Hey everyone!

-Kingdom Hearts 2 was awarded at a special announcement at Tokyo Game Show 2006. It was one of the games that placed in the "Excellent" category! The games that ranked top were Final Fantasy XII and a DS training game.

-In Australia, Kingdom Hearts 2 was the third top ranking game in the October 1st retail sales, coming in behind the two new Pokemon games. In New Zealand, it ranked number one as the top selling game on October 1st. Go KH2!

-Square-Enix is releasing a calendar that has an illustration from the KH: CoM manga as the preview image. The release date for the calendar is 11/17/06, and you can preorder it over at Amazon.com.

-The new KH2 Play Arts Figures have been released, and some pictures have shown up online. The pictures so far include Sora in both his normal clothes and in his Final Form. You can see them over here and here. These figures include Sora, Roxas, Axel, and Kairi, along with special edition figures that are Final Form Sora and Valor Form Sora. The normal edition ones are about $25, while the special edition ones are about $30.

Sources: KH-2.net

Hey everyone!

Around July, the voice actor for Sora, Hayley Joel Osment, had crashed his car into a mailbox and was charged with a DUI and Drug Possesion. Osment was put on trial, and we have all been waiting to hear how the results have turned out.

Haley pleaded no contest to the accusations. Superior Court Judge John Doyle sentenced the 18-year-old actor to three years probation and ordered Osment to spend 60 hours in an alcohol rehabilitation and education program, as well as attend at least 26 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings over a six-month period.

Osment must also pay $1,500 in fines.

That's really about it. Thankfully, Haley was let off easy. Let's hope nothing like that ever happens again.

Studio Bent recently released information on updates on the KH2 Ultimania Booklet, rather popular in Japan, that gives insight on Kingdom Hearts 2. The book will be redone for the release of Kingdom Hearts 2:FM. Below is our quick translation of the information.

There will be talk of the difference between Gummi Ship battles from KH1, and 2, as well as the different designs of the Gummi ships you can create will increase. There is an extra interview with Kazunari Nojima and Tetsuya Nomura, There will be talk about the low difficulty for Kingdom Hearts II, as well as a bit more information of the story for the book. Also they want to make it feel like you're on an adventure when reading the book so they addded a bit more feeling to the descriptions of the scenarios in the booklet.

As expected throughout the world, Kingdom Hearts 2 is really making a splash in Europe! According to the FF7 Blog, it appears to be the fifth highest selling game this week!

1. FIFA 07 (Electronic Arts)
2. Just Cause (Eidos)
3. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (Electronic Arts)
4. LEGO Star Wars 2 (LucasArts)
5. Kingdom Hearts II (Square Enix)

Another magazine [GMaga] came out with scans of KH2: FM+ and Re: CoM images. It's all old images, but there's another interview with Nomura!

- Most of the new cutscenes are of Roxas but that doesn't mean you get more playtime as him.
- When Nomura was doing the editorial supervising for the KH2 novels (so the new scenes in the novels are a part of the story), he realized that he should have expanded some scenes so the new cutscenes are going to be there to explain some things that weren't explained in the original game. These scenes take place prior to and subsequent to the timeline in KHII. There will also be some scenes that will raise more questions.
- There will be new areas when you revisit some worlds. There will also be a completely new place for you to play in that wasn't in the original game but it's not as big as one whole world.
- Nomura didn't really confirm it but he was explaining that if Marluxia from CoM shows up in KH2FM, then he'll have to change the battle system for him (since you don't fight him with cards anymore) and he intends to add a little enjoyment on that part. "This is just an example, though. (laughs)"

Thanks to KHU for the info on the interview!

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