The strangest team-up in gaming returns as Disney and Square Enix join forces for their biggest budget adventure yet. Taking in more Disney movies than ever before you???ll find the fight against the Heartless has only just begun.

The lowdown:
As Square Enix???s most successful game in the West this latest entry in the Kingdom Hearts series sees Sora, Donald Duck and Goofy recruiting allies from all over the Disney universe to battle the evil Organization XIII. The game???s action based combat has been significantly improved from last time, with new abilities including the chance to fuse with other characters. The camera is also a lot better at keeping its eye on the action and the Gummi Ship sections between levels are a lot more fun. As you explore each world some of the Disney films featured are obvious choices, including Mulan, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, but others are more unexpected including the first ever Mickey Mouse cartoon from 1928, Pirates of the Caribbean and Tron. The graphic style changes perfectly for each, creating the ultimate tribute to both Disney and Square Enix???s gameplay.

Most exciting moment:
The real draw in the game is the chance to interact with such an odd bunch of characters. One of the best ways is via the summons spells that let you call in extra help from characters as diverse as Chicken Little, Stitch, Peter Pan and the genie from Aladdin.

Since you ask:
As well as Disney characters the game also features several from Square Enix???s Final Fantasy series, although most are slightly renamed. These include Auron from Final Fantasy X, Squall Leonhart from Final Fantasy VIII and Cloud Strike and Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII.

The bottom line:
Back and better then ever this is one Disney adventure that really is for all the family. -HARRISON DENT

A great game and a great sequel
the gameplay is very good as expected from square enix
everything about this game is brilliant
FF fan? buy this game now!

This game is part of a series about a 15 year old boy named Sora who sets out to find his friends along with Disney cartoon characters Donald and Goofy who join him to find their king; Mickey Mouse.

The graphics are excellent and are animated well. Throughout the game there is colourful Disney settings which are divided into different "worlds". The worlds vary and most of them are based on classic Disney films like The Lion King and Mulan and even The Pirates of The Carribean. Sometimes Sora and his companions will change costume to match the world's settings, for instance in Atlantica Sora becomes a mermaid. Instead of just Disney cameos, a few Final Fantasy characters appear aswell but their personalities are not the same as they are in the games they come from. It sounds like not a good mix but it works well. However you never really feel any sense of adventure becuase the worlds are very small and there is a lack of envoirment interaction becuase there is usually some invisible barrier that stops you walking into plants so you can hear the rustle. When you go through a door you cannot see Sora opening it and slamming it behind him. When you hit a peice of fabric it makes the same sound as when you hit a wall and does not move like fabric.

The music sounds good and matches the setting well however it can be overshadowed by sound effects.

Despite this the gameplay is terrible. It is very shallow for a RPG made by the same company that made Final Fantasy. The gameplay simply consists of mashing X, it soons becomes boring and tiresome and very repetitive. Magic is useless apart from Cure (which is only used in boss fights and the same goes for items.) The new Drive aspect of the game (where you become more powerful in exchange for the absence of party members) adds no real depth to the game neither do limits, with limits it is just a case of pressing another button for attacking. Summons are really a waste of time and are useless. The game can be unfair at times. Enemies move at the speed of light. Once an enemy jumped ten times Sora's height as quick as lightning, puased midair while I was wondering how unfair it's speed was, then came down just as fast; attacking. Battles are also very confusing becuase you can barely see what is going on behind a lightshow that is part of the spell that Donald loves to cast. Sudden bursts of light hide your enemies next move. Although mostly the camera is very smooth and flexible, targeting an enemy puts it on a very frustrating angle and while you try to correct it by moving the camera's angle, it just changes to another annoying angle. This becomes ridicolous becuase while you run away from an enemy in the middle of a powerful attack the enemy is performing, and then accidently run into another enemy you could not see becuase of the camera, doing that same powerful attack.

Also I have not come across any dungeons or puzzles in this game which I find are key points of any game in this genre. You really don't need to do any thinking becuase what you need to do next is obvious. The whole idea of exploration goes down the drain.

Also in one of the most interesting worlds they completely stripped the gameplay, made it very small and put a poor rythm game to replace the gameplay and put it as a poor sidequest and speaking of sidequests, apart from item fusing, there is only one other sidequest.

Another boring thing is the unravelling of the plot, when visiting the Disney worlds it is usually just the same events that happened in the movie it is based on apart from that Sora usually helps out the protagonist and Pete (one of the main antagonist in the beggining) teams up with the main antagonist of the movie the world is based on and leads an army of heartless (the ememies of the game.) However the beginning of the game was very emotional and made my eyes water.

This is a game just for show and has very shallow gameplay. I recommend not to buy this game.

Kingdom hearts is a long running series with an incredible storyline,but some bad sides in gameplay.This game makes up for what the original lacked. What I think is the best improvement is the new reaction comands. Triangle can unleash combos and limit attacks,which are attacks that your party members help with and are really strong but waste all your mp (magic points). Gummi-ing (travelling from world to world)has been improved and made easier. There are more improments but some of them are best for you to discover. Poeple who are new to Kingdom hearts don't worry! The game will explain what has happened in the other games (but you may feel after completing this that you want to play them). The only down side is sometimes the gameplay gets a bit repetitive or easy. The game is about 45 hours long! Remember if you're looking for a disney/Final fantasy experience with a great storyline,gameplay and characters then this is the one for you

I loved Kingdom Hearts and eagerly awaited Kingdom Hearts 2, even buying the Gameboy Advance Kingdom Hearts 2 which has a totally different format but is fun in its own way. However, although having completed KH2 having really enjoyed it, you really don't get to play the game enough. There's plot which you watch and then you walk five steps and then another 15 mins of plot to watch and so on. Later you do get to play a lot more and the story is really good. Lots of new characters and almost a feeling of relief to see the old familiar faces when you're feeling lost. Great tie-ins to old Disney films, especially Tron which is done so well.

If this game was marketed as an interactive cartoon I'd say they'd done an outstanding job but as a game, you don't get to play enough.

Still very satisfying with fights of similar difficulty to the first one.

You cannot defeat a boss about half way through the game if you play this on a PS3. You have to do that on a PS2, which I unfortunately sold. So it makes it uncompletable.... frustrating or what?