This game still has the best combat in the franchise and has undoubtedly withstood the test of time. Even without the additions from Final Mix, I remember this version of the game still being just as fun. There are a handful of drive forms that give Sora two keyblades and briefly change up the playstyle depending on which one you choose. The drive forms are all pretty useful and make the gameplay a lot more fun than it already is. Reaction commands are another welcome addition. They're basically just quick-time events where you need to press a button on time as a small cutscene plays. Usually quick-time events are a hit or miss, but in this case, they knocked it out of the ballpark. I will never get tired of looking at the reaction commands on the final boss which is my favorite final boss ever.

In terms of story, it was a bold move of them to start the game with Roxas back when this game came out. I already knew about the plot of Chain of Memories before playing but I'd imagine how confused fans must have been when they were playing as him in the beginning. Story-wise, the game's plot is pretty much just Sora trying to find his friends and finally return home with them while saving the world from a new band of villains called Organization XIII who are trying to create an artificial version of Kingdom Hearts. While I think it would have been better if Disney villains and really just Disney characters in general had more of an influence like they did in the original, Xemnas & his squad are still good villains in their own right and an absolute blast to fight. The ending to this game's story was also very satisfying to where I would have been perfectly fine if they ended the series after this title.

While I think the world choices in the original Kingdom Hearts were pretty solid, this game probably has the best roster of worlds in the series so far. Returning worlds like Olympus & Agrabah are expanded upon and a lot of the new worlds add some pretty interesting gimmicks like becoming a lion in the Pride Lands (my favorite world in this game and second favorite in the series as a whole) and Space Pandroids which allows you to meet Tron and even let you participate in a light cycle minigame. Despite some of the neat gimmicks added, the worlds in this game aren't as interactive or as interesting to explore as they were in the first game. Most of the worlds feel like empty, spaced-out corridors compared to the original where the worlds felt like they had more life in them. The worlds themselves also don't have as much of an impact on the story as the first game and feel more like filler some of the time. Unfortunately, that is a problem that gets even worse with each and every passing installment in this series.

Besides combat, one thing I almost forgot to mention is this game has an amazing soundtrack that is even better than the first game's soundtrack. Lazy Afternoons, Darkness of the Unknown, and multiple other songs from this game stood out to me and I still occasionally listen to them when I am in the mood to do so.

KH2's 10/10 combat, fantastic conclusion, and its soundtrack full of bangers make this a sequel that improves upon the original in more ways than not. It's a Ps2 essential just like its predecessor.

Não há motivos fora nostalgia pra voltar pra esse jogo sendo que já existe a versão perfeita do mesmo, e se chama: Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, mais ainda é um jogo extremamente foda, muito bem feito e sólido, só sinto falta do novo modo de dificuldade, dos minigames, de alguns puzzles e dos conteúdos extras que só foram surgir na versão Final Mix do jogo, como: algumas trilhas sonoras, algumas boss fights, diálogos e cutscenes da história, e mecânicas de gameplay que só iriam aparecer nessa versão, mas tirando essa parte injusta da minha review, o jogo continua muito bom.

This is the greatest game of all time. Nothing compares to it. What other game can merge serious and philosophical themes in a disney kids game? Only one man: Tetsuya Nomura.

The first few hours of this game is some of the finest storytelling in gaming. You open up as this completely new character right off the bat named Roxas. Who is thi guy? Why is he important? Where is Sora? What is happening? Where is this town? What are those white heartless? Who is Axel? Questions just keep piling on and on without any sort of answer until Twilight Town completely deconstructs and reality crumbles down on Roxas as this mysterious boy returns to Sora. This is how you open your fucking game. There's so much mystery to rope you in and trap you. The more you play the more you want all the secrets of this game to be revealed.

The story is dumbassdere at its finest. Nothing makes sense, this game has not only thrown logic out the window entirely but has picked up its mangled corpse and beat it to a bloody pulp. Nomura doesn't even know what logic is, if Nomura thinks something is cool, he is going to shove it in the game, its some fucking Twin Peaks shit. I live for it. Nobody can explain what the fuck any of this shit means. Its beautiful. The game can still be really heavily emotional like Roxas vs. Sora being maybe the most heartbreaking boss fight in all of video game history. The themes in this game touch upon morality; is what Sora doing really right? Xemnas has no ability to process the consequences of what he is doing, his only motivation is to gain something that was ripped away from him. Themes of existentialism: the nobodies entire crusade to collect the drained hearts of the heartless to create Kingdom Hearts and free them all from their curse of existing while non-existance. It contains themes of depression as Roxas and Sora both go through their own internal conflict throughout. The story is perfect and I will not hear otherwise.

The gameplay is beyond fun. No game has ever felt this sleek to me. Everything I do command Sora to do, he does instantly; no clunkyness or unresponsiveness. The games fights flow so well- most boss battles can make 15 minutes feel like 4 with how fast paced and constant everything is. There is so much variety in boss fights with it forcing you to utilize every fighting style. and adapt. Bosses can be both extremely fast paced huge boss vs. Sora relying on using magic and killing the boss as fast as possible or slow methodical fights where waiting for openings instead of relentlessly attacking is preferred. The game has it all. Don't even get me started on Lingering Will. Every enemy and boss in this game is unique, they all have their own personality and abilities to learn and adapt to.

Overall this game fucks. I love it.

