An Unbiased Review of Kingdom Hearts II

Three things that sucked:

1. Not enough Roxas and Naminé

No you’re not

During the early part of the game, you couldn’t take five steps without being forced to sit through a cut scene about Roxas sucking an ice pop. You’d think all that actionless character development would eventually pay off, but no, Roxas and Naminé got completely ignored until a brief scene at the end of the game. Roxas and Naminé should’ve been the focal point of the story, but most of their background was relegated to the Ansem Reports, which you have to READ. Reading sucks. I’m surprised you made it this far into the paragraph. Why not animate the Ansem Reports at fixed points throughout the game? That way we get a steady dose of of Roxas and Naminé, and the plot won’t feel disjointed.

2. Cure Magic and Limit Attacks consume all your Magic Points

“I need to cure myself. Oh shit, I just blew all my magic points using Twin Howl with The Beast. I’d better run around like a scared little pussy until my MP restores.”

The worst is when you’re trying to use a triangle command and accidentally blow all your MP on a limit attack.

3. No Dodge Roll

Dodge Roll in the original Kingdom Hearts kicked ass. I Dodge Rolled more than I walked. Without Dodge Roll, you’re stuck with Guard. Guard blows. It’s too slow to be useful unless you memorize the enemies’ timing, which never applies to me, because I never die (except against Sephiroth and the Tron light cycle game), so I don’t see enough repetitions of enemy attacks to memorize them.

After beating the game and heading off to get humiliated by Sephiroth, I learned that you could level up your Wisdom form to get a dodge technique. Great. Why didn’t anybody tell me about that earlier?

“Sephiroth is a weak-ass baby in Kingdom Hearts II. If he pulls a Sin Harvest on you in KH II, it’s only because you’re deaf, blind, mentally retarded, and have no arms.” – My old roommate

Yeah, except you can’t even touch him if you don’t level up your jumping ability through your Drive Forms. My roommate definitely had the abilities, because he beat the game at 100% completion (which he regrets as a total waste of time).

Three things that rocked:

1. Auron

If you haven’t played Final Fantasy X, you might like to know why Auron is such a badass: [spoiler]

Auron was the mightiest warrior in all of Spira. The High Priest kindly asked Auron to star in some gay porn (or marry his daughter, I forget which one). Auron rejected the offer and got banished from society.

A little while later, a fellow outcast named Braska asked Auron to be his bodyguard. Auron, who’d grown bored of wrestling sharks every day, agreed. They teamed up with Jecht and went to see the evil witch Yunalesca. Yunalesca told them how to save the world, but it was actually a trap to kill off Braska and Jecht so that she could have Auron all to herself.

Nobody takes advantage of Auron. Auron went over to Yunalesca’s place and started whipping her with his belt. It should’ve been an easy win, but pride got the best of Auron, as he recklessly used up all his items and MP without realizing that Yunalesca had a third form.

Auron escaped the battle half-dead, but he still had enough energy to sled down Mt. Gagazet on his enormous frictionless balls. At the foot of the mountain, he met Kimahri. Assuming that Kimahri would help him out, Auron took a nap. However, Kimahri is a useless shit character, so Auron died.

Auron’s soul burned with vengeance. Instead of passing on to the farplane, he turned himself into a zombie. Then he time travelled to find Jecht’s son, time travelled back to find Braska’s daughter, brought Kimahri along to be their cook (the politically correct term for a useless character), and together they slaughtered Yunalesca.

Once it was all over, Auron killed himself. Without Auron’s dominating presence to keep Braska’s daughter in check, she turned into a slutty gossip machine.

[/spoiler]

Go get your copy of FFX before the price gets jacked up. I recently saw a used copy of FFVII going for $70 at a comic book store, which I thought was their joke tribute to the game until I saw it going for $83 on Amazon. The dollar is really getting weak. Screw gold, invest your money in video games.

2. Tifa

Cloud, stop being gay for Sephiroth and settle down with Tifa. Also, give up on Aeris/Aerith. Remember that scene where she lectures you about the dangers of running off alone? Hmmmm….

Besides, Aeris/Aerith looks good with Squall/Leon.

3. Time Travel

Time travel kicks ass.

Three things I’m indifferent about:

1. Triangle Commands

It was a nice concept, but what you gain in versatility, you lose in predictability. The necessity of noticing and timing certain triangle commands made some battles more frustrating than they had to be.

2. Mickey coming to your rescue

Similar to some of the problems I mentioned earlier:

• He only shows up when you get killed, which doesn’t apply to me
• When he does show up, you have no experience using him (unless you die a lot)

Mickey stepped in during a legitimately tough battle against the wind-using member of Organization XIII. Although Mickey died almost immediately, he still got credit in the final battle report.

3. Summons

Summoning is for girls. As you saw in the battle report, I only used one summon, and that was completely accidental. There’s no way I’d intentionally summon a geeky wuss like Chicken Little.

FINAL SCORE: