While it has it's gameply flaws, this sequel surpasses the original and leaves you begging for more.
Gameplay- Many new things have been added to the world of KH. Sora's fighting style is much more refined, and the combo attacks are massively better and a lot cooler looking, making your sword skills your most important necessity. However, because of the massive skill you gain with the keyblade, all other added fighting options are really quite useless compared to it. Take the new forms Sora can change into. I beat the game without ever having to level them, and only after did I go back and start to level them up. I NEVER used the summons, allright, I used stitch ONCE. That was it. Even the magic was mostly useless except for Curaga. Your magic skills have been changed slightly. Now once your magic meter empties fully, you recharge it slowly as time passes, and you rarely have to worry abut running out, because it recharges fast enough to make ethers unecessary. Again, your sword skills can take you through most of the game. You can simply pound away on the X button most of the time, and though the new trigger commands make you use the triangle button sometimes, there's not much button pushing strategy involved. Overall, the gameplay needs to be refined to have more strategy involved. I rarely felt tense with the urge to pound down potions, it just wasn't challenging enough.
As to the worlds themselves, they've once against been designed brilliantly, bringing each Disney themed world to life in beautiful ways. There are some shortcomings (Atlantica is two friggin screens? WTH? I want my fun swim fighting back ;-;. You don't even get a fighting boss battle on this level, you do a "singalong" boss batle. Frankly, the only singalong I really enjoyed was the "part of your world" one, just because it's a beautiful song, but I still feel cheated) but overall, it's good. My favorite level was the Pride Lands level, just because the Lion King is one of my favorite Disney movies of all time, and I loved running around with Simba and Cub Sora (so cute!). I really hope it comes back for KH3. Another great level was the Port Royal level, Jack Sparrow was freaking awesome, and even though I hadn't even seen the PotC movie yet (I did afterwards) I already loved the characters. The most interesting and creative level was the black and white cartoon level, that took some amount of imagination. The world hopping really redeemed the fact that battling was easy, and overall the gameplay was quite good (And thank god for better gummy ship levels!)
Graphics- As I said in the other pagragraph, the transition from movie to games went over well for most of the worlds visited. Brilliant, eye popping colors surrounded you, and all character models were well rendered. Even on the thousand nobodies battle, the engine stood up and never slowed down in the least bit. The outfit redesigns were brilliant (Riku's= OMG SQUEE!!!), and the monster designs were spot on. The game really made good use of the graphics engine, and the extra digitally rendered cutscenes were a joy to watch.
Sound- Overall each track was well made and appropriate for each world. I especially liked the "World that Never Was" track. The only problem was that sometimes the music got repetitive, especially in worlds you visited a lot, like Hollow Bastion. The voice acting was spot on, especiall Jack Sparrow, if Johnny Depp didn't do the acting there, I'll be damned. Keeping with the "aging" theme of the three main characters, their voices ages accordingly; I actually enjoyed Sora's voice a lot more this time around.
Storyline- Twists and turns a plenty. There were a few obvious things, but a lot to muddle over, and hard questions to answer, like who to trust and wondering if certain groups were all that bad. The romance theme was a little cheesy, every world had to have the "couple" that got together at the end. The only two couples I truly enjoyed were Mulan and Shang, and Simba and Nala, probably because they're my favorite movies out of the ones in here, and they weren't so preachy and sentimental. I'm happy with the ending, and glad it leaves room for a sequel. Looking at the secret ending movie, I look forwards to it.
Overall- if you own a PS2 and love RPGs or action adventure games, you need to get this game. If you haven't played the first KH, get it and play it. This would be a wonderful addition to your PS2 collection, so don't miss out.