WHAT WAS WRONG WITH KINGDOM HEARTS 2

Pretty much everything was wrong with Kingdom Hearts 2. Which is both strange and infinitely aggravating as everything had already been done RIGHT with Kingdom Hearts 1: the story, the pace, the characters, the boss battles, and the final level (especially fighting that fucking Bald Mountain demon in the final level, and kicking his ass back to Fantasia!)... But instead of learning from the Final Fantasy or the Legend of Zelda development teams, the crew that was put to work on Kingdom Hearts 2 did the exact opposite of what is expected in making a sequel: they shat all over the storytelling, turned our well-worn and liked characters into retarded assfucks who apparently hadn't learned a thing from their first adventure, and repeated themselves ad nauseam (worlds and goals) out of what can only be owed to pure laziness.

Seriously, how the fuck is it even possible to screw up a sequel to such a vision of fun and (close to) perfect gaming that is the original Kingdom Hearts?  Yes. Apparently it’s quite easy to fuck up something as easy as this when the fine people at Square-Enix don’t remember any of the details that made the first game such a classic. The plot to KH2 is a rambling and incoherent affair (you simply stumble into each new Disney world [well, mostly OLD Disney worlds, seeing as a good chunk of this game was simply recycled from the first] by accident and then fall ass-first into each world's subplot like a gay fanfic written by some autistic 6 year-old who thinks that by writing himself into a story of Winnie the Pooh it means that he's actually MET the cuddly bear and his stuffed pals, instead of the unifying plot of the first one that actually made it fun to visit each separate universe and see how things changed from the movie). And instead of the Heartless being led by a large crew of Disney villains (headed by Maleficent) for one single purpose and goal (as per KH1), here you have Pete (the pussy-whipped dog-man?) as the incompetent underling of a somehow resurrected Maleficent (who is miraculously and unexplainably risen from the grave, who you don’t even fight once, and who simply gets forgotten by the end of the game... LAZY WRITING!), bumbling around the Disney worlds trying to… I don’t even remember what. But it was just another stupid subplot anyway seeing as the real story is (supposed to be) about the mysterious and cloaked "Organization XIII" (of whom we only meet like 6 members, since the other 7 aren’t even introduced and are eliminated OFF-SCREEN!) and their quest to control Kingdom Hearts by letting Sora kill more Heartless and then steal the hearts that are released by the keyblade… Wait, what?  They’re fucking HeartLESS… meaning they have no hearts to steal?  That is WTF point number one. No, wait, I think I'm already up to WTF point number eleven. Anyway, then we find out that the big baddie/final boss from the first game (Ansem) is really still alive, and there’re two of him -- no, scratch that, THREE of him roaming around. Or was that four, I lost all track near the end.

And that ending… Holy fucking flaming dogshit!… After busting my balls for 33 hours, raising my main man Sora’s level to about 80, and bitch-slapping every baddy that came my way like Rick James slapped Charlie Murphy, I was ready to kick some Nobody ass (Nobodies being the creatures that are left behind after a being goes "Heartless"... even though they're already Heartless and therefore nothing gets "left behind"... Somehow the writers thought that by feeding this shit to us in a "matter-of-fact" tone that we'd buy it hook, line and sinker without questioning the utter stupidity of the idea... Didn't work) in the final battle with the fake Ansem, or Xanek, or Xanadu, whatever the pussy was called.

So, I get to the final battle, then the game took Donald and Goofy away from me (that’s okay, they were just using up my Elixers and Potions anyway), and stuck me with Riku (at his pathetic level 51…). I’m still fine with that, just mildly irritated at having things switched up in the most crucial moments of the game. Then I started screaming and cursing. Right at the end of the 5th incarnation of the asshole Ansem/Whoever, Sora gets captured by a spell by the final dickboss, and I’m thrown in charge of Riku and forced to fight a magic clone of Ansem while the orig holds Sora hostage … Okay, I might be able to handle this and not throw my controller at the screen, but at this point all my spells, items and powers are taken away from me as well, and I’m thrown into the last, last battle (after hundreds upon hundreds of them all using a certain battle-menu and control scheme) with only three buttons that allow me to "jump," "use a dark, gay, attack magic," and "swing my weapon" without any limit breaks, against the hardest bad guy ever. Ever.

