Impressions....

Current Game Time : 15hrs. 20min..

this game is quite interesting... everyone wonders what squaresoft could do if they partnered up with another company... and for their first partnership they signed on with Disney... "what the hell?".. was my initial reaction to this back in March when the news came about... and that was also my reaction when i read that Donald and Goofy were constantly in your party...

What the hell, indeed... well this is what the hell... the world of kingdom hearts is setup as different worlds.. each world is basically a different Disney movie, at least the one's you are able to go to... There's the world of Wonderland ( Alice in Wonderland ), Olympus ( Hercules ) , Tarzan's Jungle ( Tarzan ) , Halloween Town ( Nightmare before Christmas ) , Atlantica ( The Little Mermaid ), Monstro ( the whale in Pinochico ), Agrabah ( Alladin ), and some others i have yet to visit...

Now the basic pro's and con's of this game are Pros : Squaresoft, Cons : Disney ... this is very true with Donald and Goofy.. who completely make a joke of this game... why 'o why... i just gotta remind myself that this is a kid's game.. not made for adults... sigh... however, the Disney aspect of the game comes out better and better as you progress through the game... All the Disney's character in the game look perfect in their 3d shape... and it sounds like they resigned the original voice actors for each roll as well...

Each world has a basic objective... help the characters out in the story ( which most of the time is just replaying scenes from the movie ), and find the keyhole of the world to unlock the heartless from consuming it... those are your enemies by the way... The heartless.. being formed from the darkness to steal the hearts of the living... each world has their own style of heartless.. and in the middle levels, where i'm at, the heartless are very well drawn out.. like in Halloween town.. such beautiful imagery... wow...

Throughout this whole game... i initially expected great things.. but then Donald and Goofy came along, and i was fucking pissed... ARhhghg... so my expectations dropped very low... and as i continue through the game now.. the game continues to surprise me with the new worlds you travel through.. its very cool ^_^ ...

in the begining of the game.. it was rough though... besides Donald and Goofy, you have this horrible part of the gameplay when to travel to different worlds.. you must travel by Gummi Ship.. ugh... and from world to world, you fly the distance in style much like 3d Rtype... except the graphics are terrible and movement can be annoying... strike 2... thank god for Final Fantasy..

so far all the Final Fantasy characters i've encountered have been in the first 3 worlds... in the begining, on Sora's homeworld.. ( Sora is the main character btw ).. Selfie, Wakka, and Tidus are also children playing around on the island... they love a good fight... now that i think of it, you seem to fight with almost all of the FF characters you come across...

The next set of Final Fantasy characters you find is in the next world.. Traverse Town.. a world who main inhabitants are ones for destroyed worlds... Moogles walk about the town and also run the synthesation shop... also in this town you come across Squall, Yuffie, Cid and Aerith... ahh... this is why i wanted to play the game in the first place.. the voice acting is not bad... all the voices fit very well with the charcters.. and they look beautiful.. great respresentation ...

The other Final Fantasy character i've run into is the badass himself.. Cloud.. in full badass atire.. check him out .... you meet and fight him in the Collesuim... you also fight Squall and Yuffie later in other tournaments.. plus who knows who else.. i've only gone through 2 tourneys.... Sephiroth is somewhere in the game too as a secret boss...

so to conclude this.. if you play Kingdom Hearts.. don't let the initial garbage of the game detour away... like some other things in life.. it may hurt at first.. but as you get used to it, you'll see just how great it is and realize how foolish you were to think about not doing it...

- Dyre - 9.21.02

thanks to playing the game all weekend, i've gotten all the way through it... and now i must confess.. this game does have depth... depth in gameplay.. much like the depth you'd find in a Final Fantasy... rare items you must obtain from enemies to make your cool weapons.. optional bosses that kick your ass... and plenty of mini-games... plus two or three alternate endings to tickle your fancy...

the big hook of Kingdom Hearts is the gameplay.. much like Devil May Cry, its so simple that its fun to beat the hell out of the enemies in your way... hack, slash, hack, slash... its fun.. even though its a bit primal.. as you level up you gain abilities that add to your combo strings, or special moves to finish off a combo... Donald and Goofy have these things too, which makes it easy on you when you just let them do your dirty work for ya... except when that idiot Goofy knocks the enemy out of your way when you are about to deal the final death blow...

The music is also something to comment on... the battle music is quite dynamic as sets the mood for a fast paced battle where all you do is hit the X button... uptempo remix of the regular background music of the world... the worlds music is always distinct.. such as Halloween Town or Atlantica... where the songs in the movie provide the key melody... the music really isn't bad.. its fits very well for each world.. and provides a nice ambient enviroment to compliment the exploration...

