Vince Matthews on Digital Disney: A Preview of Kingdom Hearts II
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Til’ Kingdom Come:
Kingdom Hearts II PS2 Preview
When it was first announced as a video game, the original Kingdom Hearts had hardcore gamers and even die-hard Disney fans scratching their heads. The reason? Never before had a game developer taken two vastly different fantasy domains – the wonderful world of Disney and the incredibly popular (and very Japanese) video game franchise Final Fantasy – and blended them into a single, seamless, entertaining and engaging world.
In the soon-to-be PlayStation 2 classic players took on the role of Sora (a Final Fantasy star), teamed him up with Donald and Goofy (and a host of other Disney luminaries) and they fought to save the world from the evil Heartless forces – and all from exotic locales around the Disney kingdoms. A sequel of sorts, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories available for Game Boy Advance, continued the series, bringing the story to a whole new audience, a younger Game Boy. With both Disney fanatics and video gamers hooked, a franchise was born.
Ultimately Kingdom Hearts would outsell Final Fantasy X in the United States and is still remains one of the best selling games for the PS2. While Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories released in 2004 remains one of the best RPG turn-based card strategy games on the GBA system.
At the center of this unlikely video game blockbuster is Nomura. Tetsuya Nomura, probably best known for his work on the popular Final Fantasy series - mainly, he created characters for the classic Final Fantasy VII game, the first PlayStation Final Fantasy (prior to that the videogame series was available only on Nintendo systems).
An obvious Disney fan, Nomura oversees the grand spectacle that is Kingdom Hearts II – a behemoth of an action-RPG (role-playing game) that you’ll need to set aside around 50 or 60 so hours of your life to play through. Kingdom Hearts II sports enough stuff to fill four games.