The last level of this game, Hollow Bastion, is awesome.  Once I entered I was hooked on the game throughout the great final boss fights until the very end.

Ha! Nice try, Disney and Squaresoft!  Trying to appease my hatred of this game with a good finale, is that it?  I see through your nefarious designs.

Don't be fooled by patches of excellence that seemingly warrant the high scores this game gets.  Now they are there.  The production of the game is impressive.  Entering the disney worlds with all those characters and proper voices is always fun.  Having a hero fight at your side for each level is a good technique.  And the combat system works.  The last few hours really make you work hard for the victory.  Combine this with a lot of unlockables like Trinities/dalmations/minigames and this game is worth owning.

But it still annoys the crap out of me! 

First of all, the generic theme makes me cringe.  "I have the power of friendship!"  The theme is laid out simply enough: good hearts vs. bad hearts.  Light vs. darkness.  A fine starting point, yes.  But that's as in-depth as it goes.  How exactly does one enter into darkness?  A little philosophy could have gone a long way.  But instead of dialog discussing what goodness is and what darkness is, all we see is that goodness = hacking monsters with friends and that darkness = ...well, darkness.  At one point in the game a bad guy flat out talks to "darkness".  Sure this generic philosophy appeals to everyone, but because of that, it appeals to no one.

Secondly, are the main characters on an abandoned island?  We see three characters, hear of a mayor, and also see a grandma.  I guess five people live on this rock in the ocean and that all of the heroes are homeless orphans. 

Thirdly, why does the girl in the story, who must be 11 years old, trying to look like she is 18?  Why does a homeless orphan child look like a snotty rich kid?   

Fourthly, what is up with the jumping mechanic.  A forward jump can best be described as picking up the character and moving him forward, then setting him down.  It's horrible.

Fifthly, where am I supposed to go?  The game left me hanging several times and I had to at last resort to the internet to tell me that I'm supposed to fly around randomly until I get eaten by a space whale.

Sixthly, the shooting levels!  Not another one!  It feels like 16-bit graphics were thrown in.  They want me to shoot at squares and circles?  That's as generic as the theme.

In conclusion, I hate this game, but it's also great at times.  I wish this game on both my friends and my enemies.