Kingdom Hearts 2 : Childish & Poorly Executed

I’ve been excited about the release of Kingdom Hearts 2 since I finished the first one. I gathered an assload of my old games and traded them all in for it the other day (since I’m broke) and played around with it.

I start playing… and Jesus Christ, the first 3 hours went just like this:

• 10 minute cutscene
• 2 minute tutorial
• 30 second fight
• 5 minute cutscene
• 30 second fight
• 5 minute cutscene
• 30 second fight
• 5 minute cutscene
• 2 minute tutorial
• 30 second fight
• 15 minutes of running around doing 3 quests over and over again
• 30 minutes of cutscenes and running from place to place to trigger them
• Lame, overly easy tournament: 30 minutes of cutscenes and 2 minutes of fighting

Well, you get the point. It’s choppy and there’s too much talk and not enough action. They almost never let you run around freely. And when they do, you are limited severely by either objects blocking your path or by a lame invisible wall that makes Sora say something like “We can’t go this way. We have work to do.”

Kingdom Hearts 2 breaks all these rules:

• Don’t block a player from going where they want to go without giving them a GOOD reason.
• Don’t show something to the player if they can’t use it.
• Don’t design gameplay paths completely linearly.
• Don’t be boring!
• Button-mashing is not a gameplay mechanic. It’s lazy.
• Don’t make a sequel substantially easier than its predecessor.

The first Kingdom Hearts was so great because you could run around and figure stuff out on your own without being lead everywhere and shown how to do everything. I’ve played 11 hours into Kingdom Hearts 2 and have yet to see a single puzzle! My favorite level in the original was Alice In Wonderland because it was full of puzzles that were challenging and rewarding.

Just when I think I might have to do something to get to the next area, I’ll walk through a door and a cutscene will appear, doing it all for me. Then they’ll talk more, boring me and making me yell “Just let me fight already!” or “Let me go to _____! I don’t want to head back to town!” Its so frustrating to be lead on a linear path and have no say in what you want to do next.

It seems that every time I run to a new zone, there’s a 2-5 minute cutscene. Break the action one more time with a pointless cutscene and I’ll put the controller down and switch back to playing WarCraft 3 custom games.

I expected a certain degree of basic game quality from Square Enix and Disney, but the environments have so many bugs, it’s as if they were never playtested. There are tons of objects that have player collision, but your keyblade goes right through it. There are places where you’re supposed to be able to grab a ledge and the shape of the model makes you miss it through no fault of your own. Your keyblade will clip right through a target (like the bouncing ball) but the collision will not read and the ball will not react, which is infuriating during that minigame.

It feels just like all other Disney sequels… Half-baked, half-budgeted, and all-suck.

Friends of mine have responded similarly to Kingdom Hearts 2, and these are some noteworthy quotes:

It feels like they think I’m stupid.

A lot of what I really liked about the original Kingdom Hearts is gone now.

It’s like being a little kid getting led by the hand away from the toy aisle.