Solid, solid game - at least on Critical mode, which was the mode I played it on. Mechanically refined and much more bright and bombastic than its predecessors, and has Disney worlds that I don't dislike (which might as well high praise, I might add). Has tons and tons of payoffs for things from the previous games, and features some surprisingly good characters out of the Disney cast (looking at you, Tron).
The new combo system and Drive forms are a joy to play around with, but I do wish Drive forms weren't so slow to level up. Frankly, the game just doesn't have enough runtime to allow you do get most of them past the first 2 or maybe 3 levels without grinding. I also actually really liked the 'alternate' playing style as a lion cub; being able to zip around at high speeds without needing a million lategame abilities for it was a total treat. The QTEs were something I wasn't much of a fan of, especially since they have the same button as auto-limits and auto-forms, but it was never a gigantic problem. As a whole, the game feels like it generally controls a lot more... modernly than the first, which I'm pretty glad about. The first game playing like an early PS2 game was unfortunately not part of its charm to me.
Speaking of which, I was just a tinge disappointed that this had very little of the 90s-00s-kids-movie charm the first game had. It also lacked the more emotionally mature and insightful writing of Chain of Memories, making for a middle ground that has some high highs but a lot of low lows and irritatingly mid mids. It wasn't awful at all - like I said before, the game has tons of payoffs, particularly toward the end - but it meant the journey throughout wasn't always that great. Highlights from the Disney worlds were definitely Beast's Castle, Pride Lands, and Space Paranoids; the first two had the benefit of including previously-seen characters in stories that were a bit more dramatic. Meanwhile, the third of those was simply a short and sweet AI-learns-emotions kind of story that ended with a salient and very pure hug, something weirdly rare indeed for this series.
Organization XIII was a fun set of antagonists despite them not being nearly as intriguing as they were in CoM. I wish they'd gotten more chances to come and taunt Sora and the gang, but what we did get was definitely fine enough and did plenty to characterize even the bland Xaldin. As for protagonists, though, I think this is the first of the games where I didn't really care much for Sora. He was plenty good in the scenes where he was supposed to show actual emotion like when he begs for Saix to bring him to Kairi, but outside of that he's often rather bland and forgettable. At the very least that could be excused in the first game because of him being a kid thrust into a weird scenario, and in Chain of Memories he was significantly more interesting for the whole runtime, so I suppose his KH2 appearance was more disappointing than anything.
To put a cap on this little review just as the game puts a cap on its trilogy, KH2 was a lot of fun and I'm glad I decided to pick it up when I did. I don't think it has quite as interesting merits as the first and second games did, but it has its own in having great gameplay with a satisfactory and conclusive story - things that obviously count for a whole lot when it comes to a video game. It didn't win my heart in the way CoM did and wasn't as likably cheesy as the first game, but it makes up for it enough to be more than worth playing, not to mention enjoyable nearly the whole way through. Er, at least on Critical mode.
The new combo system and Drive forms are a joy to play around with, but I do wish Drive forms weren't so slow to level up. Frankly, the game just doesn't have enough runtime to allow you do get most of them past the first 2 or maybe 3 levels without grinding. I also actually really liked the 'alternate' playing style as a lion cub; being able to zip around at high speeds without needing a million lategame abilities for it was a total treat. The QTEs were something I wasn't much of a fan of, especially since they have the same button as auto-limits and auto-forms, but it was never a gigantic problem. As a whole, the game feels like it generally controls a lot more... modernly than the first, which I'm pretty glad about. The first game playing like an early PS2 game was unfortunately not part of its charm to me.
Speaking of which, I was just a tinge disappointed that this had very little of the 90s-00s-kids-movie charm the first game had. It also lacked the more emotionally mature and insightful writing of Chain of Memories, making for a middle ground that has some high highs but a lot of low lows and irritatingly mid mids. It wasn't awful at all - like I said before, the game has tons of payoffs, particularly toward the end - but it meant the journey throughout wasn't always that great. Highlights from the Disney worlds were definitely Beast's Castle, Pride Lands, and Space Paranoids; the first two had the benefit of including previously-seen characters in stories that were a bit more dramatic. Meanwhile, the third of those was simply a short and sweet AI-learns-emotions kind of story that ended with a salient and very pure hug, something weirdly rare indeed for this series.
Organization XIII was a fun set of antagonists despite them not being nearly as intriguing as they were in CoM. I wish they'd gotten more chances to come and taunt Sora and the gang, but what we did get was definitely fine enough and did plenty to characterize even the bland Xaldin. As for protagonists, though, I think this is the first of the games where I didn't really care much for Sora. He was plenty good in the scenes where he was supposed to show actual emotion like when he begs for Saix to bring him to Kairi, but outside of that he's often rather bland and forgettable. At the very least that could be excused in the first game because of him being a kid thrust into a weird scenario, and in Chain of Memories he was significantly more interesting for the whole runtime, so I suppose his KH2 appearance was more disappointing than anything.
To put a cap on this little review just as the game puts a cap on its trilogy, KH2 was a lot of fun and I'm glad I decided to pick it up when I did. I don't think it has quite as interesting merits as the first and second games did, but it has its own in having great gameplay with a satisfactory and conclusive story - things that obviously count for a whole lot when it comes to a video game. It didn't win my heart in the way CoM did and wasn't as likably cheesy as the first game, but it makes up for it enough to be more than worth playing, not to mention enjoyable nearly the whole way through. Er, at least on Critical mode.