While featuring exciting action and combat, Kingdom Hearts 2 loses out on the elements which made the first so good.
The first of my major bones to pick with this sequel is the story. While the beginning may drag on as the player goes through the lengthy tutorial, it does redeem itself by presenting some interesting characters and introducing the main story. Strangely enough, it seems that there is a negative correlation between story-telling and game play. As one goes up, the other goes down. The rest of the story follows a very gradual, uneventful pace, spiking at the climax and traveling downward to the conclusion. In comparison to the preceding Kingdom Hearts, this story does seem less dramatic and more predictable. Still, it does faithfully continue the adventures of Sora, Donald, and Goofy as they search for King Micky and Riku.
The other is the difficulty. While the first Kingdom Hearts was no head-scratcher in the difficulty section, I definitely remember it being more difficult than this. Certain bosses could not be defeated without going through several trial-and-error-deaths. When I played KH2, there was rarely a boss battle which could not be resolved in on try. Normal difficulty setting on this game is far too easy for any veteran gamer. Anyone like this should immediately consider boosting the difficulty to Expert in order to have a more fulfilling experience with the game. The reaction commands, activated by pressing the triangle button when prompted on-screen, do tend to simply things a little too much in some cases. Hitting the button once can create a chain of moves which, while pleasant to look at, end up being just that: something to look at. On a positive note, however, some of the reaction commands are truly awesome when activated. One example is when facing a Samurai type Nobody in combat (you'll just have to check this out for yourself). With the addition of this feature, the fighting does become more varied and exciting while you're searching for an opportunity to use it.
Players will still enjoy the Disney inspired worlds which are the series staple, although they might notice the fact that the worlds are more simplified than in the previous title. This can be either good or bad, depending on who you are, but there is no explanation for the world based on the film "The Little Mermaid". If it were possible, I would have skipped this land altogether. The numerous Final Fantasy cameos are also quite pleasing. This is something which is still done very well, despite the fact that several villains from the first game are recycled into this mix.
Anyone who is a fan of the first game will definitely enjoy this installment. Others will find this as a reason to go out and play the first so that they can play this and understand what's going on. Although not as great as it's predecessor, it is definitely a worthy addition to the series, and to any gamer's library.