Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Kingdom Hearts (PS2)

Disney and Square Enix.  Really?  Not that this is a bad game, in fact, I quite enjoyed it.  The pairing though, is unique.  In fact, most people will be put off by the fact that it has Disney characters.  I have to ask them why.  Sure, Disney has heart-warming and childish cartoon figures but there are also a lot of dark moments in Disney films.  Though this game doesn't get into them, I want people to know that Disney is more than childish.  The old movies had some dark themes and shady characters.  It's a good thing they are represented here.

Enough debunking, onto reviewing.  First, I have to say.  The story, albeit confusing, is there.  There is a deep story and it definitely has some strong themes to it.  Such as friendship, believing in others, etc.  There is also the dark/light struggle and very shallow moral issues to deal with.  It's not the best story I've ever encountered in a game but it is passable.

Now onto the heart of the game, the gameplay.  This is where it shines.  Battle is fluid, easy to pick-up the basics, and intuitive.  Magic use, is not.  The use of Magic in this game required me to have one thumb too many.  I often could not keep track of moving and selecting magic.  So I ignored magic for the most part.  Which really didn't matter much since the keyblade is a very balanced weapon.  Once you start learning good abilities though, you can easily tear through most battles in the game without much strategy.  See I said most because there are hidden bosses that DO take strategy.

All in all, I only have one complaint.  DO NOT put a 3-4 minute unskippable (Square Enix is notorious for unskippable cutscenes) cutscene before a very difficult fight.  Having to watch that cutscene 4-5 times was atrocious and I have to wonder why they wouldn't include a skip cutscene function (It is a PS2 game and that is a standard since the birth of the cutscene).