finalark
SNORLAX
Link to original post: [drupal=1490]Review: Kingdom Hearts[/drupal]
In all honesty, I'm somewhat tired of ranting and raving about games that I dislike or hate, so I decided that it was time to write about a game that I actually liked. Kingdom Hearts was an action RPG released on the PlayStation 2 way back in 2002. The game was a crossover between Disney and Square, a crossover even stranger than the Archie-Punisher crossover, maybe.
I'll start with the story seeing how this is an RPG and that's usually the most important part. So, we have this kid named Sora who wants to become an astronaut and explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before. Oh wait, wrong series. What he really want to do is explore worlds along with his friends Riku and Kairi. And in order to accomplish this task Sora and friends have built (and I kid you not) a raft. That's right, they build a raft to go and explore other worlds. I guess this is what happens when you have a lack of meat in your diet. And because this is a JRPG that means that something really bad is going to happen before the spunky young heroes in odd-looking clothes can do anything. So then a giant void of evil stuff pops up, starts sucking up Sora's island, he gets a giant key to swing around, eventually meets up with Donald and Goofy and goes on semi-episotic adventures in various Disney themed worlds. All leading up to Sora, Donald and Goofy beating up an evil guy who had no previous mention or relevance to the plot, and is only evil because someone has to be. It kind of reminds me of those short anime series that use the "monster of the week" formula, only to have a small continuing plot near the end in which the heroes must confront a villain who had nothing to do with the plot before hand. It isn't the best plot, but it's made up for by having great execution. During the cinematics and such you probably won't even notice how illogical the story is because the dialog just has this charm to it that causes you to completely forget the fact that you're basically playing a fanfic! And I'm more than sure that all of the Final Fantasy and Disney character cameos also serve as a great distraction. It's like you're eating a cake with the tastiest and most enjoyable frosting in the world, only to realize, hours after you've eaten it, that the actual cake was made out of mud.
The gameplay is overall pretty good, a little ruff around the edges but still overall good. What Kingdom Hearts is, is a button masher. The heartless (oh, forgot to mention that the bad guys are called that) are more than eager to try and rip Sora's legs off so they appear every other step. And then you're going to have to battle, which usually doesn't consist of much more than "hit the X button a lot, run around a bit in order to get close to whatever you're going to hit, and if you're low on health use cure." And there's another problem I had with this game, they load you down with a ton of spells and most people are only going to use Cure. And Tinker Bell if you're smart. It also doesn't help that your control over the camera is minimal, because there are times that you'll be in a weird place and the camera will get stuck behind something. Although I'll admit that that's is on the rare side. And the game's currency is near useless, you're only going to use it if you're going to buy potions and such from shops but that really doesn't make much of a difference seeing how baddies drop them every other kill. Oh, and cinematics are unskipable, meaning that you have to watch the same three minuets of dialog every time a boss kills you with your own balls.
Even with all of the **** that I'm giving it, Kingdom Hearts is a really enjoyable game. The battle system is surprisingly fun, it's one of the few games to have a good targeting system, and the amusing dialog and charm makes up for the fact that the story is mostly crap. But I'm just really nit-picking this thing to death. If you haven't already, go pick up this game up. Even with all of the flaws that I pointed out and furiously nitpicked, it's still a load of fun that's worth at least one play through.
In all honesty, I'm somewhat tired of ranting and raving about games that I dislike or hate, so I decided that it was time to write about a game that I actually liked. Kingdom Hearts was an action RPG released on the PlayStation 2 way back in 2002. The game was a crossover between Disney and Square, a crossover even stranger than the Archie-Punisher crossover, maybe.
I'll start with the story seeing how this is an RPG and that's usually the most important part. So, we have this kid named Sora who wants to become an astronaut and explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before. Oh wait, wrong series. What he really want to do is explore worlds along with his friends Riku and Kairi. And in order to accomplish this task Sora and friends have built (and I kid you not) a raft. That's right, they build a raft to go and explore other worlds. I guess this is what happens when you have a lack of meat in your diet. And because this is a JRPG that means that something really bad is going to happen before the spunky young heroes in odd-looking clothes can do anything. So then a giant void of evil stuff pops up, starts sucking up Sora's island, he gets a giant key to swing around, eventually meets up with Donald and Goofy and goes on semi-episotic adventures in various Disney themed worlds. All leading up to Sora, Donald and Goofy beating up an evil guy who had no previous mention or relevance to the plot, and is only evil because someone has to be. It kind of reminds me of those short anime series that use the "monster of the week" formula, only to have a small continuing plot near the end in which the heroes must confront a villain who had nothing to do with the plot before hand. It isn't the best plot, but it's made up for by having great execution. During the cinematics and such you probably won't even notice how illogical the story is because the dialog just has this charm to it that causes you to completely forget the fact that you're basically playing a fanfic! And I'm more than sure that all of the Final Fantasy and Disney character cameos also serve as a great distraction. It's like you're eating a cake with the tastiest and most enjoyable frosting in the world, only to realize, hours after you've eaten it, that the actual cake was made out of mud.
The gameplay is overall pretty good, a little ruff around the edges but still overall good. What Kingdom Hearts is, is a button masher. The heartless (oh, forgot to mention that the bad guys are called that) are more than eager to try and rip Sora's legs off so they appear every other step. And then you're going to have to battle, which usually doesn't consist of much more than "hit the X button a lot, run around a bit in order to get close to whatever you're going to hit, and if you're low on health use cure." And there's another problem I had with this game, they load you down with a ton of spells and most people are only going to use Cure. And Tinker Bell if you're smart. It also doesn't help that your control over the camera is minimal, because there are times that you'll be in a weird place and the camera will get stuck behind something. Although I'll admit that that's is on the rare side. And the game's currency is near useless, you're only going to use it if you're going to buy potions and such from shops but that really doesn't make much of a difference seeing how baddies drop them every other kill. Oh, and cinematics are unskipable, meaning that you have to watch the same three minuets of dialog every time a boss kills you with your own balls.
Even with all of the **** that I'm giving it, Kingdom Hearts is a really enjoyable game. The battle system is surprisingly fun, it's one of the few games to have a good targeting system, and the amusing dialog and charm makes up for the fact that the story is mostly crap. But I'm just really nit-picking this thing to death. If you haven't already, go pick up this game up. Even with all of the flaws that I pointed out and furiously nitpicked, it's still a load of fun that's worth at least one play through.