After keeping my distance from him for a while and hitting him with some gay, dark magic for like 5 minutes, thinking I was beating him, Sora the whipping-boy’s energy got drained and he died. Game over. I tried again. Same shit once again. I’m back in control of Riku, same gay attacks (no defense, no potions, no spells) and I’m able to get right below the cloned Ansem who’s draining Riku, then clone Ansem kills me dead. This goes on for 11 more goddamn times (normal level, as I didn't even have it set to difficult [Jesus titty-fucking Christ!! I couldn't even IMAGINE the hard version of the game without a fresh, new pack of razor blades nearby!]… This was frustrating to ME, a so-called adult… How the FUCK are kids supposed to figure out how to beat this last, final, end boss?!). Anyway, I eventually evaded the clone bad guy, freed Sora, and then promptly kicked the real Ansem’s ass. Was Square trying to piss off their loyal supporters with this unprecedented tactic? This'd be like a pro-football team making it all the way to the Superbowl, being undefeated their entire season, fighting the last team tooth and nail, getting to the last 10 seconds of the fucking game, down by only one point, with a score of 15 – 14, and being at the 20 yard line, ready to kick one right through the uprights for the win… and then the ref stops the game and says, okay, this isn’t fair, your team’s too perfect, so the last 3 points will be attempted by this high-school, mentally challenged youth who tried out for his JV team and failed to make the cut. Are you ready?  GO!… And then Jimmy the Retard accidentally kicks the placeholder’s crotch and then gets flattened by the defense. How the fuck-a-doodle is that considered fair?!  I EARNED my 80-level Sora!  How is it considered “all right” to throw in a weak replacement (with shitty, unknown controls) for the last, most important, battle of the entire fucking confusing game?  Goddammit!  I think I need to buy a new dualshock controller for my PS2 after the 8th time my gay Riku got slaughtered by the Ansem clone.

Anyway, besides the plot that didn’t make a lick of sense (and yes, I totally followed the first game’s plot fairly easily, and thought it was great fun), and that totally shitty ending fight, the worlds this time around sucked monkey balls. The replayed worlds were lame this time out (Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Nightmare Before Christmas), and a good chunk of the new ones were just boring (Mulan and Beauty and the Beast). The Lion King was actually okay (I liked the character transformations there) and Black and White Disney World and Tron were blasts to play… but Hercules and Pirates were just… boring. Pirates felt so damn empty too. Only four real characters in the whole world!  No townspeople, just Jack, Legolas, Barbosa and Keira. Hell, that was the problem with pretty much EVERY goddamn world besides that opening world, which wasn’t even a Disney World (Twilight Village? Or whatever). Cheap as fuck.

This game just REAKED of being rushed. The plot to the Aladdin world this  time was basically the plot to the godawful straight to video Aladdin: The Return of Jafar. Guh-AY!  I actually had to force myself to finish this game, whereas with the first one I couldn’t put the controller down. And don’t get me started on the Little Mermaid area this time around. No fights, no strategery at all… Just a remake of Dragon’s Lair or Space Ace… "PUSH YOUR TRIANGLE BUTTON NOW!"  Wait… Wait… Waaaaiiiiit… "PUSH TRIANGLE BUTTON NOW!!"  And God bless Jodi Benson (Ariel’s voice actress), but I don’t think she’s been practicing using her singing voice in the past 15 years. Most of that world (and the button pressing) was set to Little Mermaid songs that she (obviously) rerecorded for this game, and either she or the composer were so off their marks (and keys), it was embarrassing to listen to. This game was just terrible. It was essentially what I originally expected the first game to be when I first saw it’s trailer back in LA in 2001. It was a bad joke played on fans of Disney movies and Final Fantasy games. Good one, Square. You got me good. Boy is my face red… WITH ANGER!  And still no Rinoa, Tina/Terra, Locke, or Celes in sight. Setzer (who didn't even act like Setzer)?  Who gives a shit. I want Celes, goddammit!! Or Rydia. Or Golbez!

And instead of revisiting worlds (that were already portrayed perfectly in the first game, and pushed too far and fucked up in this one), why not exploit some of the never before used Disney cartoons like Atlantis - The Lost Empire (best Disney toon evah!), The Great Mouse Detective, Gargoyles (could have made a full game about this one!), Gummi Bears, The Incredibles, Toy Story, or even Duck Tales (any kid of the 80s would have FLIPPED over this!)?!  Why the FUCK not?!  Pirates of the Caribbean?!  Yes, a fun movie, but TOTALLY out of place here. Suck my goddamn balls, Square!  Instead of seeming like a labor of love, like Kingdom Hearts 1, this one just seemed like labor. 30+ hours of excruciating labor, just like your mother told you she went through with you, without any epidural or painkillers. Only no baby popped out after all was said and done with KH2... Just a stinking, oozing turd -- bricked right into the general public's gaping mouths. And if that “ultra secret ending” hinting at a Kingdom Hearts 3 (War of the Keyblades?) is true, then I’m going to cry. Hopefully it’ll just be for the PS3 and therefore nobody will ever play it, therefore it will be like it never existed.

