User:HeartlessSlayer/KH Reviews

Alrighty, first time doing a review on one of my fave game series of all time so let's take a gander. Since we already know about the differences of controls, graphics etc., I'm actually gonna take a look further into the games for this review, basically story depth and presentation. And feel free to offer your opinions, just keep it clean and respectful mind you, this is mostly opinion based. I would be giving the pros and cons of the games and then afterwards, compare them to see how they do against each other.

Kingdom Hearts

The pros of this game were the unique worlds to visit and how they actually connect to the main plot of the game. Such as the mystery of the heartless explored in Wonderland, the importance of the key hole in Agrabah, and probably the most overlooked of all, the chain of events of the story being foretold in Tarzan's Deep Jungle. Such as the slideshow fortelling about the future events to come of the game, Clayton being an example of how the heartless come into worlds and how they lose themselves to them and even Tarzan hinting out to where Sora can find his friends. You don't get that in the actual movies! While sadly Deep Jungle wasn't in CoM due to copyright reasons, but most should never forget that no matter how much you like a world or not, every world plays a big role in the entire series.

As for the cons, well, easy to point out, slow gummi ships making it tedious to travel to new worlds, visiting worlds short lived after sealing keyhole, and of course, the camera control. But again, most fans would know that so no need to get to it.

Kingdom Hearts 2

While technically there is Chain of Memories but I am just focusing on the main titles of the series, whereas CoM is like the Clone Wars of the series, it was just to answer questions about some events presented in KH2. The pros in KH2 are the stylish graphics, improved controls and more fun gummi ship travels. As well, they added a lot of moves called Limit Breaks and Drive Forms that makes the game more action packed and exciting to the fans.

However, this game is not without its cons. Whereas it is an action RPG, unfortunately, KH2 seems to move away from the RPG element and be more of an action game where you can simply just use your keyblade moves to beat the game.

Comparisons

Now to bring in the comparisons. As I mentioned before, the worlds have a deep connection to the game's main plot, however, a big disappointment to me, dare I say, is the use of the worlds in KH2. Don't get me wrong, they did bring in some interesting worlds, unfortunately, most of the plots are related to the movies, scene by scene and line by line, and sadly, it kinda ruins the spirit of the game. Though to be fair, not all worlds were that unfortunate, some actually managed to hold themselves as to stay connected to the main plot such as Beast's Castle, Olympus Coliseum, and Space Paranoids to name a few. But again, to be fair, the 2nd visit to the worlds do become more connected to the main game plot, but its usually the 1st visits that connects to my point to criticism. But, if there was any world I would have to say was REALLY brought down in KH2 was sadly, Atlantica. After playing the first game, you can see how it was connected to the main plot, and even a little bit in CoM. But for some reason, when it was downgraded to a mini game world, they decided to not care about its connection to the game, use the movie plot just by adding in 3 additional characters, but the worst part is the idea of the mini games...SINGING. Ironically for a game that is supposed to be darker than the first, honestly, the presentation of this world with its idea of mini games doesn't really help, especially with the first song played to have the words "finny fun" in the end.

Another concept to think about is the comparisons of the main antagonists. In the first game, we mostly have the Disney Villains such as Clayton and Maleficient. I think so far this was the only game of the series that actually has the players take them seriously, but then we learn that they were all being used by a man named Ansem (Xehanort's Heartless) to seek kingdom hearts to send all worlds into darkness. (Kinda like a hell on earth motive...DAMN) Then in CoM and KH2, we're introduced to a mysterious group called Organization XIII, a group of powerful nobodies who seek to use Kingdom Hearts to give them hearts so they can be complete. Sounds basic enough and pretty deep and creepy for how they use Sora to do so, but the leader Xemnas (Xehanort's nobody) has a personal plan, which is to use Kingdom Hearts, absorb its power, destroy all other worlds and create a brand new one in his image. Gee, that sounds familiar...(Sephiroth) But when comparing the main 2 baddies to how they act, this is what we see. Ansem's motives is just simply to send all worlds into darkness believing that is the destiny of every heart. That is FREAKY. Xemnas's motives are usually blurry and while he does tend to act "meloncholy" about his purpose as a nobody, its all a ruse for all nobodies don;t have personalities for they lack hearts so we can truly see the emptiness in him. While that is creepy, but yet you still feel that emptiness that doesn;t get you intimidated, whereas Ansem (voiced by Billy Zane) can really make your skin crawl.

Another funny concept I have noticed with the games is that in the very first game, the player is excited to explore different worlds and learn more about the main plot. Whereas in CoM and KH2, the worlds aren't that much fun at first and most would usually just want to move on and continue with the main plot. And the other funny thing is that if that were the case, KH2 may have not have been so interesting to many fans, I think the only thing that keeps the game alive is the mystery of Organization XIII, if it wasn't for them, KH2 wouldn't have that dark edge that makes it more mysterious.

So in conclusion, I know this may seem rough, its just I don;t have much time for this, but, while KH2 is a good game, I just think that the first one is better with more interesting plot, interesting atmosphere and more heart in the story. (no pun intended)