A mix of Final Fantasy and Disney (Kingdom Hearts (PS2))

Member Name: SimonCook

Product:	Kingdom Hearts (PS2)
Date:	24/12/02 (903 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent Animations, Excellent voice acting

Disadvantages: Poor underlying game

Nine month?s ago Squaresoft released the latest game in their very successful series Final Fantasy. This game combined the traditional role-playing elements with amazing graphics and CGI video to produce a stunning visual game. It also perhaps earmarked the end of an era as the franchise slowly comes to an end.

Now, with the combination of Squaresoft and Disney, we find a much anticipated game (and therefore brand new franchise) being released; perhaps it is aimed at a much younger audience, but there are enough elements of Final Fantasy within the game to make this appeal to all ages.

<Storyline>

Right from the outset we see the quality and attention to detail inherent in the game. An excellent introductory CGI video, accompanied by an original song from an artist I do no know (although they sound remarkably like Ace of Base) slowly introduces you to the plot line by moving you into a dream (that is not quite a dream ? or is it?)

Sora, the main character, is having a strange dream. Waking up on the beach where he lives, he meets his long time friends Riku and Kairi. They all have dreams of seeing the world outside of their island and therefore have decided to travel their world on a raft.
However, one night a storm threatens to destroy the raft so Sora goes to try and save the raft. Suddenly beset by unknown creatures (The Heartless), he soon wakes up in an unknown place, alone and lost. The journey thus begins (albeit after about an hours game play on the island!)

Now in another world, at Disney Castle, King Mickey has disappeared. His faithful wizard Donald Duck and his guard, Goody find a note telling them that they have to find a ?key? and somehow find a way to survive using this ?key?.

Confused yet? Well it turns out that Sora has been chosen by the key for some unknown task; it is obvious that the ?Heartless? are intent on killing Sora and gaining the key.

So after another hour or so of gam
e play, and after managing to avoid Donald and Mickey through most of this game play, the fearsome trio meet up.

You then start to travel to different worlds on different quests (For Example, one is to save Alice in Wonderland) that all have a Disney theme. Each section is like a mini (when I say mini I mean it only takes four or five hours to complete) game that, although it isn?t totally obvious to begin with, does begin to tell an overall story as you complete each section.

<Game play>

Once you have finished the introductory play and met Donald and Goofy you begin to travel the universe using their ship (Gummi Ship). Travelling between worlds (unknown worlds at first) isn?t simple ? you have to fly to these worlds, and play a mini game while doing this which involves blasting lasers and generally blowing up things (and avoiding crashing) before reaching the destination. (This gets annoying after a while!)

Each of these worlds (mostly) are based on a different movie ? apart from having your able sidekicks (Mickey and goofy), you?ll often join up with other Disney characters in their own worlds.

Rather than the turn based combat system that is inherent to Final Fantasy, fighting is done in real time by the use of ?attack? options and sub menus that allow you to cast spells, drink potions etc. The type of combat is very similar in concept to final fantasy, but has been simplified for this format. (It?s interesting to see the different Disney characters fight, using their own individual styles ? based on their characters real ?cartoon?movement).

As you progress through the game your enemy ?the heartless? begin to get tougher and meaner. Some fly making it difficult to hit them, some can only be hit on the back etc. Additionally, towards the end of each section you will meet a big bad ugly monster dude! These generally are very difficult to beat so it essential that you save often. There are dozens of ways in w
hich you can fight ?some involving using learned manoevers, some involving hack and slash, some involving magic, and sometimes even letting Donald and Goofy do the work.

One flaw in the game is that often if you are very low on life you simply have to find an exit into a different area; this area will load without all the bad guys ? the exception to this being the end of section bad guys ? you cannot run from these.

Fighting does become pretty intuitive after a while, and it seems that all the computer controlled pals actually fight with some intelligence.

As you progress through the game you are able to find better weapons and armor, as well as other helpful equipment. There are also ?summons? in this game ? in Kingdom Hearts the summoned creature replace Donald and Goofy (the summoned creatures are mostly Disney characters ? e.g. dumbo)

Like most traditional RPGs, as you fight monsters you gain experience and levels. However, perhaps because the game is less reliant on the fighting elements of the game than Final Fantasy, you don?t have to really concentrate on what level you are etc. All it means in this game is that the more levels you get, the stronger and better you will be.

When not fighting, you will be playing a pretty typical 3.d platform game. Most sections involve running around finding ?switches? or doing things to make certain events happen. Once the even has happened you can progress. Most of these ?switches? involve moving over platform type scenes ? e.g. mushrooms, tables etc. This did get a little cumbersome for me, but will appeal to the younger generation that is used to playing Spyro type games.



Throughout the game there are scenes that will help you move through the world and generally let you know what you should be doing next, but quite often I found myself wandering around worlds until I stumbled across the ?trigger? that let the game?s events unfold.

<Graphics>
>
Being accustomed to the Final Fantasy graphics which were generally very good and involved a lot of pre-rendered scenes, it was interesting to see Squaresoft move in a different direction. Using a pretty typical 3-d engine, in which the graphics of the world are not that outstanding, Squaresoft haven?t quite reached their normal standards. However, the animations of the characters is outstanding and really brings the Disney characters to life. I actually wonder if Squaresoft left the background graphics as ?just OK? so that the animations and characters would stand out, making this a game that doesn?t rely on background graphics, but more on the interaction with ?believable? Disney characters.

The backgrounds do mirror the movies pretty well however, they just lacked the quality of some of the best 3-d engines around.

<Sound: >

Well Squaresoft have perhaps outdone themselves here and introduced some amazingly talented actors to form part of their voice cast. Haley Joel Osment, Lance Bass and many other quality actors (including Mandt Moore, Sean Astin etc) are included. This really elevates the voice acting to a different level and adds to the atmosphere. The Disney characters are all well acted making the link between Final Fantasy and Disney pretty seamless.

The rest of the sounds are pretty typical for Squaresoft. At times the music becomes annoying, and the fighting sequences barely contain sound aside from twingings and clashings. However, this is perhaps a good thing, in the same way as making the background graphics not as good as the amimations.

<So is it good?>

The concept is an excellent one, and the delivery of the characters to this format is also excellent. However, the game did seem to get bogged down at times and really didn?t elevate it above the typical ?platform? type game. Quite simply replace the game characters with Spyro and you wouldn?t really notice this game. When compared t
o other platform games it does become fairly mediocre. Having said that it does keep you playing because you want to see the next Disney character, or the next Cameo appearance from a Final Fantasy character (such as Cloud from FF7).

The game will probably appeal mostly to 10 to 12 year olds ? it is too difficult for younger children and perhaps is too ?child like? for older kids. It will certainly amuse the whole family for an hour or two but aside from that only the most dedicated RPG (or Disney) fans will persevere with this one.

Summary: