Kingdom Hearts 2

[SinLoc]

Well, finally last Thursday we Europeans had the release of Kingdom Hearts 2 (KH2), I had to buy the game immediately off course!!!

The game is PHantastic!!!!

The intro with Roxas takes its sweet time but when you're finally walking in the (big) shoes of Sora again...

I'm lovin' this game in case you hadn't noticed!!!!

[John]

Well, finally last Thursday we Europeans had the release of Kingdom Hearts 2 (KH2), I had to buy the game immediately off course!!!

Why would you go off course to get the game?  Wouldn't it make the most sense to go on course straight to your retailer of choice?

[Kup]

I'll join you there SinLoc.  I too picked up my copy of Kingdom Hearts 2 on the European release day.  Well I got mine 3 days prior due to the fact that I happen to be employed at Gamestation.  

^_^

Watched the introduction.  Looks sublime and a huge improvement (if possible?) on the original.  Looking forward to playing through this as I am also a huge Disney fan too!

Enjoy.

[Fadedsun]

For the Europeans that can read English, why don't they/you just import the American versions?

[Eusis]

For the Europeans that can read English, why don't they/you just import the American versions?

Because not everyone there has a PS2 console capable of playing US games? :P

[Kup]

That is true!  And also the whole nonsense of getting a step down converter for our wall sockets to match your wall socket cords and so on.  It just makes sense to wait for the PAL release.

Unless the game in question didn't even get a PAL release...

*cough*Suikoden III*cough*

Did you hear something?  Thought not...

(Yes Konami Europe, I pray you heard that!)

[SinLoc]

Besides, importing is expensive, you need an US Playstation + all the other crap listed above.

I just happen to have an European PS, so importing (4 me) is out of the question.

The only bad thing in KH2 is the imbalance of the skills. I've got about 4 / 5 skills which I can't use because of lacking AP.
In part 1 this was much more balanced, in my memory anyway...

[Kup]

Importing is not as expensive as it used to be though.  5 or 6 years ago I would have had to think wisely about my money situation before even dreaming of picking up an NTSC/US PS2.  Possibly re-calculating my mortgage or even selling a vast majority of my collection to do so!

Nowadays I can just log onto eBay or other online shopping sites and pick up an import PS2 and import games at a comfortable price.  It might even happen soon as I'm traveling to New York this Christmas.

Does anyone know any good gaming stores that I could visit there!?

As for Kingdom Hearts 2; I am yet to start playing as I am getting sucked into Suikoden V which is an awesome game if you're a fan of the Suikoden series.  Might be worth a try?  And it comes down to the fact that my girlfriend at University would like to see Kingdom Hearts 2 so I'm saving it for a later date.

[SinLoc]

The day I was looking for KH2 I also saw Suikoden V as well, but Suikoden IV wasn't really my thing, maybe part V is better, maybe not...

[Kup]

If you weren't too keen on Suikoden IV then it is very possible that Suikoden V will not appeal to you.  Still at £24.99 and cheaper in some other places it might be worth a look!

Or maybe see if Blockbusters are renting it out?

[SinLoc]

It's not that I didn't like the game, I got stuck on a sea battle against the hero's former best friend.

Since then I haven't played anymore

[Cauton]

I guess I'll reiterate what I've said in other threads about importing games:

It really isn't that expensive. Sure, there might be an initial investment with either 1) Buying a US PS2 + stepdown converter or 2) chipping your console, but you will make that money back quite quickly if you buy a lot of games from the US or Canada. It's significantly cheaper to import games than it is to buy them in European stores - unless you're into used games. Not to mention that there's a bunch of great, great stuff that never sees a release in Euope - of if it does, it's months (and sometimes years) behind the US release.

And Suikoden V is a good game. I haven't played Sui IV, so can't compare, but people on this board who loathed Suikoden IV are in love with part V. So if you can find it cheap it's a good buy. It's kind of flawed, though, in its interface, and the beginning is extraordinarily slow.

[SinLoc]

Just like part IV then, but again, maybe in the future I will buy it, cuz I'm a RPG-freak

[Eusis]

Just like part IV then, but again, maybe in the future I will buy it, cuz I'm a RPG-freak

The thing is, IV had a slow beginning because of mundane filler-ish crap. SuikV starts off slow because it's setting everything up for when the story really starts to come in. And I can't recall what flaws SuikIV's interface had, but SuikV has a very, very slow autoscroll - it's designed to build up speed, but that won't matter in 90% of your menu usage, and even then I think you can use the L/R buttons to scroll up and down by pages, so it winds up just being kinda stupid. As well, the game's arguably /uglier/ - it's clearly better in the cutscenes, and the area designs are a bit better, but the polygon count's way down as is the level of non-cutscene detail. I also would've preferred keeping SuikIV's camera, but refined, the over-the-shoulders camera worked great in Skies of Arcadia and Dragon Quest VIII anyway.

But possibly the one thing that really ruins the game is it's stupidly low level of difficulty. I'd admittedly prefer a stupidly easy game over a stupidly hard and cheap game, but without /any/ difficulty an RPG just isn't much fun for me, and then I just get annoyed when it decides to turn around and genuinely be challenging.

Nevertheless, I recommand checking it out; from what I've played the story's pretty good, and some people actually consider it better than SuikII. I think they're nuts, but hey. :P

[Fadedsun]

Because not everyone there has a PS2 console capable of playing US games? :P

Oh, okay. I didn't realize the PS2s in Europe only played European games.

I thought the region lock was only on Japanese games.[/quote]