as you can get it online for around £8 if you look in the right place (Like EBay).

> My view <
This is my FAVORATE game of all time. I would recommend it to everyone who is looking for a good game which will touch your heart. The games ending left me begging for its sequel (which took long enough but was brilliant too). It introduced me to the FF series which I now also love as well. It has a fantastic storyline that will keep you gripped and wanting more, amazing graphics to make you drool and will leave you with a heartfelt feeling when finished.

Summary: B-R-I-L-L-I-A-N-T