Kingdom Hearts II (キングダムハーツII, Kingudamu Hātsu Tsū) is an action role-playing game developed by Square Enix Co., Ltd. and published by both Square Enix Co., Ltd. and Buena Vista Games (now Disney Interactive Studios) for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console. Kingdom Hearts II was released on December 22, 2005 in Japan, on March 28, 2006 in North America and on September 29, 2006 in Europe. After one month of availability, it sold 1,000,000 copies in North America and was the second best selling game of 2006.^[1]

Kingdom Hearts II is the follow-up to the 2002 PlayStation 2's Disney Interactive/Square Co., Ltd. RPG Kingdom Hearts, and its 2004 Game Boy Advance sequel, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. The story centers around a group of heroes searching for lost friends and trying to decipher and defeat the mysterious Organization XIII, along with a large cast of characters from both Disney and Square Enix properties.

Gameplay

Kingdom Hearts II continues Kingdom Hearts' style of gameplay. Sora, the main character, is directly controlled by the player from a third person camera angle. Most gameplay occurs on interconnected field maps where battles take place. The game is driven by a linear progression to the next story event, usually told in the form of a cut scene, though there are numerous side quests available that provide bonus benefits to the characters.

Like many traditional role-playing games, Kingdom Hearts II features an experience point system which determines character development. As enemies are defeated, the player gains experience which culminate in a "level up", where the player characters grows stronger and gains access to new abilities. As in Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts II allows a certain degree of character development customization through a short tutorial found at the beginning of the game. The differences are less pronounced than the last game; instead of granting different increases to strength, magic and defense, the choice in the tutorial only affects the order of abilities Sora receives as he levels up.

Combat in Kingdom Hearts II is in real time and involves button presses which initiate Attacks by the on-screen character. Also, an RPG menu found at the bottom left of the screen provides other combat options such as using Magic and Items. There is also a context-sensitive option at the bottom of the menu, usually used for interaction with the environment or for performing Special Attacks. This menu is manipulated using the right analog stick or digital pad, while movement is controlled by the left stick, allowing the player to navigate the menu while avoiding or approaching enemies. A new addition to the series is the Reaction Command, events that are triggered then the player presses the triangle button at specific times during battle. Reaction Commands can be used to defeat regular enemies or avoid damage, and are sometimes necessary to complete a boss battle. In addition to the main character, two party members are usually present who also participate in combat. Though these characters are computer-controlled, the player is allowed to customize their behavior to a certain extent through the menu screen.

Drive Gauge

One of the new features is a meter known as the Drive Gauge. Unlike Hit Points and Magic, it is the only gauge that does not get recharged at a Save Point.

The first feature of the Drive Gauge is "Drive Form." Sora can borrow the energy of party members to become more powerful and acquire different attributes as well. While in Drive Form, he gets a large boost in power and can sometimes even wield a Keyblade in each hand. At first, his Drive Forms only combine power with one party member; as he gains new ones, he can absorb energy from other allies as well. When allies are used in a Drive form, they cannot fight in battle.

Like the previous game, Sora can summon a Disney character to aid him in battle. However, in this game, summoning requires power from the Drive Gauge instead of the MP bar. A summoned character will replace the two computer-controlled characters and fight alongside Sora for as long as the Drive Gauge allows. Also, instead of being limited to only one action, now Summoned characters have a menu of their own and are capable of performing solo actions or cooperative actions with Sora.

Each Drive Form is leveled up separately, while Summons can be leveled up through continued use. Each Drive Form (with the exception of AntiForm) and Summon has a maximum of seven levels. Higher levels allow Drive Forms and Summons to last longer and can also give Sora new abilities that can be used outside of battle.

Limits

A Limit is a special linked attack with any of the guest characters. Later in the game, Sora is also able to perform team attacks with Donald and Goofy individually in a similar fashion, and even later, with both. The combination attacks cannot be used simultaneously with any of Sora's Drive forms, and all of them will use up all of Sora's Magic.

Gummi Ship control

The "Gummi Ship," although retaining its basic system of traveling, has had major changes made. In the world map, the player must now control the Gummi Ship from a top-down view and fly to the world the player wishes to enter. Worlds are no longer open from the beginning- the player must unlock the routes to them by entering a new level, controlling the ship from a third-person point of view, and battling enemy ships. After the route is unlocked, travel to the World is unimpeded, unless it becomes so due to the story line.

Plot

Setting

As in the first Kingdom Hearts game, Kingdom Hearts II allows the player to travel to different locales from various Disney fiction, along with original worlds specifically created for the series.

