Kingdom Hearts II

[Special K 0]

Just wanted to say, Cloud and Leon back-to-back (I think it's on the back cover, so no spoilers) made me mark out like a little boy. A litte less than

Tifa

Being SUCH the consumate badass.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

So despite some concerns raised about the beginning of the game being boring and stuff like that, I bought this while out yesterday and so far I've been loving it... maybe I'm just a mark for references, I don't know. I popped big for Scrooge McDuck, too bad he didn't talk though.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

The boss fight at the Coliseum was awesome.

[Special K 0]

Saying

Sephiroth

is easier this time around isn't really saying much, seeing as he might be the hardest boss EVER in the original, and yes, I mean out of any game I'VE ever played at least.

 

I'm something like level 55 and he kicks my ass in literally max 10 seconds, well before his badass music can even kick in. He apparently has FIFTEEN life bars in KH2. Jaysis.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Yeah its like you have to be damn invincible to beat him.

[Special K 0]

I mean there's bonus RPG bosses like some of the weapons in the FF series that require an insane amount of levelling (the level 9999 bosses of Disgaia come to mind...) to beat, but it's mostly a slog to get strong enough.

 

Then there's bosses in some actions games, Devil May Cry I & III comes to mind, where you just have to be dexterous and quick.

 

In KH1, FIRST you had to level up very high (totally not an option, he has an attack that straight out kills you and never misses if you don't have Once Again), THEN you had to be really good on dodging and quickly picking up on his attack cues. Apparently even when you're pretty much maxed, know exactly what to do, and have become competent at doing it, it's a race against time as you try to beat him before your elixirs run out.

[EricMM 0]

Oh come on, if you're talking about who I think you are, you just needed Strike Raid. You should *never* have gotten hit by the instant kill attack.

 

He wasn't much harder than the frost titan.

[devo 0]

The frost titan was more annoying and time consuming than anything else. Once you got the trick down to damaging him, he wasn't that difficult.

[Blade2kxx 0]

Trust me as I say from experience that while Strike Raid helped against Sephy, it was by no means the only thing to beat him...

 

You really had to have everything to beat him, including the full levels for Strike Raid, Sonic Blade (which is key), and Ars Arcanium... to top it all off, you also needed to have Superglide and probably the Ultima... as well as Aeroaga.

 

At that point... you've got about a 70% chance of beating him if you know all his attack patterns.

[AlwaysPissedOff 0]

I read that you have to be around level 80 to even think about fucking with Sephy in KH2.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Dudes, I had to use the "Never die" cheat code to just have a chance against Sephiroth!

[Renegade 0]

I read that you have to be around level 80 to even think about fucking with Sephy in KH2.

Not true, I beat him at level 65.

[Special K 0]

That's impressive. I can't even beat the fate tournament at level 60.

 

Well I probably can, and will (need it for that ultima weapon for before I think of fucking with Sephiroth), but it's fucking frustrating. Thundaga is your best friend in that tournament.

 

The last boss was a bit disappointing. Some incredible visual effects for sure, but I liked the giant boss of KH1 quite a bit more. Plus he was sort of a puss. Nothing compared to Xaldin. Shit, the quasi gummi ship battle was the closest I came to dying, and that's just because I was careless and impatient.

 

Still liked the game. However, by the last two Disney worlds, I was skipping all the cutscenes.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Since I wasn't able to complete the game in time (rental), who was the final boss?

[Renegade 0]

The last boss was a bit disappointing. Some incredible visual effects for sure, but I liked the giant boss of KH1 quite a bit more. Plus he was sort of a puss. Nothing compared to Xaldin. Shit, the quasi gummi ship battle was the closest I came to dying, and that's just because I was careless and impatient.

True, but having

Riku at your side with the most badass limit more than made up for it. The laser reflecting reaction command was also a very nice moment in the final battle.

[Star Ocean 3 0]

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Come on, someone gotta answer my question!

[Special K 0]

Porter:

Xehanort/Xemnas's nobody. (or do I have that backwards)

 

First: a fight between Sora and Xehanort [no heart X, clever] where Riku and Roxas clashed in the early cutscene, and the special ending to KHI. Decent, but easy, replete with reaction commands while you run up the tower, and he runs down.

 

Second, Xehanort summons a giant nobody dragon. You fight its 'core' and 'engine' in a couple of retardedly easy fights. Then you fight him on a throne, where he has all the Organization's abilities. Sounds badass, it's easy.

 

Cutscene. You're left with Riku and Sora. Quasi-Gummi ship battle v the giant dragon.

 

Fight Xehanort on his throne again, he's not nearly so cool, just has a big sword that he repeatedly knocks you away with, you have to travel back to him, occasionally sending a floating building at him. It's visually big, but not impressive, and it's not hard at all.

