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Music
Dearly Beloved
Hello and welcome to my Let's Play of Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix+. Presumably, you came here expecting excitement, mayhem, maybe a little titillation? Fear not! I can guarantee only one of those three--the other two are up to you, thread. Let's not waste anyone's time and get right into...
...The start up screen!
Seriously, though, this is where the game begins. Kingdom Hearts prides itself on being accessible to all ages, at least as far as gameplay goes. TO that end, we've got Beginner mode, meant for toddlers presumably.
Standard is probably meant for first timers and people who want to shotgun down the whole game.
Proud mode is for if you want a little hair on your chest. It's the hardest mode that the North American vanilla edition of Kingdom Hearts 2 could get, and is pretty challenging on its own.
And last but not least, Critical Mode. It's balanced slightly differently than the other three, made to facilitate challenge runs. EVERYTHING does more damage, including the player. There are several other changes that don't necessarily make it more difficult, but instead make the game less frustrating in case you want to take on any self-imposed challenges. On its own, however, it's still slightly harder than Proud. This is the difficulty we'll be playing on.
Now, then. On to the game!
Or the starting cutscenes, at any rate. This game can be kind of is extremely slow to start with. Kingdom Hearts caters to the hardcore fans as much as the casual gamers, the second installment moreso than any others.
The premise of the game combines the same design sensibilities that made Final Fantasy as gut-wrenchingly popular as it is with the characters that made Disney the pioneering media legend that it is. Now anyone can tell you a thousand and one ways that might not work, but the first Kingdom Hearts game apparently did it right, according to critical and popular reception. And thus...
We get Kingdom Hearts II. Despite being only the third game out of six, it is the culmination of every game in the series, with only the upcoming seventh game showing signs of moving onward. No other game in the series tops it's 
factor, and most of the games made afterwards were dedicated to disentangling the clusterfuck of plotthreads that it pulled out its ass.
Kingdom Hearts is big into the kind of pseudo-philosophical poetry that alot of bog-issue localized anime seems to favor. It's almost certainly a cultural thing, but it's hard to get into. It sort of works if you try to get yourself into that surreal, nostalgic mood remembering Disney from your childhood.
Kingdom Hearts likes to work that mysticism into its cosmology and a lot of it can just get way more confusing than any Disney product has any right to be. Still, there's a kind of sweetness, a kind of beauty, to be found in the philosophy of altruism that Tetsuya Nomura works into the games, and that meshes perfectly with the popular vision of Disney.
KIngdom Hearts is also really good about following its own rules. The series is, surprising as it may seem, by and large internally consistent. So sperging about things might eventually get you somewhere, if you don't caught up in hatred of your fellow man in the process of talking it out.
So hopefully, by keeping a level head and keeping things clear, I can take you guys on a journey of our own to figure out just what the fuck is going on here.
Music
Passion
The intro starts with a recap of the first game, but very rushed and dreamlike. Correspondingly, we're going to have to take it slow, shot by shot for these first few cutscenes. That's called a Thalassa Shell by the way. In-universe, you can make good-luck charms out of them.
Fun fact: Thalassa was a "Primordial" Sea Goddess in ancient Greek Mythology, associated strongly with the Mediterranean. Thalassa is used as a euphemism for the sea in the Greek Bible, as well.
Aww, three good friends, just hanging out. Suddenly...
ACTION!
Okay, that was fast. Time to drop some knowledge on you folks. If you've already played the other games in the series or have a grasp of the story, ignore the following.
Recap
A thing called The Keyblade tracked down Sora because of a universal invasion of Heartless, which are Hearts transformed and morphed by their own Darkness into monsters. The Keyblade uses the power of Light to disperse Heartless. Meanwhile, King Mickey is doing his part to quell the Darkness, and left a letter for his subjects to find the Keyblade. Sora's world, Destiny Islands, is destroyed by the Heartless. Sora, Riku, and Kairi are cast out into the wider World. Sora, joined by Court Mage Donald and Captain of the Guard Goofy under orders from Mickey, travels from world to world in search of Riku and Kairi (mostly Kairi). Each world is based on a Disney Movie. The worlds also contain Keyholes, which are lockable with the keyblade. Once locked, they provide significant defense against Heartless. All the while, they look for the source of all the trouble, while Sora copes with the new responsibilities of Keyblade wielding. The main villains of each Disney world, led by Maleficent, are working together to gain power using the Heartless.