• Twilight Town is a world trapped in perpetual sunset, being located between light and dark. The world is primarily made up of a tan, warm-colored town with a railroad system that leads to another section of town and the Tower, the home of Yen Sid. Another part of the world is an abandoned mansion which contains many traces of DiZ's research.
• Destiny Islands is a group of islands, one containing a town and another being the former playground of children, including Sora. It is only seen in cutscenes.
• Hollow Bastion is a town surrounding a castle, with a pathway traversing into blue lands, ending at a cliff. The town takes the look of a medieval town, but has advanced machinery supporting it. Many characters based on the Final Fantasy series live here, and it used to be the home of many antagonists of the series.
• The Land of Dragons is a fictionalized account of ancient China, from the film Mulan. It is under constant attack by Shan Yu and his horde of Heartless.
• Beast's Castle is a 1800s-style castle, based on French architecture from Beauty and the Beast. Beast and Belle seek to have a relationship, but their efforts are interrupted by Xaldin, a member of Organization XIII.
• 100 Acre Wood, from The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, is forest inside a book, with many tree-based houses of Pooh characters, a hill with a view and a cave. However, this world cannot exist in its entirety if lost pages are not returned to the book.
• Olympus Coliseum is mostly composed of the Underworld from Hercules, with one area outside of it. Many battle tournaments are held here in the "Underdrome", hosted by Hades, god of the dead.
• Disney Castle is based on the many archetypal castles of Disney; Disney characters, such as Mickey, Donald, and Goofy live here.
• Timeless River is the past version of Disney Castle, accessed through time travel. This world takes the look of early cartoons, being entirely in black and white and featuring early designs of characters, such as Donald Duck from The Wise Little Hen and Pete from Steamboat Willie. Different areas are based on Steamboat Willie, Gulliver Mickey and various other early cartoon serials.
• Atlantica is the underwater kingdom from The Little Mermaid, where the player partakes in musical timing challenges to progress through the story.
• Port Royal, from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, is actually composed of three main areas. One is the port and town itself; another Isla de Muerta, the treasure stronghold of pirates; and a graveyard of shipwrecks. Travel between the three areas is by ship.
• Agrabah is a Middle Eastern kingdom from Aladdin. Locations such as the Cave of Wonders and sand-buried ruins are open to exploration.
• Halloween Town, from The Nightmare Before Christmas, dedicates much area to Christmas Town, the Christmas-themed home of Santa Claus. Some locales in Halloween Town are also available to explore.
• Pride Land(s) is a great area of African savanna from The Lion King. Specific landmarks include the Elephant's Graveyard, the home of the hyenas; Pride Rock, domain of lions and the king of the Pride Lands; and the Oasis, the jungle paradise home to Timon and Pumbaa.
• Space Paranoids is a landscape representing the digital activity of Hollow Bastion's computer network copied from the operating system seen in Tron. Such representation allows for landmarks as the I/O tower and a mesa for the Master Control Program to reside.
• The World That Never Was is the headquarters of Organization XIII, and is close to darkness. The lower level takes the form of a dark city, decorated with neon lights and haunted by many Heartless. The castle looming overhead employs bizarre architecture, being completely white, using roads of light and being adorned with many Nobody symbols.

Characters

The main playable characters in the game are Sora, a 15 year old boy who was chosen to be the master of the Keyblade, a mystical key-shaped weapon that can lock and unlock all manners of locks and destroy Heartless and Nobodies; Donald Duck, the court magician of Disney Castle; and Goofy, the captain of knights of Disney Castle. Both Donald and Goofy were ordered to find and stay with the "key", that being the Keyblade but they have befriended Sora during their journey in Kingdom Hearts and they all draw strength from this friendship.

The various worlds that Sora explores usually have an optional party character, usually from the fiction that the world is based on. Such party members include Mulan, at first in hiding as "Ping", the woman who passes as a man in order to take her ailing father's place in the army; Beast, the tortured prince turned animal who strives for a relationship with the beautiful Belle, but his stubbornness makes this difficult; Auron, the honorable undead warrior brought to life by Hades to kill Hercules; Captain Jack Sparrow, a pirate who seeks his ship, the Black Pearl back; Aladdin, a "street rat" commoner in the kingdom of Agrabah that has the heart of Princess Jasmine; Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town who desperately wants to get Santa Claus' job of spreading the presents to children; Simba, the self-exiled lion who is the rightful king of Pride Lands; Tron, a security program in Hollow Bastion's computer network who seeks to stop the dictatorship of the Master Control Program in the network; and Riku, Sora's friend from Destiny Islands who has joined with DiZ to help Sora's recovery and to end Organization XIII.

