Cautionary notes on KH2
Apr. 2nd, 2006 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luciazephyrA Gamer's Thoughts on Kindom Hearts II
Both squeeful and annoyed.
Twilight Town
A very surreal opening with odd things happening is perfect for this game. My only real problem is that it dragged on two days too long. And Roxas is very much an empty character. I know this will lose me street cred, but I actually like Sora in this game. Last game, I have to agree with VGRecaps: He was a bit of a wanker. But he's fun in this game. Anyway: Roxas. No real character. I'm assuming he's evil as he worked for Organization XIII (hereafter known of "O13"), but here... he's like a player's proxy- empty shell for the player to step into as opposed to playing someone else.
But the whole glitch-thing in TT? Very nice. I liked it. Especially the way it seemed like the folks controlling it made the mistakes and had to hastily fix it. And I did feel bad when Pence 'died' (or did he?).
AND VIVI! OMFG! The. Cutest. Thing. In. The. Universe. Seriously, he was beautifully done, as compared to Seifer, who was a whiny bitch.
And, note to Squenix: Next time you're having fun confusing the hell out of me and drawing it out too long- do not make me earn money to continue the fuckin' plot or I will cut you, mmkay?
Mysterious Tower
So. Pete.
He's... okay. I understand his place like I understand why the game is so bloody easy at first. You always need a simplistic enemy in a game made by Disney. It's how they roll. And Pete is okay as these kind of characters go. More on him later.
Yen Sid had the perfect voice acting. It was a whole Thing in Fantasia that you never heard his voice and that made him all the more scary. In KH2, you need voices for pretty much everyone (sudden thought here: DAMN! How much money did Squenix have to pay for two sets of VAs?!) and they didn't detract from the foreboding Yen Sid I saw as a kid.
Oh, BTW: Yeah, this game is like a shot of premium grade nostalgia in the arm.
But, dude, the book you had to read on his desk? WTF? That made no sense- even for this metaphorically-driven game. Did anyone make sense of it?
And to the best bit: Sora's new outfit. I had actually noticed the moment he walked on screen that his clothing was a bit short and couldn't take him seriously until he got new threads. And I like the Squenix actually did that, giving a good reason for the new clothes. Same the others didn't get anything new though.
Hollow Bastion
See, here I got pissed off at the VA's. Aerith's voice is horrible and I wouldn't have minded the change inSqually'sLeon's voice if the last game didn't get it perfect. This guy ain't my Leon because of it. The last one was my Leon and I mourn him even now. And CID! Dude, what the hell was Squenix thinking?! He sound 120 years old! *cries* But Yuffie's is good. Yuffie can stay.
So. More confusion about O13. Not much to be said about it because I honestly don't know what's going on. I think that, maybe, there should have been a recap of KH1.5: Chain of Memories in the handbook for folks like me who didn't play it. What happened between the two games is what I really want to know.
Oh, one thing I liked was the image of a sea of Heartless around the castle. VERY cool and kinda freaky. But for ever high, there is a low, and my low for this one is: honestly, if you're living less than I mile away from billions of Heartless, why the hell are you not packing you bags and heading far far far far away?
Land of Dragons
Cue the scream of gamer rage. The worst idea in history: the morale meter. Listen mate, when I'm following seven enemies on screen and trying to keep the weakling add-on character alive, I cannot be picking up little orbs that require me to walk right over them to pick them up.
The rest was a decent world. I liked the fighting of 10,000 Heartless in the snow because that's my idea of fun. And the Triangle commands are the greatest thing in the game. I watch for them, hoping to see something cool and I'm usually not disappointed. Bravo, Squenix.
Beast's Castle
I'm liking the O13 plot. They're looking for people to turn into Nobodies. That's an interesting build-up to what I hope will be an awesome revelation about them.
This world has two things going for it: 1- Gustave and Cogsworth. Beauty and the Beast was one of my favorites as a kid and it's because of them. They were recreated very well. 2- Boss fight. I jumped from the boss onto the chandeleir and slammed it into him. How cool is that?!
Hollow Bastion (take two)
... What happened here? I know they needed to set up the Winnie the Pooh book world, but they could have done it the first time around and dropped the not-plot excuse for showing up?
Though I have to admit, Pooh world makes me smile. It's one of my favorites and a good one in the game. No Heartless to fight and it's like one long mini-game. Very cute and very, very nostalgic.
Olympus Coliseum
AURON!
Uh, yes. Herc was cool, Megara was tolerable, Phil irritated me but I expected that, and Hades was awesome. But, zomg, AURON! I was squeeing when Hades let him out of the Big Pit o' Evil. And what an awesome notion- Auron is the most feared of the Underworld warriors. And rightly so- he's so cool. In the battle with Cereberus, I just overkilled with the Bushido limit break. It was awesome and these team-up things are fun. I was very sad when Auron vanished and hope to see him again.
Rest of world: Good. But, dude, Auron.
