This was posted by 108 from this messgae board: http://forums.insertcredit.com/viewtopic.php?t=1385
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In the first town, the sky looks like a blue bed sheet stretched out over the tops of the buildings.
The graphics are exactly the same as KH1 in terms of quality. The geometry of the back of the main character's hair is disturbing. There is a square of little hair-pyramids in the very center of the back of his head, with lines of triangles pointing up, down, left, and right from the top, bottom, left, and right of it.
First FF character appearance is Seifer. He's barking and commanding around a group of three ruffians. He's talking about "Our future" and "Our destiny." He's wearing a hat with the "ORE" kanji on it.
So far, the game has too many characters. Not even an hour in, the game has introduced:
1. Red-cloaked, masked evil dude in a throne
2. THREE evil
3. dudes covered
4. in black cloaks
4. White evil dude with a zipper-sealed cloak
5. The hero(?) Rokusasu, who I think is actually Sora, only slightly different-looking
6. Some floozy girl with weird impossible super-gelled hair strands sticking out of the left and right of her head
7. A kid with actually kind of cool hair -- which is only like eight polygons, with textures drawn on it
8. A kid in a body-length red basketball jersey with the words "DOG STREET" on it.
9. Seifer, with his ****ing rad "ORE" hat (I hope they're selling it at Jump Festa next week SPLOOGE)
10. A girl with purple hair, Seifer's flunky
11. A big muscular guy, Seifer's flunky
12. Blonde girl sitting in a chair in the intro, drawing a staircase
13. Donald
14. Kairi -- the HUGE-headed, flat-chested girl from KH1
15. The dudeguy from KH1
16. And Goofy (though only in the opening montage)
Oh wait, the two Seifer flunkies are Fujin and Raijin from FFVIII. They sure look different.
Number of montages of Kingdom Hearts I game footage that must be watched before you are given control:
Three.
Number of portentous dialogues between evil men (whether in a creepy throne room or on a purple-skied beach) before you are given control:
Four.
Number of times the main character(s?)'s body flies by unseen force in a weird position, toward a metaphor:
Four.
Number of times the hero wakes up, looks out his window out a clock tower, and thinks about THE FUTURE before the first battle comes up:
Two.
Ice cream bars consumed so far:
Three.
After the first string of cut-scenes and before the second, the first action you perform in the game is:
Walking across the street to talk to your friends.
(I can imagine someone on staff whispering in Tetsuya Nomura's ear: "Uh, hey -- the beginning is too long. Let the player control SOMETHING." And Nomura snaps his fingers: "I have it: I shall let them cross the street.")
The beginning FMV is
Pretty, I guess. Well-done. Snappy. . . . and long. Though god, with all the new-age Final Fantasies, I've seen enough exploding flowers and majestic parting clouds to last me four damn lifetimes.
The one thing that distrubs/delights me most:
A train periodically rolls across the top of my on-screen battle menu. This is because the battle menu transforms as the player enters new worlds, and the world I'm currently in is "Twilight Town," which is famous for its trains. I find this detail loving -- though loving toward whom, and from who, I don't know. Is it Nomura's touch? I think it may be. It's amazing that the man can be occupied with seemingly ONLY the frivolous things. Vic Ireland and him should get married.
This game will sell by the bucketloads.
Number of monologues, in the first hour, in which a young boy expresses uncertainty about the future:
Four. Holy hell, four.
Total number of completely nonsensical portentous conversations at this point:
(Counting the KH1 footage montages) Eight.
THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING ABOUT THE GAME SO FAR:
Okay, after the opening intro FMV/Utada Hikaru orgasm (great song, by the way -- just as "Hikari" was great in KH1 (the best part of the game)), they show a KH1 montage.
Anyway, that's not the problem. The problem is the ****ING HUGE, LONGASS KINGDOM HEARTS II FOOTAGE MONTAGE. Why the hell? Why do they show us EVERY GOD DAMNED CHARACTER AND WORLD IN THE GAME, RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING? Is this to make the opening sequence enough of a joygasm so the people who are buying the game just to look at Disney characters don't have to actually PLAY it, or what?
I mean, okay. Famitsu displayed new information every week for about a year. One by one, they spoiled every character. Just this week, they reveal that the guy in the black cloak REALLY IS MICKEY MOUSE, which we all knew for a while. I found it a DARLING conclusion to their annoying weekly updates. I applauded it. So did my, uh, twin brother, in his column over at Next-Gen.biz. Yet here they go and fall out of my favor again by throwing in this montage. You know the old games journalism adage of "if you think it looks cool in print, wait til you see it in motion!!"? Well, yeah. The "Tron" world in the Famitsu screenshots was cool. I thought, yeah, why not, let's play the game, maybe, get to that world, see what it's like. Well, Square flips us the bird and says, "Look! This is what it's going to look like in motion, when you get there!"