Now again, for the Disney vs. Squaresoft aspects of the game... everything seems about even.. sure almost all the worlds are Disney movies... but the Final Fantasy characters are the ones that know what is actually going on with the universe.. the know why this is happening, and what to do.. so they are never represented as ignorant... unlike the Disney characters who usually don't know what the hell...

now as for the actual story of the game... its not all bad... its fine.. but its nothing spectacular... you go from world to world noticing the heartless are an infestation, and then you sought to take care of it... except your rival gets in the way.. and the true puppet master shows himself.... and then you kick his ass.. and then beat the game... i'd rather not completely give away the ending...

so whats left after that eh ? ... well as i've said before there's plenty of hidden things to find and kill... one of which is Sephiroth, who i've mentioned before... he is tough... my character is at level 60 and 2 hits from his masamune and i'm dead... plus, my current weapon doesn't do shit for damage on the mammoth.. i may have hit him a dozen times and his intial life bar hasn't dropped more than 10%... i guess i've gotta max out my stats for him to be defeated...

there are also two other optional bosses i still have to defeat... both of which kick my ass when i attempt.. The one resides in Neverland ( Peter Pan )... The dark cloaked flying spirit follows you from neverland to the clock tower where he initiates the fight... this battle is annoying because big ben counts down much like a Doom spell.. you have 12 seconds until you are dead... you can counter this by casting Stop on the clock... but you need all your magic against the boss itself.. which each hit deals around 1% of his total life... more leveling required...

The other boss resides in Agrabah.. and during this fight, you cannot use magic... the creature seals it only to make your life harder... and after you realize you can't cast Curaga on yourself.. he swipes you with his furiously spinning blades... alot more leveling required for this one...

so you see... there's still plenty of things to get frustrated at... i mean.. do... the default ending was kinda lame though.. hopefully the next ending actually provides a more solid finish...

- Dyre - 9.22.02

Current Game Time : 31hrs 9min
Game Status : Collecting trinkets of the world for better stats...

i've collected all 99 Dalmation puppies, Unlocked Every World and Defeated the Hades Cup in the collesium.. so now when i beat the game again, i should get the better of the two endings... the third and forth endings are just different displays at the end of the credits, so i'm not going to count those... right now i'm looking for the rest of the Trinity triggers, and i still need a Stop Arts item for the Dream Shield weapon for Goofy..

The arts items are given by the White Mushroom enemy in the game... they play a little game a cherades with you.. and its up to you to guess correctly what magic to cast on him when he's doing his hint... when you've casted 3 of the same magic on the Mushroom in a room.. the White Mushroom drops the Arts for that Magic.. you collect all 7 different arts and then give 'em to Merlin... The 4 main elements were easy to get.. and the Cure and Gravity Arts was just a matter of location... but The Stop Arts continues to annoy me... only in one spot in the universe do these White Mushroom mimics stop.. and usually don't often repeat it... i did get close though.. it was going great until it ran away..

and speaking of getting close... one of the optional Bosses, The Ice Titan, was almost defeated by me until a continuence of poundings did not give me time to heal before the final blow... The Ice Titan is enormous... you fight it in the Gold Match which is unlocked after defeating the Hades Cup... you can't touch it at all... it's just too tall... to defeat it you must repel the ice shards that it fires at you.... and for some reason, they take off alot of damage.. after a while he gets knocked out so you can pound him with your sword.... because of the endurance of the battle, the boss has a couple different stages of strategy it uses against you as you dewindle its life away... and i guess the last stage was just a little too much at the time...

Sephiroth has similiar stages of strategy as well... although i haven't come close to getting anywhere towards his next stage without being flattened... my character is to the level now where i can hold out in battle for quite a while... at level 64, i fought him for about 20 minutes or so until he caught me up in a combo... i managed to knock his HP down about maybe 4% ... whoo hoo.. progress...

- Dyre - 9.24.02

Current Game Time : 34hrs 23min +
Game Status : Level 69, Completed twice, Sephiroth still a bitch...

Alrigth, after beating the game with the extra ending, i can say without doubt that the director pulled this story for the deep reaches of his ass hole... because he knew the story would not be the high point of the game... how correct he was when he put gameplay, graphics, and Disney Movies all ahead of it... and this extra ending makes me want to vent in a furious rage... but what the hell does squaresoft care.. they made so much in profits that money woes the cares right away...

That being said, in my opinion, this game is purely an experiment which was what i viewed it as from the very begining of conception... it seems to me that the director took the game in this same fashion... and when all is said and done... i can accept that... if you weren't going for story, then i can't complain how terrible it is... so.. fuck it...