While it looks blunt, the Keyblade is more or less death incarnate for any creature of Darkness. It's also effective against any other enemy, since the first game involved beating up Final Fantasy characters as well.
Here, we're at the source of all this BS: Hollow Bastion, an ominous castle once the domain of one Ansem the Wise, a scientist and Ruler who researched Heartless before all this shit went down. Sora discovers that Kairi is comatose, missing her Heart. Can't take your eyes off the damn things.
Riku's got some new duds. And also steroids.
Yeah, Riku turned evil. What a dick. Though Maleficent kind of manipulated him into it, in his defense.
He's quickly body-snatched by this jackass, Ansem. Before he possessed Riku, he was just hunchbacked figure in a brown robe. Now, he's pretty fit for a ruler and scholar, but presumably the power of Darkness has something to do with that. Also evil, which was a surprise. Ansem's the one pulling Maleficent's strings.
Ansem get's shown the Door, which Ansem thought would lead to a source of immense Darkness that he could harness. Ain't Karma a bitch?
Well, looks like Riku's back to normal. And insanely pale for someone who grew up in the tropics, but whatever. Not shown is King Mickey, locking the Door from the inside with his keyblade, while Sora locks it from the outside. The Door led to Kingdom Hearts, a source of great light. However, Kingdom Hearts lies in the Realm of Darkness, where a massive clusterfuck of Heartless lay in wait for Ansem to open the Door. So closing it was of some importance. Riku decides to stay behind with Mickey to atone or some shit.
Oh, so that's where Kairi's Heart was hiding out. Whaddya know. Sneaky little bastard.
Well, Sora gets some epic hugging action, so it's all good.
And now Kairi's all alone. Yeah, Sora pulled off the whole "save the universe" deal without a hitch, but he kinda fucked up the "get home afterwards" part. We're talking about ridiculous, Odyssean, Homeric level fuck-up here.
Also, Kairi aged from around 8 to 16 in the space of one year. Go figure.
Here we've got a mysterious woman in white. She's relevant, don't worry. She also seems to be in some sort of white space.
Yeah, Sora kinda stumbled into this place on his way home. It's called Castle Oblivion (yes, another castle). A bunch of Assholes in Mysterious Black Cloaks mess with him in there, using that girl in white, who is some sort of Memory Witch, to screw his memories over. That girl in white, who's a bit of a creeper, decides to overwrite all of Sora's memories of Kairi with herself. Actually, someone else made her do it, but she probably enjoyed doing it.
And Heartless are there, too. Can't forgot those bastards.
That's Donald's contribution. Interestingly, Donald and Goofy got put into limbo for gameplay purposes, and sort of teleported around with Sora, and could be summoned when Sora called. For the most part, however, Sora was soloing Castle Oblivion.
That pink-haired lady dude person is Marluxia. He's in charge of the Fabulous Black Cloaked Men and Woman in Castle Oblivion.
Marluxia is actually a traitor to his group, along with a few of his friends in Castle Oblivion. He wants to use Sora as a weapon, which probably would've worked out if you could ever get Sora to go in a straight line.
Fun fact: Marluxia was originally designed to be a woman by the devs, which explains the pink hair, but his friend and fellow traitor Larxene was the only other woman in the group. It would have ended up with every single female trying to betray their male dominated group, and failing. Square Enix decided not to accidentally turn their games into sexist propaganda, and made Marluxia into a man.
In the meantime, Riku, who was previously possessed by Ansem, fights off the last vestiges of his influence while honing the dark powers Ansem granted him. He's fighting Ansem in those screens, by the way. Goddamn blurry whip-pans make it impossible to screencap, sorry.
Sora ends up befriending the woman in white, named Namine. It turns out she screwed up something called his Chain of Memories, which is essentially a series of memories that magically connect him to his friends. The way her powers worked meant that she could rearrange the "links" of his memories. Unfortunately, she can't reverse it quite as easily. After defeating Marluxia, Sora lets Namine put him in a pod so she can fix the shitstorm that was Sora's mind.
