So.. I've been playing Ys games for like 3 weeks straight and decided I needed a break. I got Kingdom Hearts with my PS2, mostly for the woman, but also because I really like Disney and LOOOVE action RPGs (see previous statement about Ys games). I wasn't really in the mood to go back to my Tales series so I figured I'd give this a go before I went through those games again.

So far.. I'm really loving this game.. well.. except for the oh-so-typical Square over-produced, over-dramatic, over-stylized, self-mastubatory style of storytelling, that is. But there does seem to be a good balance so far of story to gameplay.

Now, you may call me sick if you want, but I spent almost TWO WHOLE HOURS on Destiny Island beating the hell out of the Final Fantasy VIII/X characters. I don't know.. but hearing the sounds of my wooden apparatus clocking the obnoxious brats over their heads and hearing their cries of pain and wincing filled me with a very spiritual warm feeling, much like the feeling you get when you donate food and clothes to people in need; the feeling that, just maybe, there is hope in the world.

My only complaint is there was no Squak Kittenheart to beat up.. though I'm not sure a wooden sword would do justice with him.

Oh, and the line "Me and Tidus are going to do some exploring in our secret place under the waterfall!" confirms what I've been thinking all along.

Oh.. my "other" dream come true involved Kairi and Selphie.. but I won't go into details.

I had a feeling that's what you would love about the game..

Sephiroth and Cloud make their own appearances, unless you get really good, you won't be able to beat them so easily.

When I inherit my little brothers PS2 this summer (while he's away), this is a game I plan on getting and playing over the Summer.

After I beat Wind Waker of course.

Is there any other kind?

Well.. what I meant by that is.. er.. would you polish the rifle thinking about YOURSELF?

Mutual.

Don't touch Squawk! That's *my* prison b-tch dammit ! MWA HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA! He's worth at LEAST a carton of smokes and a week's clean laundry..

Oh man..Pixy...just wait..you'll see

Man KH pissed me off to the highest order.

loved this game... well I did till my PS2 died.

Oh.. a lady friend of mine has already informed me of the great things to come.. oh yes..

SHOW HIM NO MERCY!!!!!

Man everyone loves this game so much I should go and give it another try. I just quit in the Alice in Wonderland stage because I got frustrated over the camera or something like that.

You know, I found that part to be a little annoying too, but I'd say it continuously got better after that.

Ah.. it was very nice to beat Squawk up.. but it just wasn't enough!! I got to smack around the other brats multiple times.. guess I have to sit back and wait for the coliseum match.

LOL!

I tired of the treasure hunting and haven't touched it in nearly a year.

A shame to, as the story and atmosphere were very cool.

So Pixy, are you gonna get FF:CC? That's supposed to be straight up hack-n-slash, with little to no story to it.

IGN was actually saying that it's lack of "story" was a bad thing... idiots.

Well you can't spell ignorant without IGN.

I'm on the fence about CC.. it has a lot going for it in my favor, but I'm just not really "excited" about it. Perhaps that has to do with a new Metroid game being hours away.

Well after my week of non-stop Metroid I started Kingdom Hearts back up. What a fantastic game. I'm near the end now, and am already looking forward to playing it again on Expert as a different character class.

Hmmm, you and I seem to have the same opinion of Square and there storytelling. I may have to give this game a try.

Well... I never liked any Final Fantasy games, but somehow got sucked into FFX. I really hated Kingdom Hearts but gave it a fair shot... I played my way through the first island area and onto the second area city type place and then halfway through the first planet(?) (I chose Alice in Wonderland). I'm not a big disney fan, but what I couldn't tolerate was the overly redundant combat system. I also thought it moved waaaay too slow for me... and I even made it through Taris two and a half times on KOTOR (as dull as that place is). I did like FFX and I'm digging KOTOR now, but Kingdom Hearts didn't do it for me.

Lately Square has certainly been guilty of this but I feel the folks at Monolith beat Square at their own game with Xenosaga: Episode I. I've never seen such shoddy self-important dialog. For example, a character is asked how he can do something that seems amazing to the rest of the characters and, instead of simply answering the question, the character goes into a completely silly and unecessarry speech to end up saying the equivalent of "because I can". If this was just an isolated case I wouldn't mind but it happens way too often. Which is too bad because there seems to be a good story that never comes close to achieving the levels of greatness it aspires to because of extra helping of cheese that have been smeared all over this game.

The only reason I keep playing is because I've been (mostly) able to focus on the good aspects of the game/story but it really gets grating at times (especially since I constantly wish the main character would get shot in the head when she decides to open her mouth).

Sorry for going off topic but I felt I needed to get that off my chest.

Anyhoo, Kingdom Hearts is a lot of fun but not for everyone. Especially if they expect another FF game since their characters appear in Kingdom Hearts. What does suck is that a lot of FF fans refuse to play this game just cos it features Disney characters in it rather than give it a shot and THEN decide wether the game sucks or not.