Tuesday 22 August, 2006

I've been playing a lot of KHII this month, and I'm really, really loving it. (I already fell in love with the game style in KHI).

After reading a couple of reviews commenting about how this one is a lot easier than the first one, I decided to play on Hard. It was somewhat hard the first hours, but now is more similar in difficulty of the Normal level of KHI.

In terms of pacing, KHII is very similar to the first one: the first hours of play are very slow and, in this case, a little sad and nostalgic (which I loved). But after that the game resumes it's upbeat style that is even cooler in this iteration.

Until now, the story sound intriguing, but it hasn't developed yet. The "worlds" of the first one are a lot less important this time.
About Combat: they did an excellent job with the new game mechanics. Lots of abilities and combos and magic and summons and limits, etc.

Excellent production values, specially in voice work and animation.

I'm really enjoying the extra elements, like moogle synthesis and the gummi ships levels.

If someone had not played KH1, would you recommend they play this one instead?

Oh! Another question... how does the story relate to the one in Kingdom Hearts:Chain of Memories? (the GBA game).

> If someone had not played KH1, would you recommend they play this one instead?
NO, not at all. The first one is too good to be missed.
Even with the camera issues, KH is very, very good, and everything will be spoiled in the first hour of KH II.
So, forget about KH II and go play KH first.

> how does the story relate to the one in KH:Chain of Memories? (GBA).
The three stories (KH-KH:CoM-KHII) are very related. In fact, the game assumes someway that you have played the last two games. In case you didn't, you will have flashbacks the first hours of play, but you'll still have the feeling that you missed something. I played KH, but didn't play KH:CoM, so I felt this way at some parts of the story.
There is a lot of moments of "Hi, Simba! thank you for helping us in our last adventure!", when you'll miss having played the previous games.

If you want details about how the story is related, I can tell you without spoiling anything that both games are about Organization XIII, the origin of the Heartless and the Nobodies. KH:CoM is like an "introduction" to the story of KH II.

Now I'm waiting for the PS2 version of KH:CoM included in the Final Fix (Japanese) version of KH II :)