Unlike the previous game where Xehanort's Heartless was revealed in the final stages of the game to be the true antagonist, Organization XIII, a group of beings without hearts, was established as the main threat throughout the game, with their control over Heartless, the corrupted hearts that have left beings, and Nobodies, the bodies left over when Heartless are created, culminating into some unknown, but assuredly dangerous plan. Villains unique to the worlds are still prevalent and are often presented as challenges that Sora and the world's unique party character have to overcome. Maleficent returns in the story, but her position in the plot is less relevant than in the previous game. Nevertheless, she creates some issues for Sora to solve.

Many different Disney characters appear in the game. While some make returns from Kingdom Hearts, new, additional characters from Disney's fiction are also introduced, such as Scar from The Lion King, Scrooge McDuck, and Pete, who acts as a persistent enemy, working with the resurrected Maleficent.

Seventeen characters from Final Fantasy games appear, notably, Auron of Final Fantasy X and the return of Leon, Aerith, Cid Highwind, Cloud Strife and Sephiroth. It was stated that although the first game strictly stuck to characters Nomura designed, this time around they were going to "take some risks," implying characters not designed by Nomura might make an appearance.^{[citation needed]} This led to Vivi Orunitia of Final Fantasy IX and Setzer Gabbiani of Final Fantasy VI appearing in Twilight Town.

Story

Kingdom Hearts II begins one year after Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Sora and his companions, Donald and Goofy, have been asleep for the past year in order to regain their lost memories. In the meantime, Roxas is kept in a virtual simulation of Twilight Town created by DiZ so that Roxas, being the Nobody of Sora,^[2] may merge with his original self when he finally regains his memory.^[3] This was done as part of DiZ's revenge on Organization XIII.^[4][5] The invasion of the virtual town by other Nobodies threatens DiZ's plan, but Roxas is finally forced to merge with Sora.

Sora, Donald and Goofy wake up in the real Twilight Town and are sent on another journey by King Mickey and Yen Sid. Their goal is to stop the plans of Organization XIII and find Riku. Sora also receives new clothes that allow him to fuse with party members to gain special abilities, known as Drive Form. Afterwards, Maleficent is resurrected and joins with Pete to continue her quest for power.

Sora travels to many Disney-themed worlds, both old and new, and resolves the troubles caused by Organization XIII, the Heartless, Maleficent and Pete, and local villains. In the meantime, Kairi is kidnapped by Organization XIII. During a visit to Hollow Bastion, they again meet King Mickey, who reveals the true nature of Ansem, the antagonist of Kingdom Hearts. The Ansem who Sora defeated is in fact the Heartless of Xehanort, a student of Ansem the Wise. Xemnas, the leader of Organization XIII, reveals himself and is found to be the Nobody of Xehanort.^[6][7] Organization XIII's plan is revealed; they seek the power of Kingdom Hearts, which is the sum total of the hearts that composed the Heartless that Sora had destroyed with his Keyblade. ^[8] Sora then revisits the worlds to solve lingering problems and new complications, while seeking a path to Organization XIII's base of operations.

Through a passageway in the virtual Twilight Town, Sora, Donald, and Goofy arrive at the World That Never Was, the headquarters of Organization XIII, with Kingdom Hearts looming over as a moon. There, Sora finds Kairi and Riku, who reveals the nature of Sora's and Roxas' relationship. Mickey meets DiZ, who reveals himself to be Ansem the Wise.^[9] Ansem the Wise uses a device that dissipates some of Kingdom Hearts' power, but the overload from the infinite complexity of hearts causes the machine to explode and kills Ansem the Wise.^[10]

The plot climaxes when Sora and his friends battle Xemnas, who uses the remnants of Kingdom Hearts to power his multiple forms.^[11] After Xemnas' defeat, Sora and Riku are reunited with their friends at Destiny Islands, their home.^[12] The game ends with Sora, Kairi and Riku reading a mysterious letter by Mickey.

Development

Voice acting

A special effort was made to preserve the original voice actors from the Disney movies used in Kingdom Hearts II. However, some voice actors from the related television series or direct-to-video sequels were chosen over original voice actors, where applicable. (e.g. Robert Costanzo rather than Danny DeVito).

Content editing

Besides typical English translation and localization, the English version of Kingdom Hearts II differs from the original Japanese version, in the content of gameplay and several scenes.

The Hydra boss in Olympus Coliseum has its green blood from the Japanese version (which in turn was taken from Hercules) changed into black and purple smoke in the English version. An earlier cutscene retains the green blood.

The World That Never Was' boss Xigbar's telescopic sight has been changed from view with a crosshair and black shading around the sides to three glowing circles. An attack animation was also altered; in the Japanese version, Xigbar combined his two hand-held guns to create a sniper rifle, which was used to shoot the player's party during the telescoping sight sequence. In the English version, Xigbar does not combine his guns, but twirls them around and shoots at Sora with a single gun. The death of Organization XIII member Axel was slightly edited, as in the original he caught on fire during his kamikaze attack.

