Kingdom Hearts II is the latest North American release for the odd "Kingdom Hearts" and it far surpasses the rest!!!
The bads: Gameplay becomes too easy and relies too much on mashing buttons. Some parts of the game may still feel "childish" despite the improvements. Square characters sometimes have terrible dialogue. Reduced the world of Atlantica into a mini-game-world(this might be a good thing, depending on who you are). Need to play the Game Boy prequel, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, in order to completely understand the story.
There's really not much to say except that Kingdom Hearts II is so far the best of the series. It has quite exceptionally improved from the original game and it now offers an even longer and deeper story than before. With the story now expanded, it will definitely take more than just 10 hours to finally complete the story excluding (please emphasise "excluding") the missions.
The story begins pretty much after the events of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, after literally a near-hour long introduction to the game. And this might spell some bad news to Kingdom Hearts fans who do not have a GBA at all. Anyways, Sora, Donald, Goofy, Jimney Cricket all awaken from their year long slumber and finds out that the "worlds" might be in trouble again. A new force arises called the "Nobodies" controlled by the mysterious Organization XIII, that plus the return of the Heartless just worsens the situation. Now, its all up to Sora and the Gang to take care of things and once again save the worlds from nothingness.
Like the first game, You're probably playing Kingdom Hearts II for the sake of the ever so excellent story. There are really a lot of new features added to the game such as Reaction Commands, Limits, Missions, and the list goes on and on. And one of the things that makes this a true sequel is that it improved everything, especially the camera. Again, the graphics looks better than it already was and the sound is even more impressive. Everything is really impressive about this game to the point that even the Gummi Ship becomes fun to play!
The only real problems about this game is that it is almost overly easy to learn and play, its quite "childish" sometimes, and the occasional bad dialogue. Other than that, Kingdom Hearts II is a very fun game to play, and is a must have for any Kingdom Hearts fan.