The extra ending is not a good ending, or a different ending... its the same damn ending.. with nothing different... the only thing extra about it is at the very very end... you get a little featurette that is very tasty eye candy, but another example of how this game has such a hideous story... i won't give it away, but i will tell you that its worth it to watch, because this is the game all of us adults would have hoped it to be...

and Another thing that really pisses me off... i defeated the Ice Titan.. and to my enraged surprise you get nothing.. no good item, no crappy item.. you get absolutely nothing.. NOTHING... what the hell is the point of fighting him then ??.. you don't get any recognition that you killed him... nor any compensation for your trouble.. what a fucking ripoff.. and i bet you get the same when you defeat Sephiroth... what a pile of shit... not since the defeat of Osma have i been so pissed... and the Ice Titan wasn't even all the difficult either...

speaking of Sephiroth, i have gotten to the point where i've depleted 25% of his health... and he throws down the gloves after that... he lauches a spell that you can't avoid and it drains all your health and mana.. and after which he charges at you before you have a chance to do anything, and slays you with his sword... sounds fun eh ?.. well i think its fitting.. it'll be fun to play him some more later with higher levels and weapons...

now although this is common knowledge it is still interesting to know some of the voice actors that provided voices for the famed Final Fantasy Characters... Mandy Moore provided the voice for Aerith and Lance Bass ( of N'sync ) provided the voice for Sephiroth... can you believe there are some people who won't even touch the game because of this.. yeesh.. the voice acting in Kingdom Hearts is the best Squaresoft has done yet, and perhaps the best in all video games... the lip sync is still below par, but the voices seem to fit the characters well...

so, even though there isn't much left to do in the game, i'll still probably login about 7 more hours just to collect and kill the rest of the games details...

- Dyre - 9.26.02

Current Game Time : 37hrs 57min..
Game Status : Level 77, I am done...

I have defeated Sephiroth and all the other optional bosses.. i have obtained all the secrets items that are worth getting... there is really nothing left to accomplish in the game.. so this is the end...

Sephiroth is still difficult, but still predictable as any boss in the game... if you know what you're doing, he'll end up jumping right toward you into your attack... you must be sure to hit him before he gets off his life draining spells... if he does you aren't necessarly screwed... just run away, and quickly use an elixir to get back on your feet... he is fast, but in his weakend outburst of attacks, he is left wide open that he'll usually just run into an attack... hack and slash your way to victory....

Now that i have done the deed of Kingdom Hearts.. my final verdict is that of concern... many of you are completely against the game because of Disney's involvement... if you get off your high horse, you'll notice in this game that there are endless amounts of other actually terrible points in the game to pick apart without even mentioning Disney... the most prominent of them all being the Story..

Squaresoft has done this before... you remember Ehrgeiz and Chocobo Racing don't you ??... they only reason these games had sales in the first place was because of returning Final Fantasy Characters in a new format... a Final Fantasy Figthing Game.. a Final Fantasy Racing Game... and now we have a Final Fantasy Reunion Game... which unlike the other two, does have some good points of its own... and most of those good points ARE Disney...

sure Donald and Goofy make me want to beat Squaresoft with a jadged stick... but the worlds of Disney are very well transfered to their 3d Form... almost flawlessly... The Little Mermaid is one of my favorite Disney movies, and it looks so beautiful... and i was absoluetly surprised with the fight against Satan from Fantasia at the end... what an awesome sight... Halloween Town has got to be the best looking out of all the worlds simply because of the attention to detail... Oogie Boogie has all his stitches put into place.. everything appears exactly from the screen...

and besides the Disney worlds getting all the attention the characters follow their original rolls perfectly... a favorite moment of mine is with The Beast, from Beauty and the Beast... simply using all his strength to combat the heartless as he breaks into the castle where Belle is help captive... excellent use of character plot...

The game does have something special to it... but there are so many negative things about the game.. i've mentioned the story a number of times.. but the gameplay.. however in depth it may be, it still just a simple continuence of X button tappings... most boss battles require little intelligence to achieve victory.. its almost a joke...

One of the worst aspects of the game is the Gummi ship... however fun it may be to create a spaceship that looks like it's made of lego's.. there is absoluetly no reason for doing it... making a better ship to fly in, will only get you more pieces to make more spaceships... there's no need for it.. its completely useless, idiotic, and even embarassing to play during these parts... a simple day of further brainstorming would have easily solved this conception problem...

and once again with the Story... its hardly thoughout... there is simply no thought involved with the characters or story development whats so ever... just because its a child's game, doesn't mean that you childishly make the game... think like an intellitual.. Pixar and Ghilbi have made numbers of movies with excellent plots and characters and those are made for children.... and the ending to this game... so completely fucking terrible, you wonder why you even played it to begin with...

this game is a fucking joke.. nothing more than 3d renders and animation of Final Fantasy and Disney characters in familiar situations... future generations will wonder why this game was so popular... and me... well, i know that squaresoft will rarely ever again reach the level purity it has with some of its previous games... they have chosen the business side of entertainment, and from that there is no returning...

but i do encourage you to play the game.. rent, borrow, or do something else... it is worth it to check out... it just annoys me how thoughtless the development of the game was.. seeing old Final Fantasy characters again with new motives is always entertaining...

this game is the emballment of business... a recreation of something original resold to make money.. so if you do play it.. try to keep it as duty-free as possible.. our society wants nothing more than this, and its completely uncreative...

- Dyre - 9.27.02