To be honest, Sora probably did it so he wouldn't have to look at that face again.
The process puts him to sleep for a LONG time.
Meanwhile, Riku, with the help of King Mickey Mouse and a mysterious man (not wearing a Mysterious Black Cloak, surprisingly) named DiZ, overcomes his Darkness, mops up everyone Sora didn't, and decides not to forsake either the Darkness or the Light. When offered either the path of Light or Darkness, Riku instead chooses the "Twilit Path to Dawn".
Yeah, more pseudo-symbolic bullshit, but at least Riku's manning up and grabbing his own destiny by the balls instead of being yanked around like a Chihuahua on a chain.
Not sure what this is symbolic of .
What's this?
Welp, looks like things are just starting to get complicated. That stained glass image last appeared in Sora's Dive to Heart at the beginning of the first Kingdom Hearts, wherein he took a spiritual journey within himself to subconsciously prepare for the coming invasion. The image is probably representative of Sora's Heart, but why is this Blonde Guy there?
The things near the edge of the screen are doves, by the way. Not sure if it's symbolic, but they're not important.
Now, the game proper begins...after a series of cutscenes.
We get a scene change to this gloomy looking beach. If I had to guess, I'd say we were in the realm of darkness.
Oh look, another guy in a Mysterious Black Coat.
I've been to see him...
He looks like you.
And one more Mysterious Black Coat. This one's somewhat bigger, and his voice is deeper than the Grand Canyon, so we'll call him Black Coat Prime. Looks like the smaller black cloak has a doppelganger. Not sure what relationship these two Black Cloaks have, yet, but it seems Prime is looking out for the younger one. If you recall, all the Black Cloaks in Castle Oblivion were by and large working together (excepting metric ass-ton of backstabbing going on).
Who are you?
The younger Black Cloak's voice isn't dubbed. Look's like they want to make his identity extra-mysterious.
Or maybe I'm all there ever was..
Black Coat Prime is getting philosophical on us. Looks like the younger one is clueless as to what's going on, but the Black Cloaks are some sort of revenant. We know they make up a group and that a good number of them are douchebags, from Chain of Memories.
The younger Black Cloak doesn't have much of a stomach for wistful introspection.
Black Cloak Prime fires back.
...Sora.
Wait, what? The younger black cloak's answer segue's into Kairi saying Sora's name. His true name is Sora? Is Sora the doppelganger that Black Coat Prime said he went to see? Or is the smaller Black Cloak actually Sora? Sora's not usually that ditzy. Dammit, all these Black Cloaks and weird name sharing confusion and everyone being all cryptic is annoying as fuck all. Oh well. We'll probably get some answers in time.
Hope you like more recap cutscenes, by the way.
Music
Treasured Memories
Some information on Sora's name--in Japanese, it's a homophone for Sky. The words are exactly the same. This is why there's so much "sky" or flight imagery with Sora. In the original Japanese version of the game, there are a lot of puns based on the homophone that get lost in translation. There's something similar going on with Kairi (Sea) and Riku (land).
Sora's a bit of a lazy bum, as well as being a total clown. Things are tense for a lot of the first Kingdom Hearts game, so these aspects don't really come out (repression, y'know. Psychologically, losing his home and loved one's is probably taking a toll on him). Given time to shine in the side games, Sora's actually a bit of a smart ass. He doesn'really respond well to pressure of the "Save the World" sort.
Another important part of Sora is his rivalry with Riku. Sora played second fiddle to Riku for most of his life. You know how there's always the hot girl's fat best friend? That was essentially Sora, to Riku, with some healthy competition thrown in. Sora was nice enough to never let it bother him that much, and he adjusted well, all things considered. In that sense, constantly competing with Riku probably pushed Sora to be better than he would be otherwise, anyway.
That's Riku on the left there talking. Riku's ambitions always seemed to outstrip any other admirable qualities he might have possessed. In particular, he has the brilliant idea of trying to sail to other worlds in a rickety old raft. For all we know it's perfectly possible, but their supplies consisted of a three fish, two mushrooms, and few coconuts.
Sora likes to make fanart of him and Kairi K-I-S-S-I-N-G because he's too much of a pansy to actually make a move.
Egads! Sora scrambles to cover up his illicit DeviantArt submissions. This brown cloak that appears around Destiny Islands is a weakened, proto-form of the Heartless leader Ansem. It's not explicit, but his presence is likely long-standing and allows him some influence on Riku.
He doesn't leave much of an impression on Sora, however, who leaves to go utterly fail at scoring with Kairi. Kairi literally just asked him to run away with her, but Sora dropped the ball. In any case, I always found it interesting how Kairi had eyes only for Sora, stupid and lazy as he is, even though strong, capable Riku was right there.
The Heartless invasion has reached Destiny Islands, and Sora goes to his island to secure his precious handmade raft. He finds Riku there, babbling about doors and whatnot. This is why I figure Ansem was hanging around Destiny Islands long enough to influence Riku--that's the only way he could've known half the stuff he was talking about. Not to mention Ansem totally body snatches Riku near the end game.
Notice the roiling Darkness everywhere? Riku seems awfully comfortable in it. He seems to think that that's his chance to finally see other worlds, not noticing Destiny Islands crumbling into pieces around him. He offers to take Sora along, since he's already there and all.
DENIED! Sora has to deal with Darkside, instead. That voice is not coming from Darkside, however, but rather Ansem.
Sora retreats to his Secret Place (where he makes his fanarts), only to find Kairi there as well. She seems a little funny, however.
A great wind blows from that open door, and Kairi passes right through Sora as shes blown towards him. This is the point where Kairi's Heart leaped from her body into Sora's, taking shelter in his Heart. We get an abrupt scene change.
Music
Lazy Afternoon
From gloomy apocalypse to... fifteen year old boy chic? What the hell is...is that a fish-bowl night light? I'm not going to even bother.
Huh. It's the Blonde Kid who dropped down into Sora's Dive to Heart. It looks like those scenes were dreams of his. But why was this random kid dreaming about our Hero?
And what was he doing in said Hero's Heart space there? And why does he have such terrible interior decorating skills?
Oh well, at least it's a beautiful morning in...where are we, exactly?
Oh, thanks. Welcome to beautiful Twilight Town, population: about a dozen odd NPCs or so.
Looks like Roxas is still bothered about his dreams. The other three stooges are Hayner, Pence, and Olette by the way. We'll be seeing them a lot.
Yes, that does tick me off. Welcome to the First Day. First of Seven to be exact 
.
Kingdom Hearts 2 is infamous for its extensive prologue. On the one hand, its slow, boring, and its wealth of cutscenes makes a screenshot LP tedious. On the other hand, it has some of the more subtle characterization, very nice artistic direction, and a heartfelt plot. Take your pic.
I mean, it's true that stuff's been stolen around town.
And we've got a score to settle with Seifer and everything.
So if he wants to think we did it, I can't really blame him.
See...that's not what really bugs me.
What REALLY bugs me is that he's goin' around tellin' everybody we're the thieves!
Now the whole town and their mothers are treating us like the Klepto Club.
Yeah, so our fake-replacement main characters are in a bit of a bind. It seems someone's spreading around some lies and slander. Sounds like something that could easily be resolved by a court order.
Obviously, Hayner wants to cut out the middleman, and thinks a rational discourse on the fallacy of ad hominem arguments would settle things between them. You can see Hayner arranging his debate points and settling on his logical stance. That's the face of a man about to either kick some rhetorical ass or shank someone.
Olette, however, has no faith in Hayner's mic skillz, and looks to Roxas to defuse the tension. I guess that makes Roxas the levelheaded one. It's probably all the hair gel going to his brain.
We could find the real thieves. That would set the record straight.
Rather than having it out with Seifer in what would probably be the debate of the century, or possibly a gang-fight, Roxas wants to play Hardy Boys.
Once we find the real culprit, everyone will get off our backs.
Well, it's an idea.
But suddenly!
Hmm...money? Dignity? Fashion Sense?
Looks like somehow a word was taken out of existence. Everyone can still tell that there used to be a word though.