And before any of you tards write me about it, yes, after playing through KH2 I found out that KH: Chain of Memories for the GameBoy actually holds a lot of the answers to the plot that KH2 leaves gaping (all about Organizaion XIII and its missing members), but that sucks even more than thinking those ideas were simply left out and forgotten!  KH:CoM is a shitty, CARD BATTLE game that just revisits the main scenes and battles of the first game?!  And it's on a different system entirely! And it's not called "PART 2," like Kingdom Hearts 2 is... How the fuck was anybody (who doesn't masturbate to any and all Squaresoft information on RPGamer.com) supposed to know that it's in the official KH timeline and mandatory to play in order to understand all the lameness surrounding the plot of the officially named sequel? It’s a quick buck for Square, and a shitty copout to the plot of KH2. And even after reading up on everything that occurred in Chain of Memories... well, that just pissed me off even more since it just made everything even lamer, not more comprehensive. Utter bullshit. I haven't been this pissed off at a game since Final Fantasy IX (which never really happened).

SHIT... WELL, WAS THERE ANYTHING RIGHT WITH KINGDOM HEARTS 2?

Despite all the crap and crap gravy I just poured over Kingdom Hearts 2 above, there were a few parts (tiny, minuscule parts) that I liked. The Tron World, for one, blew my mind. Especially that final fight with Moses at the end. Fucking gorgeous (which shows that when they chose to get original, and really push things, like they did all the fucking time in the first game, they could make MAGIC happen!). The "Battle of 1,000" was kick ass too -- very "Lord of the Ringsian" in nature, but fun as hell in execution. And finally, the Magic Carpet battle scene in Aladdin's World was indeed a unique twist on what had already come before in the previous game, but alas these few and far between instances were too little too late. They don't make up for godawful plot elements like bringing back Jafar, Maleficent, Oogie Boogie AND Ursula (who all fucking DIED in the first game). Yes, these are magical worlds, but that's just shitty storytelling. If Walt himself saw what they did with the plot to this game he'd defrost and roll his eyes in frosty fury.

And the all-encompassing plot of the entire game was all over the place. It didn't know where it wanted to go, or how to get there. In KH1, when you got to a new Disney World, you knew you had a mission (close the key-holes) and that by completing this task in each universe, well, that was the only way to open the portal to the NEXT world. In KH2, you just randomly found yourself in each new (or old) world, and you just wandered around until something happened. Not very fulfilling at all (and you had to inexplicably go back to each world at least one more time after your main goal had already been met in order to stretch out the playtime to an acceptable level [i.e. over 10 hours]). And the subplot with Organization XIII and their ultimate plan was just stupid. It was filled with tons of "whys" and "hows." Why did Ansem's lab assistant choose to be called Ansem when he was turned into a Heartless (believe it or not that question is a major plot device)? Why did he NOT choose Ansem's identity when he was a Nobody? Why and how the FUCK did Riku get turned into Ansem's Nobody (he got too close to the darkness? WTH?!)? Why is King Mickey such a dipshit douche bag? What the hell happened to Maleficent and Pete? What the fuck was Maleficent doing using Pete as an underling when she could apparently (and lamely) raise people like Oogie Boogie and presumably Captain Hook and Ursula from the grave? How the fuck does the human body multiply when its heart becomes dark and it becomes a Heartless and Nobody? And most importantly, how the holy hell did they convince Christopher Lee to voice the original Ansem in this piece of shit?

UNHAPPILY EVER AFTER

Kingdom Hearts 2 was by far the most disappointing and worst game I've ever played during an Uber-Week... Bless its little heart. If I didn't rent this piece of shit, and instead bought it, I definitely would have sent a piece of it, in a box with a bomb and anthrax, to the offices of every goddamn game review magazine in the country that actually gave this thing a better rating than they did to the original KH. Did they even play the same goddamn game that I did? Did Squaresoft pay them off? Did Square threaten them by sending them pictures of the reviewers' family being held hostage by people in Goofy and Tigger costumes with knives at their kids' throats and today's newspaper held up as proof of the abduction? Are game reviewers just stupid fucks who still think that chess-based strategy games are the coolest thing since "fire flowers"?... Oh, well, I guess that pretty much covers everything wrong with the game-reviewing community.

As I stated earlier though, my Uber-Week wasn't supposed to be 100% about KH2 anyway (thank the gods!). Come Saturday night/Sunday morning (11/19/2006) I was going to be playing my brand new Nintendo Wii and the newest Legend of Zelda game on the Wii. I dare you to guess what happened next. Come on, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure this shit out. I know you can do it...