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Saturday 9 February, 2008
Entry#1
SUMMARY
Kingdom Hearts II is a third-person fantasy-action game full of magic, fighting, large areas to explore, characters, and color. It follows the story about a young hero that will fight off an army of darkness using a legendary weapon called the keyblade. Through his adventures, the player explores many worlds, most of which are Disney-themed and full of Disney characters. However, there are a few worlds thrown in that are unique to the game, as well as unique characters, plus characters from the Final Fantasy series.
GAMEPLAY
So, being a fan of the first Kingdom Hearts that I played many years ago, I decided to sit down and start playing the sequel. I have not really gotten that deep into the game, but so far I am enjoying myself.
I want to start by saying that I really liked the graphics in the first game, and it only got better in the second. It's not all that realistic, but it does not need to be. In fact, I think the colorful cartoony/anime-like feel about it really adds to the whole experience. Plus, it would be difficult to add realism to a game full of Disney characters. Anyway, the graphic style is really enjoyable and definitely draws you in, almost making you feel like you're ten years old again.
I liked the new character Roxas that was introduced at the beginning of this game. I think his personality was designed well and fits in with the entire Kingdom Hearts feel, along with his homeworld, Twilight Town. It makes me interested to find out more about him and how he is linked to the keyblade master. It is important that the game aroused this interest in me, but I know that I am basically running through a tutorial/introduction level. When not handled properly, an introduction level can be one of the more boring parts of the game. And while this Twilight Town area is not exactly exciting, I still am interested in progessing because of this interest in this Roxas character.
KH II also seems to offer a fair amount of minigames. It was great to already find several sidegames after only making it an hour into the game. And for the most part, they were pretty fun to play too. I did have a bit of an annoyance with the mail delivery one at first (I could not find one of the recipients - how was I supposed to know it was a bird I had to jump to?), but I found I liked them once I got the hang of them. With only being this far into the game, I can only imagine what other minigames I'll run into later.
Something that was introduced in this game and was not in the first game was the Reaction command. When you're fighting a monster and you get in just the right position or range, a green triangle will appear as if targeting the enemy. If you hit the triangle button at that second, your character will do some special attack that depends on what monster your fighting. I'm not sure how I feel about this new feature. While I definitely like seeing what unique attack will happen, it also feels like it over simplifies the battle a bit too much, since these attacks have a tendency to do quite a bit of damage. I really liked the fighting system from the first game, and at least that is still intact in this game, but now things just seem a little too easy with this addition. I'll give it some time though to see if it grows on me.
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