The meaning of the word still exists, too. So somehow, everyone in the room has been inflicted with a speech impediment. Better get the CDC up in here, looks like we got some autopsies a'comin'!
The word [--]! They Stole it, too!
Aw man, I was totally expecting a Kingdom Hearts Murder Medical Mystery Drama. Which is a shame, because Dr. Sora would be the best doctor ever.
Instead, we've got some Carmen Sandiego shit going on. Better get your universal translators out, fellow Acme Detective Agents.
Time to get a plane ticket to South America.
Doubtless he'll awaken very soon.
Hmmm... well, Sora's asleep, so that mysterious voice might be talking about him. But what was that about his Heart? I thought it was his memories that were screwed up? Maybe Voice is just being poetic.
That's one of the problems with this series--Hearts and Souls are distinct, plot relevant things. They are also common subjects of angsty symbolic poetry. So it's hard to distinguish between the game being pithy and elegantly poetic, or the game giving us plot exposition. It gets real bad later on.
Wow. Looks like Mysterious Voice was so cryptic that he knocked Roxas over. Or Roxas is just a klutz, in addition to having terrible design sense.
Yeah, yeah. Keep your capris on.
The game teleports us out here. Let's get the lay of the land.
Oh, look at this. A giant hole in the wall! Does no one notice this? This is one massive infrastructure screw-up. Seems like Twilight Town doesn't do much maintenance.
Here you can get a glimpse of some sort of train highway leaving the city into some distant green hills. Also, gotta love that skybox.
You can actually get a glimpse of a train off in the distance, which is a neat touch. Kingdom Hearts is pretty good about the little details, although this installment won't let you play with the environment at all, only stare at it. There's a lot more stuff to play around with, combat-wise, though, so it all evens out!
See that clocktower in the corner? That'll be of some significance later. It's really nice that they worked that into the background, too. It has a seperate area of its own.
This here's an accessory shop, though I suppose it could double as a jewelry shop.
This is a candy shop, for now. Check out those psychadelic signs! I wouldn't want the electric bill that goes with that.
Right, to business!
Hey, shut your fat liar mouth! And anyway, that vest is tacky, and the wristbands? Really? Way to advertise douchebag central. I'm not taking anything you say under advisement, that's for sure. Good luck getting past middle management anytime in the foreseeable future, prick.
...is what Roxas would say if he had a spine.
Oh, yeah, that too.
Who else would steal that stuff?
Huh. Looks like it wasn't just Roxas and pals who lost stuff. Whether or not it's the [--] that these people lost remains to be seen.
Whoa! Hey! This is an investigation, not junior prom. Roxas'll probably get to third base without really trying. I've seen detective movies, I know how it works. All we gotta do is toss around a few "dame"s, smoke some HUGE cigars, narrate our every action between swigs from our hip flask. The dame'll fall into our arms faster than a hungry cop falling into a donut shop.
Here we get our introduction to Reaction Commands. When a flash and a glowing triangle appears, we can press triangle to do something. Sometimes mundane, like talking here, or absolutely, bowel bustingly, over the top, outrageous, as we'll certainly see.
Reaction Commands have appeared all over the place (I think Resident Evil 4? Made them popular, though it was by no means the first to use them). Kingdom Hearts abuses them right into therapy--its especially egregious because they almost always use the one button.
Music
MOOD: NOIR
LadyDame, I might pay more attention to you if weren't wearing your training bra on the outside of your clothes (He said, smirking at her overeager pout. The poor girl probably spent all hours observing the world outside her little stall. Watching the scads of hopeless wage-earners, bent double by the weight of the cities contstant whispered demands, always hungry, never satiated by the nine-to-five doldrum, just like her. The dame probably wanted to burn this place to the ground, just let it all go in a blaze dirty ashes and soot.).
Yeah, we used to be close, before she stabbed me in the back. If there's one thing I've learned, it's this: never trust dames. They'll twist you around their ring finger tighter than a banker's ass, and when they find out your perfectly innocent collection of excellent fishbowl appliances, they'll drop you faster than a particularly bad case of diarrhea. Oh yeah, she cut me deep, but I scarred tight.