Port Royal contains the most content edits. Cutscenes have been edited to remove some of the violence, such as William Turner threatening to commit suicide while aiming a gun at his head. Also, undead pirates do not catch fire when affected by Fire magic and their muskets have been modified to resemble crossbows, though they still fire with an audible shooting sound effect.

Final Mix+

In a Weekly Shonen Jump interview with Nomura, the Kingdom Hearts creator expressed interest in a possible international version of Kingdom Hearts II, although there were no definite plans. He said that should a "Final Mix" version arise, he has a "trump card" in mind, with such features as the Mushroom Heartless found in the first Kingdom Hearts.^[13] In September 2006, Square Enix announced they would develop Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix+, featuring new scenes and gameplay elements.

Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix+ is a 2-disc set. The first disc contains Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, which added content including extra cutscenes and optional bosses to Kingdom Hearts II. The second disc contains Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories, a 3D PS2 version remake of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories with Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts' graphics, extra scenes, and voiceover for particular scenes. The battle system continues the card gameplay, with the addition of using Reaction Commands.^[14] The game will be released in Japan on March 29th, 2007.^[15] Several independent sources state that a release in North America will occur in Fall 2007^[16] with no confirmation from Square Enix.

Reception

During its first week of availability in Japan, Kingdom Hearts II sold 727,591 copies.^[17] During its first month of availability in North America Kingdom Hearts II sold over an estimated 1 million copies.^[18] The game was also in IGN'S Top 10 Sellers in 2006, standing in number two. It was ranked as number one for Reader's Choice for PS2 Games.^[19] The game has sold a total of 3,210,000 copies worldwide, with 1,600,000 in the United States.^[20]

The critical response of the game has been generally positive with an average score of 87% on Game Rankings making it 18th game of 2006.^[21] Kingdom Hearts II received a near-perfect score from Japanese game magazine Famitsu.^[1] It later went on to tie with Biohazard 4 as Famitsu's Game of The Year 2005.^[22] Famitsu's readers ranked the game 29th on Famitsu's Top 100 games ever^[23] ten places below the first game of the series. Other positive reviews include an 8.7/10 from GameSpot,^[24] a 4.5/5 from Official Playstation Magazine, a 9/10 from GameSpy,^[25] a 9/10 from Game Informer,^[26] a 4 out of 5 from X-Play,^[27] and an overall 9.3 from Electronic Gaming Monthly and 1UP.com.^[28] IGN gave the game a lower score of 7.6/10.^[29]

Audio

An original soundtrack CD for Kingdom Hearts II, composed by Yoko Shimomura was released on January 25, 2006. The theme songs to Kingdom Hearts II, "Passion" and "Sanctuary" (the English version of Passion) are performed by Utada Hikaru, and according to Tetsuya Nomura it ties in even more closely with the game's story than "Hikari" (Simple and Clean) did with Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. The CD single for "Passion" was released on December 14 2005, with a price of ¥1,050 (roughly 8.78 USD).

Merchandise

A manga series has started its serialization in the June 2006 issue (released on May 12th) of the magazine Monthly Shonen Gangan, published by Square Enix. The artist is Shiro Amano, who also did the Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories manga series. Tokyopop licensed the manga and will release volume one in North America in June 12, 2007.

There is a novel series written by Tomoko Kanemaki and illustrated by Shiro Amano. The first volume, titled "Roxas - Seven Days" was released on April 22nd, 2006 and covers Roxas' story to the part where Sora wakes up and leaves Twilight Town. The novel holds extra scenes that were not seen in the game, such as interaction between Organization XIII members and between Axel, Naminé and Riku. The second book, "The Destruction of Hollow Bastion", was released on June 2006. The third book, "Tears of Nobody", was released sometime in the winter, and the fourth is scheduled for February 2007.

Trivia

• Florida's natural ran a small promotion with their fruit snacks in early 2007. It featured game tips and a cut-out character that has a stand.
• A Kingdom hearts II Final mix was originally not going to be made. Then tesuyra noruma was pressured into making it.
• Kingdom hearts II was one of the best-selling video games of 2006 in the USA.
• Disney Channel ran a segment of Disney 411 in Early 2006, near/after the release of Kingdom Hearts II in the USA. It covered the premiere party and featured information and celeb interviews.

References

External links

• Official North American site
• Official Japanese site
• Official European site
• Kingdom Hearts Ultimania
• Kingdom Hearts II's educational benefits
• Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix+ Japanese Site