Things You Love and Hate In KH2.

[catcake]

I love absolutely everything except for:

- If you pause the game during a musical you have to redo it
- Hades Paradox Cup 15k points
- Dragon Xemnas
- "Defeat 50 forms within 40 seconds!"
- That one mushroom that's outside Twilight Mansion can diddly off
- That one cringy cutscene in HB with Sora and Saix. You know what I mean
- Kairi being both useless and annoying
- That weird ending with Roxas and Namine suddenly being all soulmatey despite barely knowing each other
- Shamans & Necromancers

Sure the story is pretty dumb shounen mush at times but it's part of the charm.

 

[VoidGear.]

I love absolutely everything except for:

- If you pause the game during a musical you have to redo it
- Hades Paradox Cup 15k points
- Dragon Xemnas
- "Defeat 50 forms within 40 seconds!"
- That one mushroom that's outside Twilight Mansion can diddly off
- That one cringy cutscene in HB with Sora and Saix. You know what I mean
- Kairi being both useless and annoying
- That weird ending with Roxas and Namine suddenly being all soulmatey despite barely knowing each other
- Shamans & Necromancers

Sure the story is pretty dumb shounen mush at times but it's part of the charm.

YES at the awful Saïx cutscene (I think we skipped that, too, while we played it? xD). It's SO bad jebus pls why.

 

[DarkosOverlord]

- If you pause the game during a musical you have to redo it

God, why was that even a thing. Forget everyone complaining about KH1's unskippable cutscenes, that was the real "f you" of the series.

- That one cringy cutscene in HB with Sora and Saix. You know what I mean

It's such a shame too, because that scene was clearly meant to be powerful and emotional moment, but it really did not translate well.

- That weird ending with Roxas and Namine suddenly being all soulmatey despite barely knowing each other

Right? They tried so hard to ship them together, and I don't even understand what the motivation was. Like, Naminé worked perfectly as a watcher for Roxas, she had one task to do and then she re-united herself with Kairi. That was... okay (obviously KH II's storytelling still doesn't make her justice but that's a bigger issue), and I certainly did not need her and Roxas acting like they were long lost soulmates.

- It doesn't make sense for Roxas, since he interacted with her for a handful of days, with the topic usually being "You shouldn't exist, Roxas", or "something something can you feel Sora something something Keyblade". Roxas could've developed a bigger Stockholm syndrome only by falling for DiZ directly.
- It totally destroys and erases Naminé's feelings for Sora, which were one of CoM's narrative pillars. Naminé doesn't ever talk with Sora except for that ambiguous "We meet again" sentence that gets directed towards Roxas anyway.
- Going into nitpick territory for a bit: aren't the both of them also kinda born from the same body, which is Sora's? This is less of a "Sora and Kairi ver. 2.0" and more of a creepy Lannister twins reharsal (they both have blonde hair and blue eyes too )
People joke about Roxas and Xion, but Naminé is ironically more Sora than Xion will ever be.

This always gets me so peeved... is such an unnecessary piece in my opinion. No wonder people believe males and females can't have non-romantic relationships.

 

[Elysium]

Well, Namine only knew Sora personally for the span of a couple hours? From the first time they meet before Larxene's last fight to when she's putting him to sleep.

 

[DarkosOverlord]

Well, Namine only knew Sora personally for the span of a couple hours? From the first time they meet before Larxene's last fight to when she's putting him to sleep.

My gripe is not really on the timespan, more about the motivation.

CoM does provide why the two of them should care about each other: Sora was Naminé's hero, the main subject of her drawings. Whether because of what Marluxia told her or because she did remembered her origins, Naminé has waited for Sora since forever.
After the revelations Naminé was ready for Sora to hate her, but he decided to hold true to his fake memories and keep protecting her and all that. That moved her: Sora declared that while the memories were fake, they weren't unreal as he was still feeling true emotions from them.

I'll end it here before this turns into a tumblr post. My point is: it's not the best story ever, but at least I could learn and feel of why these two care. I don't understand which part of KH II should show me a plausible reason for Roxas and Naminé to be an item, aside from the vaguely racist (comedic exaggeration) that they're both Nobodies.

 

[Veevee]

Kairi's Keyblade: The MoM is able to create Keyblades by pulling them from people's hearts. While not confirmed, Riku presumably created a Keyblade for Kairi by pulling it from his own heart.

That's a nice theory, I would've liked ANYBODY had commented about something like that in the game. It was kinda washed over in the game, never to be mentioned again and thus smelled like an asspull.
Adding to my hate: The fact that Kairi was just given her keyblade in such a plain way, I would've preferred something more ... heroic. Damn, Sora could've been attacked and she jumps in to save him, shields herself and the keyblade plops out or something, anything better than "here you go, have fun with it".
Anything hate point: Kairi's portrayal in the final portion of the game. She just stands there and looks like a fish, like she had been inserted afterwards. No real emotion there. I didn't expect her in the final fight, of course not, but this was a bit lame.

And omg, I hated that final Xemnas form. Had to do this so often bcs of the PS3 bug, about 20 times or so. Euuurgh.

 

[DarkosOverlord]

Kairi and KH II, a poor combination sadly.

Let's see... I've never made a post myself here. Things I hate:

- the "fill this bar" minigames that replaced actual narrative/world interaction. In general, the huge loss that was KH1's world exploration.
- Sora mentioning Mickey-Riku-Kairi-Pete-The Organization in a rapidfire sequence just so he could get all that main story out of the way and proceed rehearsing the Disney movie of that world
- Mushroom VIII
- Port Royal, how it looked and the handful of moments placed there literally just to quote the movie and make adolescents all over the globe scream in delight (some don't even make sense, like the infamous "A pirate!" "CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow, if you please" THAT DOESN'T WORK AS AN ANSWER, NO ONE SAID YOUR NAME, NOT JOHNNY DEPP)

Issues about general story, script and such have already been made and I don't want to beat a dead horse.