Yeah, that too.
Well, darling, that's what I'm trying to do. Now, you can either talk, or we can get rough and tumble here.
That's what I thought.
Finally (he thought to himself), a lead! He could smell the edge of the mystery, taste the tiniest hint of it. He was on the right track, he could tell.
The old broad was batty. Lived all alone in a house smelling of cheap bourbon and cat piss. Wanted me to find her Fluffy before she'd talk. I humored her. Reminded me of my old lady. Maybe she'd give us the next link in our case.
We have a little targeting tutorial here. Basically, lock on to the cat, and Roxas uses his magical Private Eye abilities to teleport kitty to the counter.
Anything for you, darling.
My Precious [--].
Damn. They stole from this poor old lady, too. The bastards probably didn't care who they stepped on, as long as they got their way. Roxas gritted his teeth and took a vicious swig of cheap whiskey. They'd get theirs.
Hmm. It's kind of funny how no one really questions that last bit. They were surprised after they first found out, but after that, it was just another thing that was stolen. Of course, this is also a place where your Heart can get a mind of its own and rip itself out of you if you're a bad person.
Not liking how kitty's staring at us there in the foreground one bit. I've got my eye on you, cat. Meanwhile, Roxas and the gang track down Seifer.
Music
Lazy Afternoon
This is the town square, by the way. The rather prominent building might the Town Hall, although it's absolutely tiny for a city this large.
Thieves.
Fuu is insanely deadpan, by the way. No one really questions it, but realistically we should be looking for signs of current or past physical or verbal abuse, as well as PTSD or head trauma. It's kind of horrifying, if you think about it.
And Rai is a terrible stereotype of men who wear sleeveless shirts. Good thing we don't judge people by their clothes 
.
That expression on his face? He holds it for several seconds. Just a thousand mile stare while he slowly rotates his head.
There's this hilarious moment where Hayner's head rotates just a bit longer than he probably meant it too, and he looks like the girl from The Excorcist.
Well, that's not fair. Hayner was quite clearly going for intimidation by way of making everyone afraid he would break his own neck.
Dang, hearing problems too. We've got Roxas whose motor skills and design sense have been shot to hell, a girl with more issues than the homeless guy who hangs out behind the HIV clinic, and now a guy in need of hearing aids. Twilight Town's healthcare is shit. Incidentally:
http://lpix.org/310313/gsdx_20110801233547.jpg
More Herp-derp issues.
Better ad one more to the list of victims of Twilight Town's terrible healthcare. I'd speculate on what exactly is going on with Seifer there, but I'd just depress myself. (Probably some sort of motor-neural disorder)
Well, what exactly were we supposed to have taken?
Your dated linguistic style clearly implies a level of unsophistication that is, to put it bluntly, quite galling in a man of your age.
Also, quit dressing like a chump.
Burn it?
Not that we need some [--] to prove that you're losers.
Damn. That death glare Roxas pulls off comes out of pretty much nowhere. We can add anger issues to terrible taste in fish-bowl decorations, impaired motor function, as well as recurrent film noir fantasies.
I think I'm going to call this "Seifer Syndrome", if only because I have a feeling it's going to be a reoccuring thing. Oh Seifer, if only you knew how uncomfortable you make the rest of us feel.
Well, Roxas approaches the group, presumably to talk some crazy smack. Let him have it, Roxas!
Oh. Hmm...
Oh, what's this?
Music
Sinister Sundown
Oh dang! Roxas dives for a weapon. That's...actually pretty smart, getting Seifer's guard down like that. The music and everything makes this a pretty tense moment, so let's see where it leads.
What!? No! Don't have a chat with Vivi, Roxas! Goddammit! He can't even talk anyway!
What the hell! This is no time for psychoanalysis! You're not a licensed therapist, in any case! Pick up a weapon and shank these fools!
Well, that whole "surprise attack" thing is all gone to hell. Seifer apparently doesn't give a shit either way. He's just gonna let us go ahead and pick a weapon. Asshole.
Well, Pence is wearing a shirt that says "Dog Street" on it. I guess that makes up for all this a little bit. No one says anything of interest, anyway.
I'm tempted to just leave them there, but those foam bats do looknifty. Let's check them out.
I call this the Umbrella, since it kind of looks like one. If we pick this one:
We apparently feel better about ourselves. Psychotherapy: no substitute for good ol' fashioned foam covered bats!
It's pretty obviously a wand. The description says that it can perform unusual attacks, even though that's a damnable lie. If we pick this one:
I guess smacking himself removes some of those jumbled thoughts. Which should we add to Roxas' list of instabilities: self inflicted wounds or head trauma? Hell, I'll just add them both.
And finally
I like to call it Fat Bat, it goes from very thin to very wide based on the direction Roxas holds it, and it looks really weird when it moves. If we pick this one:
I guess...sedatives? Drugs, man. There in everything, nowadays.
I decided to go with Fat Bat. My logic is that defense already starts off really low. A +1 to defense is therefore worth more than a +1 to Magic or Attack, especially since Critical Mode threatens our survival much more.
Once we choose a weapon, that specific model remains our default weapon throughout the prologue, kind of like with the Dream Staff, Shield, or Sword in the original Kingdom Hearts, but less impressive. It's a nice touch, though.
The HP and the MP bar finally show up, the lazy bastards. But what's this? What's the MP Bar doing there all alone? Why isn't it wrapping around my HP bar? WHY HAVE YOU BETRAYED ME, KINGDOM HEARTS?!
Roxas takes my anger out on Seifer. Pay for Tetsuya Nomura's mistakes, bastard!
Roxas has Sora's clumsy three hit combos from the first game, which is a bit of a shame. I should probably make mention of the slightly different physics here. Kingdom Hearts 1 had somewhat realistic physics, even if it made Sora look like goddamn Superman with him throwing around Heartless with his backstroke. This game is a lot weirder in that regard. Individual hits are dinky--they push the enemy slightly back no matter what direction you hit them from. The keyblade also passes right through the enemy in the process, instead of pushing them, though it still leaves sparks on contact. Combo finishers, however, send the enemy flying.
Sir, I have had just about enough of your inane chatter. Your dialogue is tiresome and your clothes offend mine eyes. I would ask you to kindly dispose of both, but I fear your rhetorical faculties would not prove adequate to the task of deciphering my parlance. Therefore, the only viable method of discourse is, of course, a Gang Fight, for which I do hope you have made adequate preparations to get your pansy ass stomped to the curb you punkass bitch.
That little floaty bar in the top left gives us some direction, in case "beat the hell out of whatever's in front of you" is too complicated.
I make good on my above threats and Seifer takes the first few hits like a chump.
He'll occasionally take a swat at us. My raised defense makes it so Roxas has to take quite a few hits before he falls.
Seifer will occasionally pretend he's Superman and take to the air. Surprisingly he actually seems to be able to fly, but he only uses it to do the most ridiculous, slow ass midair charge at us.
You can even outrun him, if panic makes you take leave of your senses.
As the first proper fight, Seifer goes down extremely easily.
Seifer's friends try to make excuses for his terrible showing.
Pence decides that the only good enemy is a defeated AND humiliated enemy.
Not gonna lie, that would not look bad on Roxas' eHarmony profile page.
OH HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT.
There go all of Pence's sexy voyeur pics.
Okay, a weird Silver Jumpsuit Monster just assaulted Pence and stole his camera right after he took a picture of Roxas. Huh. Maybe it's got a crush on Roxas? Stalker love!
Roxas chases the monster down to the forest.
By the way, what exactly is Roxas wearing over his legs? Are those things part of his pant's design, in which case, what the hell? Or are seperate leg sleeves that he wears on top of his jeans, in which case, what the hell? Goddammit, Tetsuya Nomura, I happen to know this is your doing!
These woods are on the other side of the massive hole in the wall that no one wants to fix.
The Jumpsuit Monster waits politely for you right in front what looks to be a fairly large mansion.
I don't like this. It feels too much like a trap.
Here's a closeup on the thing. I guess it's this game's new enemies. Vaguely humanoid, zipper over its mouth, which is kind of cute, I guess.
Once you try to "Capture" the damn thing, this happens.
