Worth playing even if you haven't played the first game in the series
The story is about a young boy named Sora who is looking for his other two friends Kairi and Riku. His two companions you might know from 1940's cartoons. Donal Duck and Goofy help you along your way. Donald is the resident and blundering mage and Goofy is the ever-forward "tank". They're helping you because they too are looking for their friend, King Mickey Mouse. Now before you judge the story, this is an overwhelmingly Disney game that just happened to collaborate with Square Enix to help with some copyrighted moves and magic terms. This is not and RPG even though it has attribute distribution and levelling strategies. This is a run around hack-and-slash from head to toe. There are also no different weapons. Sora holds a weapon called the Keyblade which he is the "chosen" wielder of. Only Sora can hold it for longer than a few seconds, however the end of the game brings this into question.
The combat is straight forward. Enemies pop out of nowhere, you swing the Keybalde, they die. That's about it for over 20 hours. The best aspect of this is the game allows you to change the styles of Keyblades you swing and your outfit changes according to certain conditions. The Drive system is this changing of attire. You can choose one of the characters in your party (actually it is either Donald or Goofy) and "fuse" with them to acquire new abilities and moves. (Goody allows you to dual wield Keybaldes for added massacring while Donald allows you to shoot projectiles from the keyblade while skating around the stage) Both are very well animated and very enjoyable to use.
The levels are pretty much the same as the first with added stages (Port Royal (Pirates of the Caribbean), the Underworld of the Coliseum, Steamboat Willy and the many locations of the movie Mulan. Neverland, Alice in Wonderland and Traverse Town have been removed as well as Hollow Bastion as far as being a playable level. Hollow Bastion is now the new Traverse Town. The levels you can play through are expanded and changed as far as layouts which is a great aspect if you got bored with the tedium of the first KH. The most welcome of the changes is the new railshooting style of the Gummi Ships courses. I found myself playing more with the Gummi Ships than a few of the levels.
All in all this game is a perfect successor to the acquired tastes of Kingdom Hearts. This game is for everyone but the characters and style of combat must be grown upon. Pick one up for your kids (or even yourself, i won't tell anyone) today.