First of all, thanks for all the fun. #2 was a hell of a lot more action-oriented (love the addition of the Reaction Commands!) than the original, with more to do and lots of great improvements. The menu commands are easier to use, the battle camera isn't as crazy, and the RPG elements (item synthesis, ability customization) have been streamlined to the point that most humans might actually use them. Not to mention that the Gummi Ship stuff is 200% better and could be the core of its own separate game.
Of course, as a Disney geek, I'm extremely pleased with the inclusion of the Pride Land and Timeless River and all the little Disneyana touches. (The worlds for Tron and Pirates of the Caribbean, although interesting, smell a little much of imposed corporate synergy.) And now I can tell all my friends that I fought beside Minnie Mouse.
But there are some critical flaws here that I need you to address before you venture forth into another chapter. If, indeed, you do intend such a thing. The combined story of KH1 and 2 is so nicely packaged that a third, similar outing might seem superfluous. (Yes, I have seen the secret preview trailer ending - no, I didn't earn it - but I'm reserving comment just yet. It seems very bleak and dystopian and non-Disney... but so did Deep Dive, the secret preview trailer ending for KH2. And looking back, damned if Deep Dive doesn't make sense now.)
Anyway, here's what you should know.
#1) Give us an option to turn off the goddamn subtitles. Everyone is speaking perfect, intelligible English (except for Donald, I guess), so why the readalong text? Does the Japanese version with Japanese voice-over have Japanese subtitles?
#2) Start making sense. I love these games to death, but I'm still not sure that I could confidently tell anyone what the fuck a "Kingdom Hearts" is. Or are. Or whatever. I've read and re-read all the Jiminy's Journal entries, and it's still all feel-good hippie nonsense. Maybe this is why the rumored Kingdom Hearts animated series never got off the ground. And along those lines...
#3) Tighten up the story. I think this is the Square Enix side severely outweighing the Disney side, because the whole Organization 13 bit was nowhere near as captivating as the Disney Villain bit from the first game. KH1 had a fantastic story, and Sora's adventures from world to world all fed into that. In KH2, almost nothing that happens in the Disney worlds has anything to do with the game's supposed center stage story. There's been a huge disconnect here, and it cheapens the entire product. It's like you're playing two different games... one where Sora the eternal optimist goes about solving the problems of various Disney movies, The Fugitive-style, and a second game where you're looking for lost friends amid the apocalyptic dreams of a madman. It never comes together.
#4) No more dropping party members. Seriously. This is 2006. We can have four members in our party. Having to dump Goofy to add in Jack Sparrow, only to have Goofy magically reappear during a cutscene, is just insulting. Oh, and stop talking up the crap about Sora being able to "merge" with party members to temporarily activate a super-awesome battle form. That's bullshit and you know it. What happens is you activate a form and one of your sidekicks simply vanishes.
#5) Give us bonus features outside the game. Like the ability to replay those killer CG rendered cutscenes! And I can't believe we've had two games and still no bonus music video featuring Hikaru Utada, KH songstress and huge Tetris nerd.
But if you do nothing else, do this...
#6) Let us keep playing after the storyline ends. Your game is packed with sidequests and minigames and have I mentioned the cool Gummi Ship stuff. Why can't I go back and continue to enjoy that AFTER having beaten Xemnas to paste? You have just shot your game's replay value to hell by locking me out after the credits roll. Do you know that you have to reset the PS2 after beating Kingdom Hearts 2? Reset! Not even a save-and-try-the-next-difficulty-level option, like every other game in existence. Just this:
