Kingdom Hearts

Years in the making and hyped like crazy, Kingdom Hearts for the PlayStation 2 had me eagerly awaiting for months. Although not a big Disney fan, I salivated at the dream of seeing all the great Disney and SquareSoft characters together in one DVD game. When September 17, 2002 came, I ran out to get my copy and have been enthralled by this game's beauty, charm, and playability.

Kingdom Hearts features two stories, one, about a boy named Sora who is looking for his friends who have vanished. and two, Donald Duck and Goofy, who are looking for the missing King Mickey. The three have to work together when they find out that they hold the key from keeping the Disney worlds from being destroyed by The Heartless.

You'll travel through a number of classic Disney films such as Aladdin, Pinocchio, Tarzan, and The Little Mermaid. You'll meet all sorts of cameo appearances from Disney films and SquareSoft's Final Fantasy games. The games play like the Legend Of Zelda series, with real-time battling, you control Sora while the other two characters support you. You'll face classic bosses from the movies, such as Captain Hook and Jafar as the Evil Genie.

The graphics of this game are gorgeous, looking like an animated Disney film itself. The power of DVD games makes all the difference. The gameplay is good, too, although niggles with the camera get in the way. The sound is great, too, although I would have liked to hear the songs from the movies that are used as levels. Of course, the voice acting is first-rate, with one of the deepest casts ever put together. The premier child actor Haley Joel Osment voices Sora. You've got actors reprising their voice roles from the films such as James Woods(Hades), Gilbert Gottfried(Iago), and Dan Castelenatta(The Genie from the Aladdin T.V. series). You've got it all: pop stars like Mandy Moore (Aerith) and Lance Bass (Sephiroth), fading talents like Robby Benson and Chris Sarandon, the cool voice of Billy Zane, rising stars, even Tiny Toons voice for Babs Bunny (Tress MacNeille) is here. The voices for Donald and Goofy are spot-on accurate, too.

Put it all together and you've got a game that's a must own if you have the PS2. A truly landmark game, this proves that cross-marketing, mass-marketing, and celebrity firepower can work. Buy it! ***** out of *****!

Like most other Square Fans, I was extremely skeptical when I first heard that the RPG legend would be teaming up with Disney, of all people, to produce a game. However, as time went on and more screenshots and gameplay tidbits were released, Kingdom Hearts became more and more appealing. Thankfully, When the big release day finally arrived, I was not disappointed. Square had managed to perfectly intergrate the Disney mythos along with the Final Fantasy universe to create a game of a game. Square has once again shown its talent for creating magical RPGs.

Kingdom Hearts is truly a stunning accomplishment and may very well be the game of the year for 2002. The biggest problem with Kingdom Hearts is that many gamers are bashing it because of the inclusion of the Disney characters without even playing the game. This is very short-sighted. Kingdom Hearts is a classic game, and if you own a PS2, this is one game that should absolutely be in your collection.

I have always been a fan of both Disney & video games like Final Fantasy! A small challenge & memorable characters, this game caught my attention right away! After playing it, conquering the game, and the ability to save your place in the game, I just could not get enough of it! I recommend this game to anyone who's a fan of Disney & Squaresoft! Not just the gameplay, but knowing that 90% of the original voice casting from the movies & series of Disney was what also caught my attention in the credits! Being knowledgeable of entertainment and performer myself, I checked up on much of this! This Playstation 2 game's VERY WELL DONE! I certainly look forward to the sequel! BRING IT ON! I give this game, on a scale of 1 to 10, an: 11!

This PS2 video game is great, and is also a Disney game you can all enjoy, and won't be ashamed to buy or mention to anyone that you played it. It combines Final Fantasy like characters, the game play and storyline and puts a Disney like storyline and characters in it. Ingenious! A very cute game with less gore, and blood, perhaps no blood or gore at all, you play as Sora a young spiky haired kid, who searches for his friends and has to work with Goofy and Donald. The other Disney character come from various films such as Peter Pan, Aladdin, Tarzan, etc. Anyways, the controls are easy, and it doesn't have the wait system like most RPGs do, it's more of an action adventure RPG game, much like The Legend of Zelda, or Castlevania, and mostly you control the main character while others attack randomly, but it still has a few things from other FF games or RPGs, for example you can still give items to other party members, like health or potions, and you can also level them up, and yourself as well, and can even switch allies as well, depending where you are. Overall, great graphics, fair controls, nice game play, it deserves a stunning 9! Thank you Disney, arigato gozaimasu Tetsuya Nomura-sama! So far the best Disney game.

...let Square (sorry, Square Enix) do it. A lot of people groaned when they heard the words "Disney" and "platform game" put together when this game was first described, although a lot more interest was spawned when people heard that several Final Fantasy (the best game series ever) characters would be appearing. People demand a lot more from games these days - plot, story, character, action. People would never have dreamed of this when they were sitting playing KABOOM on their old Atari 2600s. The old platform game is now dead hopefully, make way for a new breed of platform game.

I can only describe this game as a masterpiece of entertainment. It had action, drama, coherent plot that got typically complicated towards the end (very Japanese sorta thing). It was well worth the money I paid for it, although the problem with Final Fantasy-esque games is their lack of replayability. Everyone likes surprises in plots, but they only work once. I wish I had some sort of operation to make me forget certain specific things so I could play FF9 again...