 

Finally: Xehanort is in a big, black and white wormhole-looking area. He has a badass b&w trenchcoat, and summons lots of spidery-looking energy bolts to kick your ass. He's not to tough, beat him my first time, though there are a couple of cool scripted events, one of which (you take control of Riku to save Sora) I almost died at. At the end, he starts summoning little bolts of energy to annoying effect. There's a scripted event, where you have to reflect a HUGE number of lasers with Riku and Sora. It looks great. Oh, I almost died there, too, trying to cast reflect. All you have to do is jam triangle and X. (the prompt says reflect the bolts!)

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Terrific. Many thanks, Special K.

[Special K 0]

I just want to say that the

laser-reflecting scene, while easy (if you don't reach for the reflect spell like I did) is visually arresting, and just a perfect fucking cap to the series. Just awesome.

 

Did anyone use reflect or magnet during the game, if so, why? They seem totally superfluous, maybe I'm missing something.

[Molotov The Bear 0]

The only time I used Magnet was in the Pridelands, while doing the easy xp trick at the top with the thousands of bird-heartless things. Jump into the air, hit the button and watch Magnet suck a whole group of the things into it, then you just up and kill em all.

[EricMM 0]

Ok I just belatedly beat the game.

 

I'm lucky I played it through on hard mode first, some of those Jimmy quests are sooo dumb. I all care about is being the optional boss fights. Not even the optional coloseum fights, too much leveling involved.

 

But ummm... Yeah. That ending could be money.

 

I would just like to say that the way the handled "group physics" ie switching characters on the fly, sharing Exp across the whole party (and game) is muuuuch better than KH1 where there was NO point in using any of the side characters because you'd be gimping Goofy and Donald for a character you only had for one level.

 

Now we wait another three years? Oh lordy.

 

I really got a kick out of the Nobody's being stronger versions of enemies, it just seemed to me like they were just that, stronger Nobodies who managed to keep their memories. It makes me wish that I knew who the Chain of Memories OXIII members were. But I ain't playing no card game...

[AlaskanHero 0]

You could just look it up on Wikipedia, like I did. I'm not gonna bother with playing CoM, so fuck that shit, yo.

 

But anyways, having just beat this game a few days ago, I have to say that I rather enjoyed it. Everything was a lot better than it was in the first game, but it also seemed too easy. I mean, playing on normal, I had one game over and only used Mickey twice, and that was in one of the boss battles (The one at Beast's Castle against Xigbar, I think). Other than that I can't complain.

[EricMM 0]

There's no fucking point playing that game on Normal.

 

It just makes it so you can make more mistakes, which is boring.

 

When the Lancemen heartless were killing me in one combo in the first Hercules chapter, thats a CHALLANGE.

[Special K 0]

In restrospect, I would've played it on hard. But I rent games more often than not, now.

 

Dragoon-boy is an awesome boss though. I'd like to see him in the colloseum. Maybe I'm not so good, but the first two timed I fought him I was like HOW do I even get NEAR him.

[AndrewTS 0]

Okay, after being scared to get it after hearing about some disappointing reviews, putting it off repeatedly, and finally getting it...yeah, it's very good, even though it's "old."

 

Still, I can't help that it settles for "very good" when it could be so much more. I liked the puzzle-solving in Hollow Bastion in KH1, and hoped we'd see more. Here, it's pretty much back to hack-n'-slashing.

 

I actually was surprised that I was able to put up with the Roxas thing with ease. I guess if you were playing it straight through, dying to play Sora...yeah, it would be annoying. But if you're playing a little bit here and there, getting little bites of the setup...it doesn't seem so bad.

 

Anya still doesn't have the game. =O

 

I'm digging the reaction commands, the team-up attacks, and the insane lengths you can extend your combos to.

[FroGG_NeaL 0]

I forgot about this game.

 

I love the first one, and now that you've reminded me about this one I'm gonna have to check it out.

[The Man in Blak 0]

I think the reaction to the opening chapter with Roxas is very closely tied to whether you played through Chain of Memories or not. If you went straight from KH1 to KH2, then you were probably a little less patient with the beginning of the game.

[AndrewTS 0]

People who played Chain of Memories didn't have much patience with that game, either.

 

I barely played any of CoM before deciding it wasn't my cup of tea.

 

So if they do a DS game, hopefully it isn't card-based again.

 

Oh, and the soundtrack to this game is fantastic.

[Guest Smues]

After getting to level 94 I finally managed to make Sephiroth my bitch on proud difficulty (or hard or whatever it's called.) I found him to be a lot harder than he was in KH1, but it was nice to actually get something for beating him this time.