Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts
A collabaration between Square Enix and Disney Interactive a few years ago gave birth to a new and exciting game : Kingdom Hearts. The story of Kingdom Hearts is about a boy named Sora who lives in Destiny Island with his two best friends (Riku & Kairi). His peaceful life changes drastically when one day, a storm hits the island and he is separated from his friends. Thrown into an entirely different world, he learns of the existence of other worlds apart from his own. Conflicts arise when he finds out that evil beings called the Heartless were endangering all the worlds. Much to his surprise, Sora finds out that he is the chosen Keyblade master who weilds the keyblade and it then becomes his responsibility to travel from world to world in order to 'lock the keyholes' of each world to stop the Heartless from taking over. Thus, Sora then embarks on a journey to seal all the keyholes in each world, as well as to look for his missing friends. Accompanying him during his travels are Donald and Goofy, whom are also looking for their missing King : King Mickey. Along the way, the trio encounter many different characters and we see many familiar faces from Disney and Final Fantasy as they journey across the worlds.
In my personal opinion, Kingdom Hearts is an excellent game which brings us into a magical world with great animation and settings. The fighting sequence is great too in which you actually get to fully control your characters and its movements, rather than some RPGs which only allows minimal control such as in the FF games where you have to wait your turn to attack. =.= The storyline of the game is fantastic too, with heartwarming elements at times like all Disney cartoons do. Oh, and not to forget the absolutely wonderful theme song of the game by Utada Hikaru. The title of the English version of the song is Simple and Clean whereas the Japanese version is called Hikari. Throughout the game, the song is played constantly according to the mood of the situation and trust me, the timing in which it plays are excellent and serves to enhance the moment. Both tracks are excellent and definitely worth hearing.
Kingdom Hearts : Chain of Memories
Following the success from Kingdom Hearts, a sequel was released in GBA form called Kingdom Hearts : Chain of Memories. It picks off from where where Kingdom Hearts left off where we see Pluto carrying a letter in his mouth, supposedly from King Mickey. Chain of Memories actually serves as a bridge from KH1 to KH2 and provides a rough background on how things became what they were in the start of KH2(or so, I've heard).Not having played Chain of Memories myself, I am not sure how it works in the GBA but according to Internet reviews, it seems that it looks rather promising all the same!
DID YOU KNOW?
There's actually such a thing as a Kingdom Hearts manga! They can actually be downloaded from several sites on the Net! One of the sites are http://www.aku-tenshi.com/manga.php whom are actually scanlating the Kingdom Hearts : Chain of Memories manga. Highly useful for people who can't play Chain of Memories cos they don't own a GBA! (like me!)
Kingdom Hearts 2
The latest installment of the KH series. It was released in Japan on the 22nd of December last year, and only recently released in North America (28th March). The story starts of with a mysterious boy named Roxas. Roxas is revealed to have some sort of connection with Sora early in the game and his resemblance to the Keyblade Master brings up questions as to who he really is. The only people who seem to know what's going on are the mysterious, hooded people in black and a girl named Namine. Sora, Donald and Goofy turns up later in the game after they awaken from a deep slumber and continues in their quest to search for Sora's friend, Riku, and King Mickey. Once again, conflicts arise as he learns that the Heartless have not been eliminated completely and worse still, that there are now evil beings called Nobodies existing as well. The plot thickens as we find out about a suspicious organization called the Organization 13 (the mysterious, hooded people in black) whom supposedly heads the Nobodies. Sora then embarks once more on a journey around the worlds to search for Riku and King Mickey with Donald and Goofy. On the way, he uncovers more about these beings called the Nobodies and Organization 13 as well as the reason to why all his friends had seemingly forgotten about him during his slumber...
