As I mentioned before, Kingdom Hearts wasn't exactly measuring up. I'm still bummed about the intermittant lack of voice acting, but the game is proving itself worthy in other ways. There's an easy equation here: as the number of Disney characters increase, the fun increases. My Summons so far are Genie, Simba, Bambi and Dumbo. I haven't had a chance to pull Dumbo out of my hat, but I have made use of the other three... and they all perfectly spotlight what's So Right about Kingdom Hearts. It's just awesome to be running around in real-time bashing nameless blank-eyed baddies with Bambi. Friggin' Bambi.

Genie's attack is hilarious, and obviously carefully tailored to the character. In fact, somebody at Square must totally dig Genie, because he's full of little details taken directly from "Aladdin." To wit: when you summon him, he appears with little squiggles and sparkles, just like the movie. I know, me calling them "squiggles and sparkles" doesn't sound like much... but if you've seen the film, you'll recognize the effect immediately. And at one point in the Agrabah level, you end up fighting Genie against his will. So while you're trying to concentrate on whacking Jafar, the mis-aligned Genie will float around half heartedly attacking you. He actually puts his hand over his eyes and says things like "I hope I miss!" while he's fighting you. Or "Sorry about this... run!", which is a nice audio cue for you to get the hell away from his attack zone.

There's still some bad to be had, however. I've seen too many rooms that are just textured boxes. Agrabah wasn't so bad, and the Cave of Wonders was dark enough to hid any boxy-ness... but Wonderland and Deep Jungle are embarrassingly square. Maybe it's more noticeable because both levels try to place you in a forest. But your walking paths are just angled squares with tree textures on either side. Ick. And of course you have to walk through them over and over again, as if the game is smashing your eyeballs against the smooth box walls and shouting "Look at this terrible level design!"

Another thought about the Gummi Ship. You really need to be awake to worry about ship building. I tried upgrading my ship at 2:00am, and my brain just couldn't handle three-dimensional space at that late hour.

Now, about the Final Fantasy characters. I was led to believe (by popular media magazines and reviews) that they were cameos, but they're not. Most of them - Squall, Yuffie, Aerith, Cid in particular - are fairly integral to the plot. At least, they're *always* hanging out in Traverse Town waiting to tell me stuff between levels.

They annoy me. Whenever I'm talking to Shop Vendor Cid, I wish I was talking to Inventor Maurice (from "Beauty and the Beast") or classic duck characters Ludwig Von Drake and/or Gyro Gearloose. To me, the non-FF fan, the Final Fantasy characters are an anomalous distraction. I'd much prefer a pure Disney experience. And I think many FF fans would too, since the use of the FF characters isn't in Square continuity by any means. They're like all the Hypertime/Elseworld versions of Batman: same name, same concept, but different character.

So why are they there? Maybe to offset the non-Disney main characters Sora, Kairi and Riku? Would it have seemed weird to be playing these obviously anime, video game people among all the various Disney worlds? I don't think so, because Square did subtely tweak the Disney humans' appearances to match the anime styling anyway. No, the Final Fantasy cast is stuck in Kingdom Hearts solely for the RPG street cred. A pure Disney game most likely would not have received as much attention as the Disney/FF hybrid. I say this with complete certainly because every single review of the game starts off by apologizing for the presence of the Disney characters. And furthermore, they take great pains to prove to the Young Jaded Halo Player that playing a Disney game won't immediately turn them into babies.

I'm 28 years old and a Disney fan. The original KH commercials and trailers still get me emotional, even after struggling through the game's weak moments. I couldn't *not* like this game.

Honestly, Kingdom Hearts's biggest problem for me was being released one day after Animal Crossing.