Kingdom Hearts II

[Professor Gast]

I've noticed that Squeenix, as well as a lot of companies, are announcing their games way too early.  When was the first time you heard about Final Fantasy XII?  That game has been in development for so long that its' hype has decreased a lot.  Kingdom Hearts II hasn't taken as long as FFXII, but it's still been a while.  Some of the hype has gone down.  Twilight Princess was announced way too early.  Final Fantasy III DS seems to be announced a little early.  A lot of people announce things at E3 that they really should wait on.  I find it kind of sad actually, because then the game gets forgot.

Final Fantasy XII was officially revealed during a press event on November 19th 2003, but it was pretty clear that the game was in development earlier. Final Fantasy XII's development had been hit by an unusual amount of lengthy delays (totalling more than 1.5 years), but with Kingdom Hearts II there was actually no such major delay. So yeah, Final Fantasy XII was a bit of an extreme case (Final Fantasy III is even worse, since it was originally announced for the WonderSwan Color). I don't blame companies for trying to announce stuff during the industry's most important event, they should just make sure, they don't change the release date of an upcoming title that often.

[Ashtrot]

The thing about Kingdom Hearts 2 is, its release is like a dam.

Being that I have to upkeep with gaming news, Square Enix has been constantly dropping new tidbits of info on KH2 to whet fans' appetites, and they've been doing it for 3+ years. From the secret video at the end of Kingdom Hearts to all the cameos that were revealed right when the Japanese version was about to hit, S-E prevented potential apathy towards the game be constantly showing new stuff, so when the game released, the dam burst and a flood of people stampeded to buy the game, though this approach ma have fucked them over in the end; they were this close to making their company slogan "KH2 - best game ever OK!!!" and a lot of people may leave a bit disappointed after the fact.

[blackthirteen]

I never finished the first episode, maybe I should complete it quickly before playing the second episode, unless it's not a direct sequel.

[Morridor]

It is a direct sequel.  I haven't played it myself, but I've heard the intro video sums up very nicely what you need to know for the game to make sense though.  But I still highly recommend you finish the first game.

Danny

[ILuSt1]

Already Preordered and Paid Off. I loved the 1st game and the 2nd will pwn. Cant wait!

[Onyx]

Final Fantasy XII was officially revealed during a press event on November 19th 2003, but it was pretty clear that the game was in development earlier.

Yeah, absolutely.  What's sad is that I remember one of the first unofficial screenshot of FFXII being revealed in a 2002 (the year escapes me) Game Informer Magazine Special shortly after FFX's release.  Imagine my hype back then, when I was in the 8th grade. It was the famous picture of the soldier riding the Chocobo.  Now, as I end my 12th grade year, my excitement has waned greatly.

[Dyne]

Already Preordered and Paid Off. I loved the 1st game and the 2nd will pwn. Cant wait!

Lucky for you...

I was planning on saving up some points on one of those Square Enix boards (Morridor's sig gave me the idea).  But, damn... it will be much easier just shelling out the $50+.

[Thanatos01s2]

Unfortunately the only complaint I have, from everything I have heard, is that chicken little will be in the game.  I don't know about this, I love kingdom hearts, it is one of my favorite series, but chicken little....seems too out of place.

[Ashtrot]

Don't fucking diss Chicken Little. He's fucking awesome.

[OblivionMaster]

I would like to say that please dont spoil anything in Kingdom hearts 2 as it is only released on the 26th of may in the UK, I havnt listened to any of the songs as nobody ever plays kingdom hearts adverts in merseyside ^^;

If you could tell me where there is a website where i could listen to one of the songs then please go ahead. lol.

[Cauton]

Well, if you don't want anything in Kingdom Hearts 2 spoiled, then you should probably just stay out of this thread :P

Anyway, take a look at RPGfan's review of the KH2 soundtrack. They provide a few samples in .rm format there.

[Ashtrot]

I want to whine about the game right now. Before I begin, I want to say that my post will contain spoilers for multiple parts of the game. That being said, I don't know who it was that directed the story and plot direction for Kingdom Hearts 2, but I'm of the opinion that they sucked at it.

First off, we have Roxas and Naminé, who are both obviously very important characters in the world of Kingdom Hearts. And yet they recieve so little screen time, it's pitiful. They have a little chat at the beginning, then at the VERY END, Sora finds out Roxas is part of him and Roxas and Naminé suddenly appear out of nowhere and go "Hey, we still exist within Sora and Kairi. Being Nobody ain't so bad after all." It felt incredibly rushed and lacked any sort of development at all. The two had so much potential and that potential was wasted because of how little development both of them got. Naminé is excusable because she recieved some development in Chain of Memories, but in the end, the development for both was incredibly half assed, especially since Naminé's intentions for involvement were vaguely known, at best. It seemed liek Ansem the Wise and Riku were working with her AND against her at the same time at the beginning, showing perhaps some subtle hints at something later on in the game; then she just went off doing completely nothing until the very end. Weak.

