Or at least that's what I would say if Kingdom Hearts 2 was actually Kingdom Hearts 2. It's not. Allow me to explain. Up until relatively recently, portable versions of console games are often seen as inferior, and many people tend to overlook them, especially if it's for a handheld that they might not own. One of the victims of this stereotype? Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, a Game Boy Advance game that blended the combat style of Kingdom Hearts with a card game. Naturally, fans of the PlayStation 2 game tended to ignore this game unless they really wanted Kingdom Hearts on the go. The only problem is that this is the canonical sequel to Kingdom Hearts 1, with the entire prologue of Kingdom Hearts 2, and the main enemies you fight in Kingdom Hearts 2, Organization XIII, originating from Chain of Memories. So, before tackling Kingdom Hearts 2, allow me to give a brief description of what happened in Chain of Memories.
Upon saving the world from Ansem, Sora and co. end up at Castle Oblivion, and instead of doing the sensible thing of running away from a place called Castle Oblivion, they travel further into the castle believing that they will find King Mickey and Riku, who vanished in the chaos of closing Kingdom Hearts. The main inhabitants of the castle, Marluxia, Larxene, Axel and Vexen, enlist the help of a girl known as Namine to distort Sora's memories, in another of many, many events that happen to the poor boy that would turn anyone into an insane mess. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that Sora is the main villain of wherever Kingdom Hearts goes after the events of Kingdom Hearts 3 because of just how much psychological torture he goes through. Why does he go through all of this? To explain why he's back to level 1 in Kingdom Hearts 2... something that a lot of people would be fine with just accepting the "It's a video game" explanation. After Sora's memories have been well and truly f&!(#d to absolute oblivion, Namine has a change of heart and after defeating Marluxia, seals Sora and co. into rejuvenation pods, promising them that within one year, their memories will be back to normal, but they will forget everything that happened in Castle Oblivion (which makes almost all of Chain of Memories a complete waste of time). There's a bit more to cover about Chain of Memories story, but let's put a pin in that and actually address Kingdom Hearts 2.
... and by that I mean going back to Kingdom Hearts 1 for a moment (you see why people hate it when Nomura does sequels yet?). During a confrontation with Ansem possessed Riku near the end of the game, Sora gives up his heart to save Kairi, in turn turning him into a heartless for a period of time, something that's fixed cause of a plot convenience to get the main Disney princesses into the story. Anyway, when this happened, another entity was created, a Nobody was created, a person without a heart (not an actual, pump blood throughout the body heart, more like the soul, for Square Enix loves its symbolism). This new character, Roxas, is who you control for the prologue of the story, as through a computer simulation, is guided back to reuniting with Sora, after being confronted by Organization XIII, for he was apparently a member of the Organization, and close friends with Axel, but has no memory of this point in his life. Upon trusting Namine and her new ally, Diz, Roxas gives up his life to restore Sora back to normal. After the main gang return to normal, they resume their mission to find King Mickey and Riku but lose the king after Mickey sends them to his master, Yen Sid (I see what you did there...). Sora is given a new set of clothes as his old ones don't fit him anymore, a new power in the form of Drive forms, and set out to both old and new worlds to save them from the returning Heartless, Organization XIII and their Nobodies, and the local villains of the Disney worlds. Skipping over smaller mind f@#$s from Organization XIII members trying to get Roxas back, the ultimate jump the shark moment of Kingdom Hearts 2 comes from The World that Never Was... oh boy...
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| I'll get to you next week... |
So, a collectable you could find in both Kingdom Hearts 1 and Kingdom Hearts 2 is the Ansem reports, detailing Ansem's experiments on the Heartless, while some are the Ansem of Kingdom Hearts 1, that Ansem is actually a Heartless that stole the name from a respected scientist, who now goes by the name Diz. On top of this, King Mickey has been working alongside Heartless Ansem, who turns out to be Riku, who somehow changed how he looked (I honestly forget how they explain it as it's still a blur to me), due to him tapping into the power of Darkness in order to help infiltrate Organization XIII, all of which was started on as Riku and King Mickey travelled through Castle Oblivion in an extra story of Chain of Memories (told you I was getting back to that) where Riku was learning to control the Darkness in his heart. The head of Organization XIII is Xemnes, who is Heartless Ansem's Nobody, Namine is Kairi's Nobody, Nobody's kinda, but not really have hearts? And I think one of the boss battles was against a building... look, I'll admit that last part's a complete blur because what is theoretically meant to help make sense of things just makes things more confusing. It's the main reason why symbolism for the sake of symbolism can come off as kind of obnoxious, though here, while it is symbolic, due to the absolute chaos of it, it's hard to make out what it's actually symbolizing.
Going to the gameplay of the game before I lose my mind in symbolism, this is a step up when compared to Kingdom Hearts 1. It's a lot faster, a lot of the exploration has, sadly, been taken away, but there are still things to do and explore. The new worlds like Christmas Town and The Land of Dragons (more Nightmare Before Christmas and complete newcomer Mulan respectively), are even more distinct then the first games worlds are, thanks to the devs being able to get more out of the PlayStation 2 by that point in time, and naturally the jump to HD with the ports emphasize this even further. Thanks to all the new abilities you get throughout the game, it's an absolute blast going into combat, even when there are things like the 1000 Heartless or the negative side effects of the new drive forms. One benefit and consequence of this new gameplay style though is the power creep. You can quickly find yourself to be the equivalent of a god in this universe thanks to how powerful you can get. From the ability to dual wield Keyblades in fighting styles that make me think "What if Yoda had a second Lightsaber?", to obtaining abilities that can help you shrug off attacks that would normally kill you five times over. The game itself is mostly balanced around the kinds of abilities you'd have in Kingdom Hearts 1, but with all the new power you can get, it makes the game feel very easy, yet I wouldn't want the game balanced around all the new power just because of how satisfying it is. It's the same kind of power you get when you play a game like Dynasty Warriors, and why I'd love Square Enix and Koei Techmo to do a crossover between the two games, like what happened with Hyrule Warriors. It's a power fantasy in every sense of the word, and while it may make some parts of the game really easy, I'm willing to take something easy if it still means that something is satisfying.
The presentation is gorgeous, but the biggest reason to get the PlayStation 3 or Playstation 4 version of the game, aside from the previously Japanese exclusive content, is the improvements made to the sound design. Allow me to give some examples.
He's a Pirate on a PlayStation 2.
He's a Pirate on a PlayStation 3.
As confusing as the story is, and how we've still got a long way to go before we reach the pinnacle of insanity that is the Kingdom Hearts story, Kindom Hearts 2 is still a lot of fun, and it does earn its spot as one of, if not the best game in the franchise (depending on who you ask). A lot of fun, well worth the time, just don't think too hard about the story itself. Like with Kingdom Hearts 1, it's easy to find a copy of this game if you have a PlayStation 3 or a PlayStation 4. Next week, it's back to before Kingdom Hearts 1 with Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, and come Sunday, Prime's back once again, though this time with a black paint job, with Power of the Primes Nemesis Prime.
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