"𝒮𝑜𝑟𝑎... 𝒴𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 𝑙𝑢𝑐𝑘𝑦. 𝐿𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑚𝑦 𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑟 𝑣𝑎𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑠... 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟."

O ponto forte nessa sequência é o avanço enorme no combate, movimentação e mecânicas, muitas skills, várias formas de combate com aweakenings e ataques em equipe. É viciante dar porrada nesse jogo.
É mais complexo que o primeiro, bem mais massivo, são muitos inimigos e áreas, keyblades e itens novos.

A navegação com a nave é melhor e os combates nela também estão mais legais. Nós podemos revisitar vários mundos que aparecem no primeiro jogo, alguns são maiores. Esses novos mundos possuem vários trajes e condições bem legais.

A história é mais complexa, extensa e flui bem, ela dá uma sequência direta ao fim do primeiro jogo, e é muito boa.

Foi implementado um sistema simples de crafting, eu gostei.
Me surpreendeu o mundo dos Piratas do Caribe dentro desse jogo.
A habilidade do vilão me lembrou o Darth Vader.
O boss opcional "Marluxia" me deu raiva.

Eu particularmente gosto mais do final do primeiro jogo, é muito bom e mais difícil.
Jogue no modo Proud, o Standard é muito fácil, o Sora é muito forte nesse jogo.

Leva entre 27 e 33 horas pra zerar.

I CANT HEAR YOU SAY

(close to beating the game when lost all my save data, one day i will finish)

9/10

The first 2 hours of the game some how beautifully encapsulate a story of that lost feeling of trying to find your place, only to find out you have none; just to throw 75+ hours of the worst story I ever forced myself to finish at 15.

Here's a fun game - skip every cutscene and see how confusing and out of place the 8 hours of gameplay seem now! The game is now more movie than game, with the game just being to run from point A to point B in order to watch more of the movie. Any challenge in fighting was completely stripped, and while the added triangle is fun to use, it made me feel like I wasn't really doing anything to beat the bosses.

The thing that bothered me the most was how they changed Sora's interaction with the Disney worlds. In the first game was them trying to deal with their world being attacked by heartless, while the main focus was still the heartless and how they messed with everything the Disney characters were used to. Not a 5-star story, but still fun. In KH2, it felt like the unique stories that Kingdom Hearts offers was gone, instead replacing it with just lazily reanimating the plot of the original films and putting Sora in with them so they didn't have to think of their own story. It didn't remotely work, and made me miss seeing what original stories we could have seen instead.

This definitely seems like the kind of series where if you weren't 10-14 when you first played it, you won't like it. Sucks for me because I was 18 and also didn't have much of an attachment to Disney or FF. Gameplay makes the innovation from 1 of actually being pretty fun this time around, with most of the worlds being a good step up from last time, mostly the original worlds like Timeless River with only one real dud of the bunch (I have never watched the little mermaid and thanks to this series I never will out of spite) Writing also stepped up from 1 even if it is still isn't much to write home about. Organization 13 was actually a decent concept and villain group that made for some fun boss fights, even if the bosses based on Disney properties were mostly meh to me. Overall, it's fine. It exists. I don't regret playing it. Probably won't replay it. Now that I've written this, I'll promptly never think about this series other than the fact that the future of TWEWY is basically gonna be cameos in Kingdom Hearts Re:do collapsing collective for the Samsung Smart Fridge or whatever and get really sad over that fact
P.S WHO THE FUCK MAKES DODGING AN OPTIONAL ABILITY FUCK YOU TETSUYA NOMURA

A bungo plate of the world's finest linguine. You want fluid? Grab a bucket. You want smooth? Here's the butter. Play the Final MIX version and you're in for a wild ride.

Action JRPG fans looking for a goofy time will be satisfied while the most dastardly daring challenge enthusiasts can give themselves the worst blisters you've ever seen for fun. I don't care if it's cringe, I was born into the cringe. It's shaped who I am as a person and I will never falter under the thumb of naysayers who hate fun.

This is like Kingdom Hearts before the story gets too crazy. The mystery throughout this one is quite poignant, the emotions are quite compelling. I love me some found family just as much as I love crack cocaine. Everything about this game is just even better than the last, which was already fantastic.

If you were to put a gun to my head and tell me to complain about this game, I SUPPOSE it would have to be the level designs aren't that creative and there's a lot of empty space with no life in some Disney worlds, but that's all I can surmise me thinks so take your finger off that trigger, bucko. I'm a lover, but I'm also a realist.

If you come swinging at the prologue or Atlantica, I will turn you into applesauce.

This is pretty much inferior to the final mix version in every sense except for the pacing. Unlike most people, my major gripe with this version is the missing cutscenes. some of the story moments feel less impactful because of it. These aren't minor scenes that are missing either. These are important character interactions that have so much charm to them and it adds a lot to the their characters. But a added benefit of this, is that the game feels faster paced at telling it's story. The total added new cutscene time in the final mix version is only 26 minutes but almost all of them are added to either the begining, the middle or the end, (A.K.A kingdom hearts portion of the story)of the game. So it was very noticable to me when there were missing scenes. Some people probably didn't even notice a difference and i don't know if it's psychological on my part but the game felt faster and straight to the point at telling its kingdom hearts portion of the story because of it. I still like my kingdom hearts games a bit more slow paced but this is still something i noticed that i thought, i point out