nostalgia's a weird thing, man.

especially when it's something like KH2 where everyone except you played this shit when they were like ten and it changed their life forever, and you're just sitting here trying to find out why a game with a Worse Dark Souls 2 Roll has a rating this high. like, at best i think this game is ok. it's one of those games with stuff that i really like that's buried under a mile of shit, and usually i'm even less fond of those than games that are outright bad.

for starters, i think this game is absolutely carried by its mid 2000s edgy emo badass aesthetic. like this is the quintisential hot topic kid game - sora and roxas are dripped out of their minds and you get to fight a ton of emo dudes in black coats, hell yeah man. i have this really deep appreciation for the twilight town segment at the start of the game; that feeling of melancholy and something not being quite right is something that hasn't really been replicated in any game since. it sets the stage for this game so well - the backdrop of the end of summer, roxas knowing that something's terribly wrong, getting a behind the scenes look of him getting helplessly messed with... it's such a great intro, and the few moments where that same melancholy shows up throughout the game are really something special.

but then you get to play the actual game and its like. lol. lmao.

to be fair, it's a LOT better than kh1. the worlds feel more fleshed out (even if revisits are annoying), there are some badass moments, whenever there's not a mickey mouse character on screen this shit rules. but there's just enough dumbo shit to bother me, whether it be cutting to stitch for half a second just to remind you that yes, we have the rights to disney characters, or whatever is going on with the girls from FFX-2.

combat feels a lot better too - you're not just mashing X and cure, spells work differently and non-cure magic is actually useful. drive forms are sick as hell and make you feel like a total badass, donald and goofy are actually useful...

so why did fuckin squenix, in their despicable me evil lab where they make this game, decide to pile on so much objectively terrible shit? did they not want the game to be too good??
why do you spend all of the mulan world gathering Morale Orbs? why are there so many weirdo gimmick fights/objectives that are just "fight every enemy before X happens and you lose"? why is there a chance your drive form literally becomes a suicide button if you get unlucky and get anti sora?? and what's the deal with the wack-ass difficulty spikes in the last few hours of the game? whoever playtested the xigbar fight needs to go to see a doctor or some shit

it's a shame that there's so much stupid dumbo shit piled on to this game that overshadow the genuinely great improvements. i get that i'm just scratching the surface here - there are data battles and a billion superbosses that i could do, but i don't care! i barely survived the main story without smashing my controller hearing LET'S SEE HOW YOU DANCE, i dont wanna do any more.

i'm not as upset with this one as i was with kh1, just really sad. i get that this is regarded as the best game in the series, and i see why. i guess it's just not for me.

KH2 is very much a game that’s carried by it’s combat, I like to refer to it as “The combat has improved, but at what cost?”.

It’s very addicting, the combat is fluid (after some very necessary abilities are acquired first) and has a lot of extremely satisfying payoff for emotional moments set up in KH1, but the world design has taken an immense step back, the game’s systems are very poorly tutorialised, drive forms suck and feel crowbarred in and the plot gets extremely tired and indulgent in the second half.

Basically what I’m saying is locking dodgeroll behind Limit form is weird, the second visits blow chunks and the Roxas boss fight can go fuck itself for being such a jarring difficulty spike.

This game is a lightning in a bottle moment. You really will probably never see a game this good in the franchise again. The soundtrack is fucking fantastic, one of the best. The worlds are great even the lion king one and atlantica. The lion king one is one of the games several ways to spice up gameplay and atlantica is optional and a easy but fun rhythm game. The gummi ship segments are fun arcade shooter moments, also with great music. Gameplay is tight, flashy and critical mode provides a fair but challenging experience overall. Great boss fights, with few, if any, bad ones. The ability to do a level 1 playthrough and no damage bosses displays how good the combat is and is something you don't see that often in action rpgs. The story is dumb but always entertaining. Don't take it that serious and you'll learn to enjoy it. You're supposed to laugh at mickey in a black cloak. Its crazy how most action rpgs can't reach the height this game did in 2007 (besides souls-likes and yakuza if we count that series).

This game is exponentially better than Kingdom Hearts 1, it's like they fixed every issue and improved the combat system and mechanics. While the gameplay is fun, it has some tough bosses with VERY VERY small frame openings, meaning it's almost like a Dark Souls boss, where you're defending and reflecting most of the time for openings to attack.

The story continues after Re:Chains Of Memories, where it explained roxas and more lore about what happened in Castle Oblivion, to my surprise most people watched chains of memories cutscene movies instead of playing the game, because the gameplay in that game is WACK. But you definitely need to watch that to understand who roxas really is and the lore surrounding him and Org. XIII.

Man did I LOVE the connection between the main characters in this game, some scenes almost made me tear up... It is a very Cliché story and a little bit confusing sometimes, but it is written so well, and the beautiful music just flows gracefully.