Kingdom Hearts Ii

[GeminiDomino]

Okay, I admit it. I loved the first KH. Even with the Disney characters and cutesy SL. It was one of the first ARPGS that I actually enjoyed enough to put 30+ hours into.

Now, with the belated release of KHII, I have a decision to make. The video stores around here suck ass, and no one has it yet, so a rental is out of the question.

If you loved KH, and hated any FF game from 7 on (just any, not all. This will eliminate the squeenix fanboys), tell me about KH II. Given that it's been so long, they had to have screwed with the system somehow. Tell me how.

 

[TelcoLou]

Well I don't know if I qualify, since I loved FF7 and 9 (though 8 and 10 kinda sucked, IMO), but I can tell you as honestly as I can that KH2 is no dissapointment.

Without giving away anything, I'll just say that this morning at ~4:30 and ironically 4 hours, 30 minutes into the game, we saw the game's actual title screen. Yep, a damn-near 5 hour interactive intro!

The camera issues from the first one have been fixed ... no more nausea-inducing trips around blank walls and such. Combat has some new tweaks, but feels much the same as the first one ... very intuative controls.

Graphics ... in a word; stunning.

Soundtrack ... hollywood blockbuster-esque calaber compositions ... nothing surprising though, the whole game oozes quality and a real attention to details ... it looks, feels and plays like a project done with love for the craft, instead of another churned-out product for mass consumption.

Worth every penny.

 

[Goity]

Well I don't know if I qualify, since I loved FF7 and 9 (though 8 and 10 kinda sucked, IMO), but I can tell you as honestly as I can that KH2 is no dissapointment.

Without giving away anything, I'll just say that this morning at ~4:30 and ironically 4 hours, 30 minutes into the game, we saw the game's actual title screen. Yep, a damn-near 5 hour interactive intro!

The camera issues from the first one have been fixed ... no more nausea-inducing trips around blank walls and such. Combat has some new tweaks, but feels much the same as the first one ... very intuative controls.

Graphics ... in a word; stunning.

Soundtrack ... hollywood blockbuster-esque calaber compositions ... nothing surprising though, the whole game oozes quality and a real attention to details ... it looks, feels and plays like a project done with love for the craft, instead of another churned-out product for mass consumption.

Worth every penny.

​

It has to be of love. In no other way could you excuse 4 years development time

 

[GeminiDomino]

Well I don't know if I qualify, since I loved FF7 and 9 (though 8 and 10 kinda sucked, IMO), but I can tell you as honestly as I can that KH2 is no dissapointment.

Without giving away anything, I'll just say that this morning at ~4:30 and ironically 4 hours, 30 minutes into the game, we saw the game's actual title screen. Yep, a damn-near 5 hour interactive intro!

The camera issues from the first one have been fixed ... no more nausea-inducing trips around blank walls and such. Combat has some new tweaks, but feels much the same as the first one ... very intuative controls.

Graphics ... in a word; stunning.

Soundtrack ... hollywood blockbuster-esque calaber compositions ... nothing surprising though, the whole game oozes quality and a real attention to details ... it looks, feels and plays like a project done with love for the craft, instead of another churned-out product for mass consumption.

Worth every penny.

​

So it plays like the first one? Excellent news.

One more question, without going into spoiler-land: Did they cheese up the story? PLEASE Tell me they still have Namura and Sugawara running the team.

 

[Draken]

Yeah, I'm pretty curious about the story too. The news of a 3th Kingdom Hearts kinda anoys me because it already feels like they'll milk it out too much.
(not even mentioning the GBA version, CoH. Apparantly this fills in the gap between KH1 and 2, but what if I don't want to buy a 50 bucks gba card game?)

Well, atleast it's good that it's a finished game with a long run of development.

On a side note, the only recent FF that I hate is FFX-2, it's too far off the original games (Don't mind originality, as long as it's been used in a good way), I really hate the hipness style of it.
FFX had excellent music and graphics, and the story was actually pretty good, especially towards the end.
FFIX was a good fantasy rpg, I liked it, although not as much as others. (I like a bit of dirt and mechanics, this was too much clean beauty)
FFVIII is still my favorite FF game, good love story, good graphics and music, great settings, etc.
FFVII is my second favorite, I love it for the reasons everyone does, but the characters where a bit too cliché IMO.

 

[BaDToaD]

Buy the GBA game off ebay Draken. It gets excellent reviews and is on my next play list after I finish Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance and Golden Sun. Both of which I'm enjoying a lot

I've bought 11 GBA games off ebay in the last 3 weeks and not one cost me more than £7 including P&P I even wangled Golden Sun for £5.50 ish and that's a sought after cart'.

 

[Goity]

Actually COM is shit. Really badly. Shit.

 

[BaDToaD]

Actually COM is shit. Really badly. Shit.

