One thing about Kingdom Hearts 2: it is far more accessible than the first one. I remember getting completely frustrated after getting lost inside Deep Jungle, and that's, like, KH1's second world. This time around, the game does a much better job of leading you on and keeping you on task. Sure, you can go screw around in minigames and random Heartless battles if you want, but it won't be because you're totally lost and pissed off.

The new context-sensitive triangle button should just be labelled the Awesome button. Because any time you can use it, awesome things happen. It's the de facto input for anything non-standard while exploring - hit it to fire up a lantern or talk to somebody or whatever - but during battles, it regularly lights a spectacular finishing move or combo move. You end up keeping half an eye for it to appear, because you know that something truly kickass is about to blow onto the screen.

Two new abilities of note: first, Leaf Bracer. This ability lets your healing moves NOT get cancelled by incoming attacks. This was probably the single most obnoxious part of the first Kingdom Hearts... you're about to die, the klaxons are sounding, Donald and Goofy don't have any means to heal you up... so you dig into your command menu for a cure... and then get pasted into goo because some low level Heartless wanker backhands you while you're stuck in the animation sequence for "healing." Leaf Bracer puts an end to that.

Also: Chicken Little. Despite hailing from a rather forgettable movie, the little guy pops up as your first Summon. He somehow causes nearby enemies to gather right in front of you, which conveniently lines them up for a big keyblade swipe. And yeah, Zach Braff does the voicework. Which means he spent an afternoon in an audio booth saying stuff like "I can DO this!" and "Let's go, Sora!"

Timeless River - the black-and-white world - was wonderfully done. It's set up like a mini-world inside of the regular Disney Castle world... because to get there you have to go back in time. As a Disney nut, it's pretty cool to find yourself tramping around the land of Steamboat Willie. I talked to Clara Cluck, for crying out loud. Timeless River also has a brilliant homage to 1930s style with a handful of environments that are pulled straight out of vintage cartoons. Like a construction site with bent girders and rivets everywhere. When was the last time you saw a cartoon take place halfway up an unfinished WPA skyscraper.

Although, for all the new fun and easier gameplay, Sora's quest is nowhere near as compelling in Kingdom Hearts 2. For one thing, I still have no idea what he's doing. I don't think Sora knows. He's just bouncing from world to world, ostensibly looking for Mickey (or Riku, whoever shows up first, I guess) but continually getting distracted by the petty local issues. Of course, this happened in the first game but at least there the distractions were founded in the Missing Princesses puzzle that led our heroes into the big finale. Here, it's just Sora / Donald / Goofy stumbling into various unrelated plotlines and loudly proclaiming "Oh, is that all you need? WE'LL DO IT! WE'RE AMAZING!"

KH2 also has a silly need to find increasingly stupid ways to ditch Donald and Goofy before particular boss fights. I can't figure out why the game wants them removed from certain battles, but it's always willing to randomly trap D&G behind a gate when needs be.

Overall though, the whole game is so much more fast and fun than the first one. It's easier to manipulate your commands in the heat of battle, which used to be such a stresser. Even the inventory/status screens are better designed and more readable, despite the game packing three times as much junk into them.

Against all odds, however, is the fact that they made the Gummi Ship parts about a million times more interesting. And I don't mean just the space shooter bits... I mean the dreaded Gummi Editor, too. In fact, I'm deeply entrenched in the most awesome thing ever with my Gummi Ship design work, but I'll save that for the next report.