It also might interest you folks (and if it doesn't, well, you can just go to hell!) that this Kingdom Hearts is a bit darker than the first. Sure, Goofy still talks like he belongs in a special home, and some of the mini-games involve performing elaborate musical numbers with sea creatures, but overall the game just feels slightly more mature. Many of the characters wrestle with a sense of loss that is never really resolved. The cut scenes are somewhat more violent. Characters die. [And I strongly suspect someone grows a green goatee - ed.] So while your six-year-old cousin may get excited seeing his favorite Disney characters, he still belongs locked safely in the basement with only a bowl of stagnant water and unidentifiable shrieks from the shadows to keep him company.

Everybody is key-fu fighting!

   Another thing that has been tweaked like a pompous old man's nose is the combat system. Like in the first game, as your characters wander around the worlds like cartoon derelicts, groups of enemies will appear in set locations and go about causing all sorts of havoc (i.e. unscrewing the tops of salt shakers, pissing in your gas tank, writing bad checks, etc.). When this happens, it's your job to pummel them into unrecognizable, quivering heaps with your trusty keyblade. You control only Sora, while Goofy, Donald, or whoever else has had the poor judgment to join you, run around madly striking at anything and everything that gets in their way. Thankfully their A.I. is good enough that you won't have to do any real babysitting. Which is good, since having to change Goofy's diaper is up there with jumping in front of an out-of-control backhoe on the list of things you never, ever want to do. [For a full list, PayPal $5 over to mike.zeller@gamelemon.com - ed.]

   Much of the control scheme is quite similar to the fist Kingdom Hearts game. When facing enemies, pressing X repeatedly will cause Sora to lash out at foes with a string of combos and muffled expletives. As Sora levels up, he will learn more combo moves that he can equip in the menu by using a few ability points (also gained by leveling up... or stealing from ability gnomes... little bastards!). Normally the game will automatically target the nearest foe, but for skirmishes in which you want to target someone specific (i.e. boss battles) you can hit the R1 button to lock-on to them while they're being targeted.

   Sora's other main ability, magic, which can be selected from the menu or set to a button, is significantly more useless than it was in the original Kingdom Hearts. Since his offensive magic never really packs much of a punch, the Aero spells are MIA, and the Cure spells now consume all of Sora's MP, there really isn't much good use for magic, at least not until you attempt some of the bonus stuff way at the very end of the game. Take that, David Blaine!

All aboard the pain-train! Next stop, internal hemorrhaging!

   One neat thing that has been added to your cute but violent struggles is the Action Command feature. Occasionally during battle the triangle symbol will appear near the menu, and if the triangle button is pressed quickly enough, Sora will perform some kind of counter move on the targeted enemy, whether it be quickly circling it, deflecting its blast back, or pantsing it. This is particularly necessary during boss battles, since normally right before your massive foe uses the move where he rolls you up and smokes you like a cheap cigar, you'll have a brief moment where you can hit triangle to instead jump onto his back and pound his head like a six-year-old with a drum set. All-in-all it's a clever little trick to allow you to pull off some really bad-ass moves while really only timing a single button press. [It's even more clever how it's been clearly stolen from God of War, but what self-respecting game doesn't steal from God of War these days? - ed.]

   The other major addition to the fisticuffs is the ability to fuse with your partners and transform into any even more ass-kicking spiky-haired little boy. By spending several bars of your fusion gauge (accumulated by playing chin music with the baddies) Sora can combine with Goofy, Donald, or both [I must admit I never thought Kingdom Hearts of all games would be the first to feature a menage-a-trois! - ed.] to temporarily gain stat boosts and new abilities, such as dual-wielding keyblades, flight, or burping the alphabet. Like magic, fusion isn't really all that necessary (unless you're super anal and want to totally complete all the stuff in Jiminy's Journal... I'll let you know if it's worth it when I'm done) but it does add a little more depth to combat and, like the action commands, helps make you feel like a real bad-ass without demanding much in the way of skill. [It's good to see the Japanese finally caving in to the American Dream! - ed.]

   Combat overall is pretty easy, as generally mashing the X button will eventually result in victory, but it's so frenetic that it still feels fun and exciting. The slightly loopy camera from the first Kingdom Hearts has, regrettably, not been fixed and still lurches about like the town drunkard (albeit without the smell), but because most battles are never too much of a challenge, an occasionally naughty camera is pretty easy to swallow.

The Furries are gonna love this.

   One thing the first Kingdom Hearts did really well was your mom! Ha, ha! No, I'm just kidding... maybe. But your mother's sexual escapades with electronics aside, the first Kingdom Hearts did a really good job of finding a visual style that managed to preserve the distinctive look of each of the different properties while simultaneously making everything feel fairly uniform. Considering how many different film and game characters and locations were included, this was a pretty impressive accomplishment. Kingdom Hearts II continues that proud tradition and even manages to integrate the characters and settings from a couple of live-action movies. Zounds!

   The graphics themselves look good, having improved the requisite amount since the original. There's really not a whole lot more to say than that, but I do want to point out the facial animations during cut-scenes, which are absolutely, drop-dead, wet-your-pants, stare-like-a-slack-jawed-yokel gorgeous. They might not be photo-realistic, but they so closely resemble that Disney fluidity that you'll feel like your watching a scene from a movie.

   Musically the game performs similarly well, with most tunes being variations on Disney themes but with a little bit of Square flair. It's so good, it even causes me to rhyme obnoxiously when writing about it. The voice acting is of the highest quality, with most Disney characters being voiced by their original actor or someone who sounds so similar you likely won't be able to tell the difference. A now slightly older Haley Joel Osment once again admirably provides the voice of a now slightly older Sora, which works out pretty well in the ol' timing department.

   When it comes right down to it, if you're a fan of RPGs, you really owe it to your country, your family, and yourself to get this game, especially if you liked the first one. When a sequel gets done this right, the video game community needs to rise up and show approval the way only big fat wads of disposable income can. So buy the game, or I'll sick Goofy on you. And by "Goofy" I mean "my big, developmentally-disabled half-brother, Russell, who likes to hit people with nunchuks." You've been warned.

       ... Mike Zeller