Why do they do this? I can understand showing things like that off if you're rock-solid-confident in the DESIGN of your game, though shit. I don't think Nomura is. His backers are revealing these details like this out of what they believe is tact. It's shameful tact. It's "let's get this game to the biggest audience possible." **** the biggest audience possible! (Actually, here I could say that's probably what they're trying to do, though hey.) When you have such a wide-appealing concept, do what Hollywood does with a surefire blockbuster movie: tease. Tease! Tease!! Don't give me a blowjob and then say next time you'll **** me. (Well, Square's more like ****ing me and then saying next time they'll **** me FOR REAL.) Just give me a double-raised-eyebrow. Pat me on the ass and lick your lips when I turn around to look you in the eye, or something. Maintain a distance, yet let me know when a sure thing is a sure thing.
They're not doing that. The game will have -- I can feel it -- some merits. Nomura's painstaking effort to dig up ALL (okay, so just half) of the worlds from the previous game, I am optimistic, was not EXACTLY like keeping the 1998 cars in a 1999 car game -- I'm hoping it was more out of his desire to tackle them again.
THIS GAME'S STORY IS:
Sora wants to meet Kairi again. He will cross whatever evil-populated worlds and dimensions necessary to accomplish this.
So yeah, the story is simple.
Only so far, uh, it seems like a lot of low men in black cloaks conspiring about morbidly unseen catastrophes. Go Disney.
IT OCCURS TO ME THAT:
Squaresoft's original concept here -- that is, putting Final Fantasy characters and Disney characters together -- was kind of arrogant. I mean, they're daring to hold their angsty bastards up next to cartoon icon-characters that have appealed to generations?
That's a little cock-y of them.
Then again, they're drawing the Final Fantasy characters so they look like they MIGHT fit in a Disney film. At least they're not tryign to make Mickey Mouse look like he belongs in Final Fantasy VI. (If you're skilled at drawing, please do that up for me. Draw Mickey Mouse like a Yoshitaka Amano character, please. I'll use it in my review.)
IT ALSO OCCURS TO ME THAT:
Tetsuya Nomura, if he truly is the one behind all these on-screen ragamuffins, is a talented fashion designer. He should stop trying to write stories and put some things out in the real-world. And I'm not talking abotu Tidus pants.
NAME I DID NOT EXPECT TO SEE IN THE OPENING CREDITS:
"Co-producer:
Yoshinori Kitase"
____________________________________________________
In the first town, the sky looks like a blue bed sheet stretched out over the tops of the buildings.
The graphics are exactly the same as KH1 in terms of quality. The geometry of the back of the main character's hair is disturbing. There is a square of little hair-pyramids in the very center of the back of his head, with lines of triangles pointing up, down, left, and right from the top, bottom, left, and right of it.
First FF character appearance is Seifer. He's barking and commanding around a group of three ruffians. He's talking about "Our future" and "Our destiny." He's wearing a hat with the "ORE" kanji on it.
So far, the game has too many characters. Not even an hour in, the game has introduced:
1. Red-cloaked, masked evil dude in a throne
2. THREE evil
3. dudes covered
4. in black cloaks
4. White evil dude with a zipper-sealed cloak
5. The hero(?) Rokusasu, who I think is actually Sora, only slightly different-looking
6. Some floozy girl with weird impossible super-gelled hair strands sticking out of the left and right of her head
7. A kid with actually kind of cool hair -- which is only like eight polygons, with textures drawn on it
8. A kid in a body-length red basketball jersey with the words "DOG STREET" on it.
9. Seifer, with his ****ing rad "ORE" hat (I hope they're selling it at Jump Festa next week SPLOOGE)
10. A girl with purple hair, Seifer's flunky
11. A big muscular guy, Seifer's flunky
12. Blonde girl sitting in a chair in the intro, drawing a staircase
13. Donald
14. Kairi -- the HUGE-headed, flat-chested girl from KH1
15. The dudeguy from KH1
16. And Goofy (though only in the opening montage)
Oh wait, the two Seifer flunkies are Fujin and Raijin from FFVIII. They sure look different.
Number of montages of Kingdom Hearts I game footage that must be watched before you are given control:
Three.
Number of portentous dialogues between evil men (whether in a creepy throne room or on a purple-skied beach) before you are given control:
Four.
Number of times the main character(s?)'s body flies by unseen force in a weird position, toward a metaphor:
Four.
Number of times the hero wakes up, looks out his window out a clock tower, and thinks about THE FUTURE before the first battle comes up:
Two.
Ice cream bars consumed so far:
Three.
After the first string of cut-scenes and before the second, the first action you perform in the game is:
Walking across the street to talk to your friends.
