This game is genius. All you ever do is press the X button, yet you love the game to no end.
What does this game have, you might be thinking, that makes you enjoy it to no end despite the fact the game never really challenges you?
Maybe the graphics. The game is beautiful: all the disney enviroments and characters look just plain perfect. But even more, they all look perfect without making the FF characters look imperfect or out of place. Everything in Kingdom Hearts II (and the whole series) looks perfect and perfectly in place. This is quite an achievement when you consider the number of movies and videogames that are mixed together. Oh yes, the graphics are just plain perfect.
Actually the graphics are more perfect than Gears of Wars. While Gears of War has the best graphics as of today, they are less perfect because tomorrow the graphical standard will mean Gears of Wars will look bad. This doesn’t apply for KHII because its graphics cannot become better by their own standard: if they looked any more realistic then they would look out of place; the perfect graphical balance of Kingdom Hearts II would break. Kingdom Hearts II is the greatest game graphically because its graphics will remain forever perfect.
But perhaps it is not the graphics. While they are the perfect graphics, most people will prefer realistic graphics. But it is almost impossible to deny that Kingdom Hearts II has one of the best soundtracks in the PS2 era. They are so great and innovative because they are retro: KHII has the soundtrack of a Banjo-Kazooie game. It is so perfect: it might have you whistling tunes for weeks. Every world in Kingdom Hearts II, you see, has its own theme song and battle song. When you walk around, the theme song plays. When you find enemies (or more precisely, when the enemies spawn out of nowhere), the battle song starts playing. These two switch back and forth so seamlessly and perfectly that it seems like they are the same one song. And both fit the worlds they represent perfectly. And they along with the "special" songs for cutscenes and bosses all sound retro and beautiful. I congratulate Shimomura.
And then again, it might be the story that all people love. While not overly complex, it is deep and open to interpretations (the Nobodies are beings that don’t exist: how can they interact with the world then). I won’t ruin it for you, but I’d recommend playing Chains of Memories. And to play CoM first play the original, camera-awful Kingdom Hearts.
Well, in a way, it is all of these. It is all of these because they are part of what really make people love Kingdom Hearts II: the feeling it gives while playing it. The graphics and the sound are specially important because the first and foremost thing of the feeling is the presentation. Also part of this very important presentation is the terrible gamplay.
Next in hierarchy are the characters. The Organization XIII might as well be the most loved characters in years. 13 characters, all interesting and unique? I don’t blame all those who put a 10 on this game. Don’t believe me? Go take a look on Fanfiction . net and go to games. Kingdom Hearts has much, MUCH more fanfictions than every other game.
Finally there’s the story.
I tell you, without this feeling the KH series would be dead. Take for example Chains of Memories. The game has by far the best gameplay of the whole series, and I mean by far. It makes you think quickly, act quickly and think deeply (even the wrong order of the right cards can mark the difference between total victory and massive defeat). And it is also the most hated game of the series.
Why? Because it lacks the feeling. It has the characters, it has the music and it has the story. But it lacks the graphics and the (terrible) gameplay. And so, it lacks the feeling. Allow me to explain.
For starters, is not actually missing the graphics. The game is trying its best to recreate them: but it is a GBA game. The environments feel blocky: unreal. One of the best things about KHII is that it lets you feel like you were actually there with the characters, it tricks you to believe they are real. Part of this is the freedom and the view that the 3D worlds gives, and this is lost in the transition to 2D.
Then we have the gameplay. The change of screens and cards-theme only contribute to that one problem I was talking about on the last paragraph. It is innovative but it just isn’t Kingdom Hearts (don’t get me wrong, though -- I love CoM).
These two things, you see, strip away of what made Kingdom Hearts so great to begin with. Can a 2-3 points improvment in gameplay replace the feeling? Hell no. And much less when a lot of people who played the original won’t get it or like it.
But this says much about Kingdom Hearts II. The game is both unique and great because it is **** Because it is **** you love to eat. Good gameplay can be found by many, but for finding a replacement for good gameplay, THE KINGDOM HEARTS SERIES IS A MASTERPIECE.