​

There are dozens of positive reviews for the game Goity and all you can say is it's shit. Can you qualify that statement or at least put forward some sort of argument as to why you think it's shit.

I've not played it yet but it does look damn impressive to me.

 

[Goity]

Actually COM is shit. Really badly. Shit.

​

There are dozens of positive reviews for the game Goity and all you can say is it's shit. Can you qualify that statement or at least put forward some sort of argument as to why you think it's shit.

I've not played it yet but it does look damn impressive to me.

​

Graphically yes, playability no. The game itself involves going around randomly generated maps fighting for cards, with a godawful battle system - real time cards. It's quite frankly shite.

 

[Draken]

7 pounds should be worth it (if I can find it for that price), but I don't know, card games sound a bit like "Heh, it's not strong enough to do the real thing, so we'll just make a card game for the heck of it", just like MGS Ac!d for PSP.

Also, I hate they incorperated (sp?) an important piece of story for a different console. It's like making a plot based game on the playstation 2, make it's sequal for the gamecube and make the 3th game for the playstation 2 again.

I'm still looking for a relatively cheap version of Golden Sun, as I've heard it is supposed to be one of the best gba rpg's, and I need some good games for my few months old ds. (Can't help to think the 45 euros for it in our stores is too much for a handheld game, no matter how good it is, it's probably still a rather short game compared to equally priced console games)

If I don't find CoM anywhere cheap enough, I can still read the full storyline (yay, fun factor 10!) online.

 

[BaDToaD]

7 pounds should be worth it (if I can find it for that price), but I don't know, card games sound a bit like "Heh, it's not strong enough to do the real thing, so we'll just make a card game for the heck of it", just like MGS Ac!d for PSP.

​

A couple of quotes from some reviews.


Firstly fom RPGFANs review:

There are several intricacies bound to the cards. First off, each card is assigned a certain number. If you play a card that has a "4" for example, and an opponent plays a card containing a "6" (or anything higher), your card will be broken (in other words, rendered useless). Using this to your knowledge, you can actually completely prevent your adversaries from acting at all simply by breaking their cards with yours. Combine in the concept of "0" cards, which basically act as wild cards that can break anything (but get broken by anything else,) and you begin to get a taste for the level of strategy involved in CoM's battles.

To make things even more strategic, CoM brings in the concept of "stacking" cards which allows you to pull cards to the side in order to unleash them in some pretty spectacular combos. Stacking cards does not become absolutely necessary until some of the later bosses, but you quickly begin to realize their necessity and appreciate the level of depth battling can truly contain in CoM.


Secondly from Eurogamer:

It feels slightly unusual to be talking about a GBA game in terms of how it improves on its PS2 predecessor, but that's exactly how Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories feels at times. The characters are a little more developed this time around, the enemies feel a little more human and if the plot is a bit weaker - recapping the events of the first game in this way is slightly annoying, even if it is a genius way to get new players involved in Kingdom Hearts just in time for the second PS2 game - it's made up for by the much better battle system. The production values, of course, are superb, and the game boasts great graphics and artwork, impressive full motion video sequences, great dialogue and a slick interface. We missed the excellent voice acting from the PS2 game, of course, but on a GBA title that really is like asking for the moon on a stick.

 

[GeminiDomino]

[SNIP PRESS-RELEASE]

BS. I played CoM, and it was balls. I don't care how many rags and websites put up glowing reviews, since those can't be trusted anyway.

"Intricate Strategy?" What kind of bollocks is that? How the hell can you have intricate strategy in a game that both feeds you random cards to make your moves, AND makes you do it in real time? It's like playing Magic: The Gathering with a timer that smashes your junk with a ballpeen hammer if you don't move fast enough.

It was a stupid idea that almost cost them a sale of KH2 (Luckily, I'd been replaying KH and got the itch, so I picked it up at great risk.)

 

[BaDToaD]

I'm not going to argue the toss as it may well be that I hate the battle system myself. However, a hell of a lot of people must like it. Review rankings gives it an average of 78% and it sold over a million copies.

I for one think that with those sort of figures it's at least worth trying. If I hate it fine I can put it back on ebay but if I like it then at least I won't have missed out on the game.

 

[GeminiDomino]

I'm not going to argue the toss as it may well be that I hate the battle system myself. However, a hell of a lot of people must like it. Review rankings gives it an average of 78% and it sold over a million copies.

I for one think that with those sort of figures it's at least worth trying. If I hate it fine I can put it back on ebay but if I like it then at least I won't have missed out on the game.

​

Just snarf a rom first. If you can get through the first level (short) without wanting to kill someone at Squeenix, then you know you should buy the game.

 

[nickspoon]

Well, I'm playing it at the moment, and I must say, despite only being in the "interactive intro" still, and not having played the first, it is a very good game.

Then again, I did buy it on eBay for £3, so I can't complain.