(I can imagine someone on staff whispering in Tetsuya Nomura's ear: "Uh, hey -- the beginning is too long. Let the player control SOMETHING." And Nomura snaps his fingers: "I have it: I shall let them cross the street.")
The beginning FMV is
Pretty, I guess. Well-done. Snappy. . . . and long. Though god, with all the new-age Final Fantasies, I've seen enough exploding flowers and majestic parting clouds to last me four damn lifetimes.
The one thing that distrubs/delights me most:
A train periodically rolls across the top of my on-screen battle menu. This is because the battle menu transforms as the player enters new worlds, and the world I'm currently in is "Twilight Town," which is famous for its trains. I find this detail loving -- though loving toward whom, and from who, I don't know. Is it Nomura's touch? I think it may be. It's amazing that the man can be occupied with seemingly ONLY the frivolous things. Vic Ireland and him should get married.
This game will sell by the bucketloads.
Number of monologues, in the first hour, in which a young boy expresses uncertainty about the future:
Four. Holy hell, four.
Total number of completely nonsensical portentous conversations at this point:
(Counting the KH1 footage montages) Eight.
THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING ABOUT THE GAME SO FAR:
Okay, after the opening intro FMV/Utada Hikaru orgasm (great song, by the way -- just as "Hikari" was great in KH1 (the best part of the game)), they show a KH1 montage.
Anyway, that's not the problem. The problem is the ****ING HUGE, LONGASS KINGDOM HEARTS II FOOTAGE MONTAGE. Why the hell? Why do they show us EVERY GOD DAMNED CHARACTER AND WORLD IN THE GAME, RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING? Is this to make the opening sequence enough of a joygasm so the people who are buying the game just to look at Disney characters don't have to actually PLAY it, or what?
I mean, okay. Famitsu displayed new information every week for about a year. One by one, they spoiled every character. Just this week, they reveal that the guy in the black cloak REALLY IS MICKEY MOUSE, which we all knew for a while. I found it a DARLING conclusion to their annoying weekly updates. I applauded it. So did my, uh, twin brother, in his column over at Next-Gen.biz. Yet here they go and fall out of my favor again by throwing in this montage. You know the old games journalism adage of "if you think it looks cool in print, wait til you see it in motion!!"? Well, yeah. The "Tron" world in the Famitsu screenshots was cool. I thought, yeah, why not, let's play the game, maybe, get to that world, see what it's like. Well, Square flips us the bird and says, "Look! This is what it's going to look like in motion, when you get there!"
Why do they do this? I can understand showing things like that off if you're rock-solid-confident in the DESIGN of your game, though shit. I don't think Nomura is. His backers are revealing these details like this out of what they believe is tact. It's shameful tact. It's "let's get this game to the biggest audience possible." **** the biggest audience possible! (Actually, here I could say that's probably what they're trying to do, though hey.) When you have such a wide-appealing concept, do what Hollywood does with a surefire blockbuster movie: tease. Tease! Tease!! Don't give me a blowjob and then say next time you'll **** me. (Well, Square's more like ****ing me and then saying next time they'll **** me FOR REAL.) Just give me a double-raised-eyebrow. Pat me on the ass and lick your lips when I turn around to look you in the eye, or something. Maintain a distance, yet let me know when a sure thing is a sure thing.
They're not doing that. The game will have -- I can feel it -- some merits. Nomura's painstaking effort to dig up ALL (okay, so just half) of the worlds from the previous game, I am optimistic, was not EXACTLY like keeping the 1998 cars in a 1999 car game -- I'm hoping it was more out of his desire to tackle them again.
THIS GAME'S STORY IS:
Sora wants to meet Kairi again. He will cross whatever evil-populated worlds and dimensions necessary to accomplish this.
So yeah, the story is simple.
Only so far, uh, it seems like a lot of low men in black cloaks conspiring about morbidly unseen catastrophes. Go Disney.
IT OCCURS TO ME THAT:
Squaresoft's original concept here -- that is, putting Final Fantasy characters and Disney characters together -- was kind of arrogant. I mean, they're daring to hold their angsty bastards up next to cartoon icon-characters that have appealed to generations?
That's a little cock-y of them.
Then again, they're drawing the Final Fantasy characters so they look like they MIGHT fit in a Disney film. At least they're not tryign to make Mickey Mouse look like he belongs in Final Fantasy VI. (If you're skilled at drawing, please do that up for me. Draw Mickey Mouse like a Yoshitaka Amano character, please. I'll use it in my review.)
IT ALSO OCCURS TO ME THAT:
Tetsuya Nomura, if he truly is the one behind all these on-screen ragamuffins, is a talented fashion designer. He should stop trying to write stories and put some things out in the real-world. And I'm not talking abotu Tidus pants.
NAME I DID NOT EXPECT TO SEE IN THE OPENING CREDITS:
"Co-producer:
Yoshinori Kitase"