Things I love:

- How the game plays and feels. KH II is that one game where I can just switch my brain off and let muscle memory do the job, while generally liking what I see.
- The postgame in the FM version. It truly feels like something separate from the main thing that requires you to have almost everything at max, and even if not all that relevant now there was good lore and speculation material.
- The whole second visit to Hollow Bastion, before during and after Tron. I think as an arc with a big hype fight at the end it still holds up very well. No really, usually we complain about KH II's storytelling with reason, but as a story arc the whole Hollow Bastion visit was a good one in my opinion. It had a lot on every front.
- The... I don't know how to put it. My relationship woth KH II over the years was a roller-coaster: as soon as it came out 12 years old me thought it was better than KH1, then for the longest time I even hated it compared to the other; now, I look back at it and it gives me some sort of nice atmosphere mixed at nostalgia, but different than the one I get from KH1.
KH II has a lot of things I simply don't care about even if good, and misses a lot of things I want, but... it's still Kingdom Hearts, man. And a good one at that.

 

[FudgemintGuardian]

Kairi's Keyblade: The MoM is able to create Keyblades by pulling them from people's hearts. While not confirmed, Riku presumably created a Keyblade for Kairi by pulling it from his own heart.

I always thought he pulled it out of his ass.

 

[kaseykockroach]

To put it one way, I love what Kingdom Hearts does well, and I love what Kingdom Hearts II does well.
But I resonate with what KH does a bit more. KH2 has delightful combat and action set pieces. Even if you were to ignore the Drives, Summons and Limits (I'm mainly not a fan of the Drives myself), the button mashing is surprisingly satisfying in its simplicity ..but doesn't really try anything else beyond that, with those mini-games just being a means of providing a necessary break from said combat.
In contrast, KH1 tries a number of things besides combat, be it platforming, exploration, some occasional puzzles, so on. It's debatable whether or not these things are done especially well (I'd say so, though the platforming indeed feels awkward until you get the High Jump), but it overall makes for a more satisfying journey for me. Both are flawed experiences, but KH1's flaws bother me less.
Though this is of course subjective, as I'm an odd one that never had any issues with swimming in Atlantica, flying, controlling the camera on the shoulder buttons, so on. The unskippable cutscenes were indeed an annoyance though, and I was relieved to find the HD collection fixes that.

One aspect I do savor with KH2 is its overall happier tone, a necessary evolution from KH1 feeling more melancholic. I do find the latter to be more captivating, but also appreciate KH2's contrast.

 

[VoidGear.]

Hey, still better than all the games she didn't even properly appear in at all, amirite.:^)

 

[Zettaflare]

I loved that scene with Sora found out he wasn't getting presents from Santa. That was pure gold XD.

 

[KudoTsurugi]

Love: Drive Forms, Story(for the most part), Skateboarding, Worlds(mostly), Gameplay, 100 Acre Wood.

Dislike: Atlantica(mainly the writing but I've harped on about that in other threads here), the awkward dialogue pauses between scenes, the Berserkers in the Nobody fight in Twilight Town visit 2.

Hate: DANCE WATER DANCE! C'MON GET TO THE BEAT! LIKE I-Demyx 2nd Boss Battle. Just Demyx 2nd Boss Battle.

 

[kaseykockroach]

By far by favorite thing about KH2 is the post-game content (the Cavern, the Data battles, searching for crowns and best of all, the Enigmatic Soldier battle which is a contender for my favorite KH boss ever). Shame we had to wait as long we did to be able to experience it (I myself imported FM back in the day, but I'm happy for those that weren't able to do that).

 

[Phantom]

Loved: Story, majority of the worlds, gameplay, music, 1000 heartless battle.

Hated: Second Demyx fight, Atlantica, Maleficent being mostly irrelevant, Berserkers, Assault Riders.

 

[Pokie]

Hated : How Kairi was treated and how she was pushed aside and even though she was given a keyblade, nothing really went further with it and she was shoved away and couldn't help during the final boss, but Riku was free and able to help Sora. In KH1 she was basically in a coma for most of the game, so this was a chance to give Kairi a chance to do something and shine. They just made her the damsel again.

The Tron World. Sorry but I just hate those movies, and the worlds always feel so tedious and that they drag on. The motorbike mini game is fun though.


Loved : Everything else.

 

[Scorseselover]

What I hate is how this game pretty much made Chain of Memories even more irrelevant than it already was in terms of story. Sora’s story was nothing more than just a build up to KH2 (Seriously what am I doing in Twilight Town?). I get that the more he climbs Castle Oblivion the more he loses his memory which is why Namine put him in hibernation to reset his memory back to the way it was making him completely forget about Castle Oblivion almost as if Chain of Memories didn’t need to be a thing plot wise to begin with. Riku’s Story is fine on its own but as you reach the end of Kingdom Hearts 2, it completely nullifies Riku’s purpose in Chain of Memories which is designed as a learning experience from his past memories and learning to accept the darkness, and in the end he accepts it and defeats Ansem so he can make his own path, but in KH2 it’s like it never happened because he still had Ansem inside him and is still struggling. Are we just retconning his story in Chain of Memories all of a sudden?

Another problem is half of Organization XIII just aren’t that fleshed out enough. The only members I care about are Axel and Roxas but everyone else just likes to constantly spout out dialogue that just consists of riddles and connections to other games without even trying to be coherent.

But I LOVE the friendship development between Sora and Riku at the end, the development between Roxas and Axel as friends, how each world is more developed compared to the first game and the gameplay is just as flashy as ever!