[Moogy]

Yeah, it looks pretty, but what does that accomplish? A few minutes of looking at the nice graphics before you start ignoring them in actual gameplay.

The music is really not that great. I have no idea why people obsess over the soundtracks to KH1 and KH2 so much. They're not that great, and Shimomura has made much, much better OSTs in the past (ref: LoM, SMRPG).

The gameplay is the most solid part of the game. Very fast-paced. Tons of action. Very fun. However, it's also extremely easy and repetitive. It gets old fast. It's almost impossible to die, even on the highest difficulty setting. It's improved over the first game, sure. But it still suffers from the same basic flaws - the extreme lack of anything approaching difficulty and the incredibly repetitive nature of gameplay.

Story I can't comment on, but the general opinion is that KH2's story is worse than the original's. And that's pretty bad, seeing as the original had basically no plot anyway. Character development is also foreign to KH.

The more I analyze the KH series, the more I dislike it. I loved the first game dearly when it came out (it was the first PS2 game I ever played), but it seems that there was no reason to. Looking at it after a few playthroughs, and after a playthrough of the second one, it's just really not a very good game.

Yeah, I said it. Kingdom Hearts isn't a good game.

It lacks that extra something to make it work. It has all the things that make up a good game, but they're... missing something. Everything is simply average. It needs something exceptional, whether it be a stellar plot, challenging gameplay, or an awesome soundtrack. Unfortunately, KH1 and 2 lack all of those things. Thus, they can never be more than average.

And don't get me wrong, I do enjoy playing KH1 and 2. For a while, anyway. They're just not very good.

nforcer, your argument that I couldn't fully enjoy it in Japanese doesn't work. I beat Disgaea 2 in Japanese and loved every single second of it. KH2... just didn't do anything for me, really. I've beaten numerous other games in Japanese and enjoyed them greatly. However, it is true that I will enjoy a game I can understand more, heheh. Therefore, I'm learning Japanese so I no longer have to wait for games to come out here.

I realize that my taste in games is... too hardcore for most people. And I accept that most people will never truly understand what a game can actually evoke or mean. But it is my duty to try to tell them that anyway. My missions is to help people understand what a good game truly is.

Anyway, in summary, KH2 is not as great as it's made out to be. It may offer entertainment for a bit, but it's nothing lasting.