Disney Castle
Psychotic. I liked the mini-game of protecting Queen Minnie, but when I walked into the audience chamber and saw the Heartless...
O.O <- my face
Whoo, short world. You jump right into the next one, really.
Timeless River
World was pretty and well designed.
Now. Pete.
I'm actually interested in this character. He's a bit lovesick over Maleficent and I'm upset with her for taking advantage of that. He desperately wants to help her but is a bit slow. And Maleficent... I don't see why they brought her back at all. And it doesn't make sense how she came back anyway. They could have left it as Pete, mourning Maleficent, continuing her work. Would have been more interesting- the minion because the master.
[I skipped Atlantica for now because in the last game, that place was the definition of hell.]
Port Royal
I've never been more disappointed in my gaming life. Everyone had huge expectations for PotC World but Squenix blew it. The script for this level is the movie script, word-for-word. There is no variation between movie and game. Except two seconds of Pete and the word Heartless being said about four times. The PotC folk don't even acknowledge the Heartless or their conflict and focus on Saving Elizabeth and Getting Back the Pearl. Not even having Jack in your party saved this.
Also, wtf, Sora? One second, he's completely "YAY!PIRATES!OMG!*FANBOYS*" and then he flips, with no explained reason, to "ZOMG!PIRATESSUX!" Dude, what?
This is the only world I was rushing to get through as fast as possible.
Thoughts
When I play this game, my mother's watching. We both enjoyed KH1 and she loves watching the plot of games (we've done this with Ratchet and Clank, Tales of Symphonia, FFVIII, and a few others) and it's really a fun time. She's rather bored with KH2 though and figured out why.
KH2 is about 65% cutscene and 35% gameplay. That's bad. It's a game, not an interactive movie. The best parts of the game so far are what little of the O13 plotline we've gotten. I'm disappointed that after eagerly awaiting this game for over two (three?) years, it's so much a non-game. Squenix needed to go with the accurate assumption that we've all seen these movies and don't need a gallon of exposition.
That's all so far. Expect more when I get another three or four worlds done.
-Luce
Both squeeful and annoyed.
Twilight Town
A very surreal opening with odd things happening is perfect for this game. My only real problem is that it dragged on two days too long. And Roxas is very much an empty character. I know this will lose me street cred, but I actually like Sora in this game. Last game, I have to agree with VGRecaps: He was a bit of a wanker. But he's fun in this game. Anyway: Roxas. No real character. I'm assuming he's evil as he worked for Organization XIII (hereafter known of "O13"), but here... he's like a player's proxy- empty shell for the player to step into as opposed to playing someone else.
But the whole glitch-thing in TT? Very nice. I liked it. Especially the way it seemed like the folks controlling it made the mistakes and had to hastily fix it. And I did feel bad when Pence 'died' (or did he?).
AND VIVI! OMFG! The. Cutest. Thing. In. The. Universe. Seriously, he was beautifully done, as compared to Seifer, who was a whiny bitch.
And, note to Squenix: Next time you're having fun confusing the hell out of me and drawing it out too long- do not make me earn money to continue the fuckin' plot or I will cut you, mmkay?
Mysterious Tower
So. Pete.
He's... okay. I understand his place like I understand why the game is so bloody easy at first. You always need a simplistic enemy in a game made by Disney. It's how they roll. And Pete is okay as these kind of characters go. More on him later.
Yen Sid had the perfect voice acting. It was a whole Thing in Fantasia that you never heard his voice and that made him all the more scary. In KH2, you need voices for pretty much everyone (sudden thought here: DAMN! How much money did Squenix have to pay for two sets of VAs?!) and they didn't detract from the foreboding Yen Sid I saw as a kid.
Oh, BTW: Yeah, this game is like a shot of premium grade nostalgia in the arm.
But, dude, the book you had to read on his desk? WTF? That made no sense- even for this metaphorically-driven game. Did anyone make sense of it?
And to the best bit: Sora's new outfit. I had actually noticed the moment he walked on screen that his clothing was a bit short and couldn't take him seriously until he got new threads. And I like the Squenix actually did that, giving a good reason for the new clothes. Same the others didn't get anything new though.
Hollow Bastion
See, here I got pissed off at the VA's. Aerith's voice is horrible and I wouldn't have minded the change in
So. More confusion about O13. Not much to be said about it because I honestly don't know what's going on. I think that, maybe, there should have been a recap of KH1.5: Chain of Memories in the handbook for folks like me who didn't play it. What happened between the two games is what I really want to know.
Oh, one thing I liked was the image of a sea of Heartless around the castle. VERY cool and kinda freaky. But for ever high, there is a low, and my low for this one is: honestly, if you're living less than I mile away from billions of Heartless, why the hell are you not packing you bags and heading far far far far away?
Land of Dragons
Cue the scream of gamer rage. The worst idea in history: the morale meter. Listen mate, when I'm following seven enemies on screen and trying to keep the weakling add-on character alive, I cannot be picking up little orbs that require me to walk right over them to pick them up.
