~~~~~~Small spoilers, nothing game ruining. Most of it will be seen within the first few hours of play. Also, Sora dies....OR DOES HE?!~~~~~~
It was kind of like DDS 1 and 2. DDS 1 felt like a full game, not the first part of a serialized duo. The only way you knew there was a second part was from the ending, and the fact that everyone was talking about how the second part was coming out in a few months. DDS2, on the other hand, seemed like it lost focus. It was still a great game, but it felt like it was the second half of something, rather than being good enough to stand on it's own.
KH2 was sort of the same way; in KH1, you're going to the Disney worlds to look for Riku, Kairi and Mickey, to protect the princesses and to fight the Heartless. In KH2, you're just sort of going there. There's Heartless and Nobodies there, but it feels completely detached from the main storyline. Sora is still looking for Riku and Kairi, but, that's sort of it. You go to a world, help out the Disney characters, and then you just leave. Most of the time, Maleficient or Pete is there, trying to turn one of the Disney characters into a Heartless, and a Nobody is there, trying to obtain the Disney characters Nobody when and if the Disney character does go Heartless.
This starts to wear a little thin after a while, mainly because, the brunt of the story you're going to be getting, relative to the main quest, you'll be getting in the first 5-6 hours and the final 3-4 hours. Most of the time spent in Disney worlds is, aside from Ansem Reports and the occasional, incredibly cryptic, appearance of a Nobody, completely devoid of information relative to the main quest. That having been said, the final 3-4 hours are amazing, and made the occasional tedium of the middle 30-35 hours worth it.
New to the combat is the Drive system, which, while cool, probably won't get that much use. It allows you to combine with an ally and become stronger for a short period of time. There was never a time, really, when I NEEDED to use it. It was mostly for fun. Even then, however, a lot of the boss fights don't lend themselves to it. When you transform, your drive meter begins draining (pretty quickly). Most bosses have phases where you can't hit them, or they're flying around out of reach, or something. You can change back to conserve drive, and then go into drive mode when the boss is in range again, but it's just easier to do standard attacks.
One odd note about drives; at one point, during a boss fight, I went into drive mode, and something was weird. It was called "Anti-Mode", and it turns Sora into a heartless. This is sort of cool, but, you can't use magic, items or change back until the drive meter runs out; so, if you're low on life or something like that, youre screwed. In this particular fight, I ended up dying and having to restart. I wasnt paying attention to the exact conditions when it did happen, so I was a bit paranoid about using Drives after that.
Ive heard some people say that Square characters have a bigger role this time around; thats pretty much bull. Theyre there, but aside from Seifer, Raijin, Fujin and Vivi in the beginning(Theyre sort of the new Tidus, Wakka and Selphie), the most interaction your party has with them is Hey, whats up? Not much. Alright, see you guys later. They dont do a whole lot, and, while you are given the chance to fight alongside them, its generally not for any longer than a minute or two. New additions to the game, like Tifa, are barely utilized at all. She shows up, breaks some stuff while looking for Cloud, leaves for a few minutes, comes back, breaks some more stuff, leaves again, chases after Cloud, and then you fight alongside her for about 2 minutes, and thats it.
Ive ragged on it a lot, but overall I had a good time playing it. My main complaint is that, unlike the first, you could have removed the Disney Worlds completely and the story still would have made perfect sense. The Disney Worlds werent really integrated into the story like they were in the first, and you were going to them just to go to them.
Oh, finally, Ive heard people say that you dont need to play KH and CoM to understand whats going on in KH2. This, as well, is bull. CoM almost seems to have had a bigger impact on the events in KH2 than KH1 did, but youre given an incredibly curt explanation as to what happened. Also, youre told some things, but not given a reason behind them(the reason would be found by playing through CoM), so, they dont make a ton of sense.
not allowed