In fact, this extends to pretty much all the characters other than Sora, Axel, and Kairi. None of them have any motivation whatsoever and are not developed at all until the end of the game, and even then it was pretty empty development. Some characters didn't really need the development, namely Mickey, Goofy, and Donald, whose intentions were pretty much singular. But for every other character, nothing was revealed until the very end, and even then what WAS revealed wasn't that great at all, either. Ansem the Wise just went "oh man, I made a mistake. Now I'll blow up the moon and kill myself so I can atone." Okay, great. What were you doing again when I was busting my ass killing Heartless, again? I admit, though, that Ansem the Wise (DiZ from now on) had some 'behind the scenes' development from the Ansem Reports, but considering you had to get to the very end of the game to make any sense of them at all (starting from Ansem Report 7 wasn't exactly smart - I just what "uh, what?" when I read through it), DiZ still suffers from lack of development for much of the game.

As well, Organization XIII had a LOT of potential to be an antagonistic enemy; a secret organization of potential evil peopl? Sounds really complicated and great, right? Not so. NONE of the members of Organization XIII outside of Roxas and Axel had any motivation for their actions other than "We want hearts! HEARTS! HEARTS!" That's a real disappointment - the entirety of the game could've just been done with Xemnas, Axel, and Roxas, since they were the only important ones. All the others were just little obstacles in your way; they might as well not have been there, they were just wastes of good potential. I mean, Demyx had nothing other than "Crap they're sending the wrong guy." Then you smashed his water things and killed him. Oops, he's dead. Wait, why did he attack me again? For that matter, why was he even in Organization XIII at all? He had no depth to his character, just like the nine other members we killed in KH:CoM and KH2.

message detail    While I'm on the subject of villains, WHAT did they do to Maleficent and Pete? They had great potential to be yet another evil thorn in my side, and when the crap finally hit the fan, what did they do? TURN TO THE SIDE OF GOOD. WHAT THE HELL, THAT IS LAME. Seriously, someone as evil and scheming as Maleficent should NOT be on my side. Pete, MAYBE. Malificent? Hell no. I want her trying to swarm me with heartless then turning into a giant dragon and trying to eat me when I foil her plans, dammit, not holding off Nobodies and Heartless while I go after random henchman number three. "But oh," you may say, "she said that she was doing all this for her own benefit!" That still doesn't change the fact that she HELPED ME OUT OF DANGER. Lame. Malificent didn't really need development, she was one of those pure evil characters who you just knew you had to defeat, the end. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. With KH2, she lost the only part of her character that made her so prominent in the first game and as a result her appearance was little more than a joke. To add insult to injury, after the final time she and Pete appear, they show nothing about what happens to them afterwards. No closure, no nothing. That's just messed up.

And that entire revelation about the first game's Ansem not really being Ansem? I'm sorry, but that's retarded. It almost makes players of the first game feel like their entire ordeal was for nothing. This damage is mitigated somewhat since Mickey says "But he still had to be stopped," but in the end that was more a cop out than anything. It feels like they added DiZ into CoM, but they had no idea what they wanted to do with him and in the end we got this whole Ansem/not Ansem deal that looks like it was pulled out of their asses. Without a doubt, this was one of the worst plot twists I've ever seen in a game.

A lot of these problems (the last on notwithstanding) could've been solved if they had adjusted the plot pacing. Unfortunately the plot progress goes like this: GIANT CHUNK OF STORY -> Filler of worlds that have nothing to do with the main story -> OH GOD ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE WHAT THE HELL -> More filler. Yawn. -> OH HEY IT'S THE END OF THE GAME -> I hate you, whoever wrote this story. Well okay, maybe that last one was exclusively mine, but still, I couldn't count the number of times I was about to quit because the in-between worlds were just SO boring they were almost seizure inducing. The few worlds that DID feature characters from the main storyline (like Beast's Castle) had no development at all and ended up being more filler, except it was filler where you got to kill a random henchman. Boring.

The story was just so disjointed and lacking in depth that I couldn't help but feel disappointed. The secret movie in FInal Mix and the buildup in Chain of Memories gave KH2's story and plot so much potential, and in the end not even half of that potential was met - KH2's story became a mess of random elements, forgettable villains, and an everyday, boring plot that was told in a way that made it even more boring that it already was. I have to say I had really high expectations for KH2's story, but in the end, it fell way short of what I had hoped it would be.

What a damn shame.

[SabreWulf11887]

I agree with everything you said about the plot. That's why I never took Kingdom Hearts seriously. To tell you the truth,  I play Kingdom Hearts for gameplay not the story.