Kingdom Hearts II

Jack Sparrow, Donald Duck, and a 12 year old with a giant key walk into a bar...

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Kingdom Hearts II is, as you would probably have guessed, the sequel to the enormously popular original Kingdom Hearts released about four years back, and the shorter instalment Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories released about a year thereafter. All of which made, of course, bugger all sense. Several hardcore fans no doubt just exploded into little otaku fragments, but before I'm mobbed, I would like to add that Kingdom Hearts II is a very enjoyable pile of bugger all sense.

The Kingdom Hearts franchise, for those that are not familiar with it, was clearly invented with the assistance of absinthe. The structure of the games will not be of much surprise to anyone familiar with the Final Fantasy series: Square Enix having included its trademark fantastic production values, over-sized weapons, random beast encounters, levelling system, and oft impenetrable epic plot lines. Where Kingdom Hearts went in a whole new and fairly bonkers direction was the decision to mix the gameplay and characters of the Final Fantasy series with nearly all the characters ever created by Walt Disney Studios. This means encountering all sorts of monster, demons, and scary lunatics swinging around sabres bigger than their own bodies, with only Donald Duck and Goofy as your backup. What is a pleasant surprise is that the majority of the time this is implemented very well indeed, with such a plainly noodles concept quickly being integrated into the plot and accepted by the gamer.

Before getting into the plot of the game, the mechanics of playing are worth a few words. When you first start playing KHII, a daunting amount of pop-up instruction screens occur, telling you how to manipulate items and what seems to be a very involved system of combat indeed, including magic, special moves, limit breaks, reaction commands, and a prodigious array of combos. Then after a couple of actual fights the player will notice: 'Wait a minute, all I actually do is press 'X'. A lot.'

Despite the spectacular visual display occurring on screen, as your hero leaps through the air bifurcating a dozen enemies, all the player is really doing is furiously mashing the 'X' button, occasionally 'O' to jump, and once in a while 'Æ' to perform a context-specific action. The degree of graphical fireworks combined with the relatively little input could have left the game feeling like the disappointing Zone of Enders, but since monster-bashing typically occurs as your character is trying to get from point A to point B, rather than being an end in itself, brevity in your battles is usually welcome. However, after several hours of gameplay and many different forms of the shadowy bad guys, the player will still have encountered very few enemies that required anything more than repeated 'X' to defeat, which starts to leave the combat experience feeling hollow, and at times even a perfunctory nuisance in between the plot advancements. There are enormous arrays of special moves to perform, all specific to the many characters that will join your troop from time to time, but, due to the underpowered enemies, are usually only employed just because they look pretty. This is a shame, as they detract from the enjoyment of discovering them and any real tactical use. One of the slightly creepier options is to temporarily absorb one of your usual companions - Goofy or Donald - and become a hybrid dervish of destruction. Despite the slightly uncomfortable image of inviting Goofy into your own body, this is also underused as normal 'X' attacks will do the trick. The combat is quite frequently punctuated by a large array of mini games, ranging from Star Fox tribute shoot-em-ups, rhythm games, skateboarding, physics puzzles, and an array of other distractions that are pleasing in their innovation.

It is the scale, length and complex plot of the game that largely makes up for any short comings in the combat system. Kingdom Hearts 2 is without argument a very long game indeed. After 5 hours of playing and the conclusion of a plot element the Kingdom Hearts logo pops up, indicating that you have only just finished the prologue to the meat and potatoes of the game itself. I have actually completed other games in about as much time as this one takes to simply set the scene with what turned out to be an interactive introduction. Given the central importance of the storyline to the games enjoyment, I will withhold from giving much away about the expansive story, but the separate character played in the prologue - set in a world without any Disney characters - was more engaging and intelligently plotted than much of the rest of the adventure.