The rest was a decent world. I liked the fighting of 10,000 Heartless in the snow because that's my idea of fun. And the Triangle commands are the greatest thing in the game. I watch for them, hoping to see something cool and I'm usually not disappointed. Bravo, Squenix.
Beast's Castle
I'm liking the O13 plot. They're looking for people to turn into Nobodies. That's an interesting build-up to what I hope will be an awesome revelation about them.
This world has two things going for it: 1- Gustave and Cogsworth. Beauty and the Beast was one of my favorites as a kid and it's because of them. They were recreated very well. 2- Boss fight. I jumped from the boss onto the chandeleir and slammed it into him. How cool is that?!
Hollow Bastion (take two)
... What happened here? I know they needed to set up the Winnie the Pooh book world, but they could have done it the first time around and dropped the not-plot excuse for showing up?
Though I have to admit, Pooh world makes me smile. It's one of my favorites and a good one in the game. No Heartless to fight and it's like one long mini-game. Very cute and very, very nostalgic.
Olympus Coliseum
AURON!
Uh, yes. Herc was cool, Megara was tolerable, Phil irritated me but I expected that, and Hades was awesome. But, zomg, AURON! I was squeeing when Hades let him out of the Big Pit o' Evil. And what an awesome notion- Auron is the most feared of the Underworld warriors. And rightly so- he's so cool. In the battle with Cereberus, I just overkilled with the Bushido limit break. It was awesome and these team-up things are fun. I was very sad when Auron vanished and hope to see him again.
Rest of world: Good. But, dude, Auron.
Disney Castle
Psychotic. I liked the mini-game of protecting Queen Minnie, but when I walked into the audience chamber and saw the Heartless...
O.O <- my face
Whoo, short world. You jump right into the next one, really.
Timeless River
World was pretty and well designed.
Now. Pete.
I'm actually interested in this character. He's a bit lovesick over Maleficent and I'm upset with her for taking advantage of that. He desperately wants to help her but is a bit slow. And Maleficent... I don't see why they brought her back at all. And it doesn't make sense how she came back anyway. They could have left it as Pete, mourning Maleficent, continuing her work. Would have been more interesting- the minion because the master.
[I skipped Atlantica for now because in the last game, that place was the definition of hell.]
Port Royal
I've never been more disappointed in my gaming life. Everyone had huge expectations for PotC World but Squenix blew it. The script for this level is the movie script, word-for-word. There is no variation between movie and game. Except two seconds of Pete and the word Heartless being said about four times. The PotC folk don't even acknowledge the Heartless or their conflict and focus on Saving Elizabeth and Getting Back the Pearl. Not even having Jack in your party saved this.
Also, wtf, Sora? One second, he's completely "YAY!PIRATES!OMG!*FANBOYS*" and then he flips, with no explained reason, to "ZOMG!PIRATESSUX!" Dude, what?
This is the only world I was rushing to get through as fast as possible.
Thoughts
When I play this game, my mother's watching. We both enjoyed KH1 and she loves watching the plot of games (we've done this with Ratchet and Clank, Tales of Symphonia, FFVIII, and a few others) and it's really a fun time. She's rather bored with KH2 though and figured out why.
KH2 is about 65% cutscene and 35% gameplay. That's bad. It's a game, not an interactive movie. The best parts of the game so far are what little of the O13 plotline we've gotten. I'm disappointed that after eagerly awaiting this game for over two (three?) years, it's so much a non-game. Squenix needed to go with the accurate assumption that we've all seen these movies and don't need a gallon of exposition.
That's all so far. Expect more when I get another three or four worlds done.
-Luce
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-02 01:01 pm (UTC)AUROUN!!! <3333
Ok. Cid and Aerith's voices were horrible. If those are the voices in FF7:AC, I think I just died inside several times over. Setzer had fangirls, which was hilarious. The guy who does Axel does Reno in FF7:AC I believe (which RULEZ, whoo!), I like Axel :D. Bell and all the original people are back, which is awesome because I loved that movie.
Auron went totally unsent on us :\
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-02 01:13 pm (UTC)Don't plan on seeing Advent Children. I never played FFVII because I couldn't. The graphics are so blocky, I couldn't find my way anywhere. I should have played it before getting my PS2, but there you go.
Auron = awesome.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-02 01:15 pm (UTC)In the Japanese version he does. On the OST he, Ariel, and Sabastion are singing Under the Sea. It's hillarity.
Auron = beyond awesome.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-02 06:15 pm (UTC)On a side note, ever played that "Undress Auron" flash game? I can't find it anymore but it used to be so much fun. I remember once I was telling my friend, "Hey, shoot from the bottom left corner!"
"But he has underwear on!" she protested.
Cue wicked grin. "Not for long!"
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-08 05:22 pm (UTC)But I'm in the middle (past the middle really) of playing KH2 and finally googled Chain of Memories out of sheer frustration for wanting to know what the hell happened.
There's a wiki! Click for the link
*goes off to read*