“A scattered dream that’s like a far off memory
“A far off memory that’s like a scattered dream”

A couple of days ago I was going to have a talk with my good friend Erik over Ventrilo.

I put on my icky headset, popped up the Start menu in Windows and hit the .srv to open it up. Nothing. It couldn’t find any connection at all. Odd, I thought as I was talking to Erik at msn at the same time. So I told him about him and he said he used to get the very same problem. “Just Reboot!” And so I did, which I still regret.  Booting up my computer took a bit longer than usual… in fact, my computer got stuck on the desktop wallpaper and nothing else came up. No Start menu, no windows no nothing… only the .wav that plays the little “Wahoo windows is now booted up!” signature. 

“Ok”, I thought to myself after staring at it for about 5mins. “WTF is wrong now?” I hit the famous ctrl+alt+del and wouldn’t you know… Window WAS up and running. Only, my desktop didn’t work. After a quick fiddle my desktop with the Start-menu popped up out of nowhere. On to the next problem of course: My Symantec whatever decided to tell me that there’s no TCP-IP installed. Ok, what the heck? It can’t just go disappearing or… can it? And fixing it of course has been a pain in the butt. Not to mention time consuming… not to mention I owe my brother 1000kr for buying his old mobo so calling him is out of the question, my other tech support Erik moved to Singapore AND MY FATHER CAN’T READ ENGLISH FOR THE SAKE OF HIS LIFE (my windows is in English). 

So… lovely story indeed but what exactly does this have to do with me and Kingdom Hearts 2? If you know me you know the answer… it’s quite simple really: MMORPGS. 

Not being able to connect to the internet has turned my computer into a notepad/ drawing board iPOD (or a Rio Carbon which I use.) Not being able to be logged on to whatever mmorpg I’m currently playing meant that I could spend precious time elsewhere…not to mention I’ve gone to bed around 11pm lately… instead of 1 or 3am. 

Meant that… I finally could play Kingdom Hearts 2. 

My week in solitude.

So yeah let’s get on to that.
I started to fiddle with this game in Andy’s room during my visit to USA. After LOVING the first game for it’s magic and awesome storyline connecting Disney with the world of Final Fantasy and Andy’s friend Ignacio telling us to borrow his copy of the game, I just couldn’t resist. The story in KH2 is well connected with KH1 and COM. While I know that some people did skip COM before playing this, because the Opening apparently was supposed to be more than enough describing past stories, I am thankful to my stubbornness of having played COM. Seeing the faces and noticing events and hints of things taken place in COM surely gave me a couple of “AHA!” moments. And those moments are sort of precious as it builds up your own special connection with the game.After getting out of Twilight Town and into the new worlds I noticed how I wished to know more about Roxas’ fate and Organization XII. What had happened to Riku and King Mickey and would Sora ever meet Kairi again? 

Going thru the new worlds felt a bit lame to say the least. For example going thru the Land of the Dragon, a.k.a Mulan’s world felt more like something I HAD to get my butt thru to get to what ever world that lay behind, and finishing it in 43minutes just added to my frustration. Sure, it was fun to go thru all that. But if you have, like me, watched every Disney movie out there, remembering them pretty well, then this was more like a SPAM THAT STORY BUTTON walkthrough in the park. 

Soon enough, most of the worlds in KH2 seem to fly past you pretty fast as you’re eager to know what has happened to everyone else. Of course this is a bit sad as they seem more like leveling grounds and cool character introductions rather than “Get on with that story!” Or you could be like me; whenever someone in a black coat appears you get a big smile on your face. Specially if said person mentions the name Roxas. This is one of the parts I love the most with RPGs, the Moment when you come to miss gone characters and past events, thinking about then in an almost nostalgic matter. “Roxas, where have you gone?” I wonder to myself as I come up with my very own ideas about who Roxas really is and what about his connection to Sora?

So, what ever other joys and mishaps did my 30ish game hour bring me so far? 

Let’s take another look at the worlds for now. Most worlds have taken me about ca 1 hour to complete first time I’ve gone there. As said, the storylines are mostly old ones or random fillers in the quest for Knowledge. But what irked me the most so far is the way they’ve been BUILT. KH1 had tons of secret spots to jump, bash and fly your way to. KH felt HUGE in that matter. You could almost go anywhere and I remember countless hours flying, jumping and what not in Traverse Town. I loved it. You could go anywhere, and even as much as I hated jumping and falling to death, I loved that feeling of freedom. 

But in KH2 all the treasure chests are on the same plane, colorful enough for you to spot them 100 miles away. As I enter a new area I spot said treasure chest and then dive at them like a hawk. That’s it. No hidden chests (and the ones that are meant to be hidden are hidden in a very lame way). No jumping or using the first person view that’ll locale said treasures. No real treasure hunting. 

Another note is that KH2 is pretty linear. You go from point a to b and then c. You can’t go from a-c because you have to do b before you do anything else. If you’re told to go find someone in a certain area, you can’t enter any areas at all. Trying will only tell you “Ohsnap I’m supposed to head to whatever and help whoever.” And you’re tossed into countless of cut scenes where your character will run where ever and so on. Not to forget most worlds are easy to run through. And somehow S-E thought that tossing in MINIGAMES to get around would be more fun. 

The other news with KH2 is the reaction command. Depending who you fight with or which mobs you fight you’ll hit the ^ button magically and all of sudden Sora will do all his fighting by himself. You just have to spam the ^ the button or if anything else is stated. Which of course makes the whole fight amazingly fast and awesome but in fact you’re just left with the ability of doing some combos and hopefully get close enough to hit ^ for a reaction command to take place. Not to mention most fights have some sort of Mini game tossed into them to confuse your head and make your regular button smashing more creative.
But it looks cool and it IS COOL really! I bet anyone watching would think you’re uberpro.So let’s take a look on a couple of things that I’m pleasantly surprised with instead.

Actually I’d have to say the Gummy ship suddenly had a huge upgrade from the total lameness of the first game. I actually found myself doing the missions that came along with the different gummy ship stages because for once flying that ugly block of StarFox bootleg was actually just that FUN. For Once.

 And last but not least in my little rant will have to be: I’m well surprised just how awesome “I see dead people”- Kid is at being Sora’s voice. I can’t actually say I think the Japanese voice is any better. I just think Haley Joel Osment is the perfect match for Sora, and I wish I could say the same for poor Cloud. Anyway. Over all Kingdom Hearts’ always held a high quality when it came to it’s voice actors. Just have a look at this list:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390163/fullcredits 
 

Roxas oh Roxas were art thou?