The storyline in KH2 may be confusing at first but as players move on, we realize it is pretty similar to its predecessor. The aim of the game is basically to travel across the worlds once more in another journey to search for lost friends and along the way bashing the evil beings. It seems that KH2 utilizes more use of Reaction buttons and this certainly adds to the intensity of gameplay. The animation is great once again and the fighting sequence improves with the usage of reaction buttons. Sora is able to execute cooler moves this time around now with the addition of drives. With the drives, Sora is able to change forms and execute different attacks including combination attacks with party members. One cool thing about KH2 is that Sora is able to use two keyblades when he changes form! Not to forget, the summonings are still available (among the available summons are Chicken Little and YuRiPa of FFX). Not to forget again, the theme song is once more sang by Utada Hikaru. The English version of the song is titled Sanctuary whereas the Japanese title is Passion. Once again, two excellent tracks and definitely highly recommended.
Not having completed KH2 yet, it probably isn't fair to judge yet but so far, I'm definitely loving it! Playing KH2 reminds me just how great KH was and possibly even better! I definitely recommend this game to any PS2 gamer!
Voice Actors for KH2
Main Characters
Haley Joel Osment .... Sora
Tony Anselmo .... Donald Duck
Bill Farmer .... Goofy
David Gallagher .... Riku
Hayden Panettiere .... Kairi
Jesse McCartney .... Roxas
Brittany Snow .... Namine
Christopher Lee .... DiZ
Miscellaneous Characters
Corey Burton .... Yensid
Sean Marquette .... Pence
Final Fantasy
Steve Burton .... Cloud Strife
Rachael Leigh Cook .... Tifa Lockhart
Mena Suvari .... Aerith Gainsborough
David Boreanaz .... Squall Leonhart (Leon)
Hedy Burress .... Yuna
Matt McKenzie .... Auron
Tara Strong .... Rikku
Gwendoline Yeo .... Paine
Hercules
Sean Astin .... Hercules
James Woods .... Hades
Beauty & The Beast
Robby Benson .... Beast
Aladdin
Scott Weinger .... Aladdin
Dan Castellaneta .... Genie
Mulan
Ming-Na .... Mulan
Mark Mosley .... Mushu
Miguel Ferrer .... Shan-Yu
Chicken Little
Zach Braff .... Chicken Little
Tron
Bruce Boxleitner .... Tron
Information taken once again from www.kh2.co.uk
Images
Sora from KH1 to KH2:
KH1 :
KH2 :
Does anyone agree with me that Sora looks much more mature and cuter in KH2? Hehe~
K airi from KH1 to KH2 :
Kairi looks hotter too~
Riku(KH1) :
Err, no pic of Riku in KH2 as of now ^^;;
Do
nald :Goofy :
Basically Donald and Goofy never look any different do they?
Roxas(KH2) :
Namine(KH2) :
Organization 13 :
Media
Of course, eveyone loves media. Below I found a YouTube video of the Intro for KH2. Very, very nice! Check it out! (You may want to let it buffer first before playing it. It wouldn't be much fun if the video keeps getting stuck if it hasn't completed loading, right?)
Links
There are many more sites out there which can provide much more than I can so here are some links to those who are even the tiniest bit interested :
http://www.kh2.co.uk/ = Apart from providing the download for the theme song of KH2 (Sanctuary), this site provides downloads of scenes from the game itself including Secret Endings! Excellent site for KH lovers!
http://www.chaotic-gaming.com/index.php = Has some media, images, downloads, etc for KH as well. Definitely worth a visit.
http://na.square-enix.com/games/kingdomhearts/ = Has links to interactive menus for KH stuff. Wallpapers, downloads, previews, trailers and much more! Take your time to look through it!
Last but not least, I just want to put in a note of disclaimer here. All information and media have been compiled from various sites across the Net so all the credit goes to them! Most of the goodies were taken from sites that I have cited above in the links section so a big bow to them for their dedication to KH. This post is just to spread the KH love, and not for my benefit in any way. Thank you.
Feedback will be appreciated! I intend to post on more anime, games, etc in future so comments on how to improve would be nice! That's all for now folks! Hope you enjoyed my KH babble! Until next time, good day!
posted by Princess Resha | 4:01 PM
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