Kingdom Hearts is an excellent game from start to finish, mostly from the merging of ideas between Disney and Square.
User Rating: 9 | Kingdom Hearts PS2
Disney and Squaresoft, two companies that could not get much further apart from each other. So what happens when they come together to create a videogame? You would probably think that it would end up in a complete mess, right? Well, Kingdom Hearts proves you wrong, the game successfully blends the ideas of both companies, and it is one of the best, most unique action-RPG games on the Playstation 2. The story is one of the reasons Kingdom Hearts is so great, you play as Sora, a young boy whose world is destroyed by a violent storm, and is separated from his two friends, Riku and Kairi. Meanwhile, trouble is brewing at Disney castle, King Mickey has gone missing and Donald and Goofy set out to find him. Eventually, they meet Sora, who is searching for Riku and Kairi, the three of them are told of beings known as the Heartless: beings without hearts, who happen to be responsible for the storm that destroyed Sora’s world. The Heartless are manipulated by the Disney villains, such as Jafar from Aladdin, and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. Upon discovering the link between the storm, the Heartless, and the disappearance of King Mickey, the three travel to many different Disney worlds. As they go to these other worlds, they meet, and team up with various Disney characters as well as Final Fantasy characters such as Cloud, Squall, and Tidus. The only negative aspect of the story is that it’s not straight forward. You will go to a Disney world and will be forced to solve the current problem there first, and then you will continue on with the normal story. Squaresoft has put an interesting fighting system into the game. All of the fighting is done in real time and you can cast spells and use abilities via a menu in the corner of the screen. The fighting system feels very similar to the one used in the Final Fantasy games, in fact, some of the moves and weapons that Sora has are taken directly from the Final Fantasy games themselves. But Sora doesn’t wield a sword or anything like that, his weapon is an object known as the Keyblade, which as the name suggests, it is a large key that is wielded like a sword. As you progress through the game, you will be able to enhance the Keyblade’s power and “transform” it into more powerful variants. But Sora won’t be fighting alone, Donald and Goofy will back you up for most of the game, unfortunately, you can’t control them, but they do run on a very good AI system. At certain times, you can swap either Donald or Goofy in for another character, temporarily. This really keeps the gameplay from getting boring or repetitive, and it will keep you entertained until the very end. The sound in the game is extremely well done, especially the voiceovers. Sora is played by Haley Joel Osment, and Haley does a good job at bringing out the emotion in Sora. Other voiceovers are done by celebrities such as David Gallagher, Christy Carlson Romano, Mandy Moore, Billy Zane, and Lance Bass. The Disney characters are also voiced superbly, and they sound nearly exact to their voices in the movies. The soundtrack throughout the game is also quite good, but it can be repetitive, since the songs will loop after only a minute or so. Graphically, Kingdom Hearts is excellent, both the character models and levels themselves are greatly detailed and beautiful to look at. If you are a fan of any work of either Disney or Square, you must play Kingdom Hearts. No matter how old you are, you will probably find something to like about Kingdom Hearts, whether it be the beautiful graphics, the story, or just its great spirit, Kingdom Hearts should not be missed. If you think that you are too old for Disney games, then think again, because Kingdom Hearts will give you quite a spin when you experience the depth and greatness of it. 