This is the only time you'll ever hear these things speak, by the way. In any case, they seem to think of Roxas as royalty or something. Is Roxas a lost Prince of the Silver Jumpsuit Monster Kingdom?
The Jumpsuit Monster rips open it's zipper-mouth to reveal an epic set of choppers under there. Looks like it's fight time.
These things like to kind of track you around, floating just out of reach, and then smack you from below, above, or behind by stretching their arms out a lot. They're a lot more complex than Shadows, in any case.
Time to taste my...foam bat...wait...
Maybe I didn't think this through...
It's no use fighting these things, as melee strikes do absolutely nothing to them, not even making contact. After either a set amount of time, damage taken, or hits missed you're thrown back into cutscene land.
Hey, hands off! The Fat Bat belongs to me and me only!
Damn. There goes the Fat Bat. In any case, the matrix code hologram projection things gave us the Keyblade in return!
The Keyblade tries to pull Roxas towards the monster. Looks like someone wants to teach this bastard a violent lesson in pain.
[images redacted for being far to awesome]
Oh man, that fight was SOOO awesome, you guys. Remember when he did that thing? And then I pulled that move? Aw yeah.
...
Full disclosure, the fight was so boring I forgot to screencap it, but it consisted of Roxas doing two hits, running away, doing two more hits, rinse, repeat until it's dead. We'll be seeing a lot more of those fights, only more exciting, so don't worry.
In any case, the Jumpsuit Monster explodes and leaves behind a bunch of stolen photos. That means that the missing word [--] was actually "photo". Bit of an anticlimax, but whatever.
Back at the ranch, Roxas and co. review their plunder.
We've got some photos of Roxas extorting the citizens of Twilight Town for info, Humphrey Bogart style.
Roxas neglects to mention that he maybe a long lost foreign King, and that the Silver Jumpsuit people may be political assassins coming to collect.
Seriously, though, these people are glossing over a lot of weird stuff--stolen words, floaty monsters. None of it seems to be hitting home, really. Incidentally, recovering the photos seems to have restored the word "photo" to the people of Twilight Town's vocabularies. Dr. Sora would probably have done it faster .
Surprisingly, Hayner has a point here. They've done nothing significant to defray suspicion, although Roxas did save a cat...somehow.
Well, that's a mature way of handling complex emotions, Hayner. You ass.
All the stolen pictures are of Roxas?
That sounds significant.
That and you have a history of juvenile delinquency, idiot. That's called "connecting the dots".
Well, he still dresses like a poser.
I see none of you are considering the possibility that Pence just takes pictures of Roxas all the time.
Nice job covering up your man crush, there. Although the series does have a history of body snatching. Re: this guy:
Possessing this guy:
Pictured: World's biggest creeper.
Anyway, the clocktower starts tolling. There's this really weird moment where everyone just stops talking, and then leaves the place, Roxas included. Once outside, Roxas hears a voice:
SORA!!!
That's Roxas talking. It looks likes he's having a mental conversation or something.
I think its safe to say that Roxas and Sora are connected. Both use the keyblade, same build, nearly identical faces (although that fact is nowhere near as obvious as it should be). Not to mention that talk of doppelgangers by the Sexy Black Cloaks earlier on. Anyway, we get a scene change directly afterwards.
What's this now? Welp, Sora's sleeping, and he will be awake soon. Not to mention that a voice was talking about how his Heart needed to returned to him. I'm gonna take a guess and say this little number is referring to Sora.
Whoa, that looks like DiZ, from Chain of Memories. He was helpin' out Riku last we saw. But why is one of the Mighty Morphin' Black Cloaked Men hanging out with DiZ?
(DiZ is also voiced by Christopher Lee. Holy shit.)
The fools could never tell the difference.
Okay, the game is dropping some bombs on us. Those silver fluttery guys were actually something called Nobodies, which seems to have the same naming scheme as the Heartless. The Nobodies also can't tell the difference between an image of something and the thing itself. DiZ thinks its because they're idiots, but I have my own opinions on that, which I'll discuss when its more relevant.
So it looks like the Nobodies were trying to capture Roxas, but instead took the pictures because they had Roxas in them. I suppose they decided to be thorough and stole the word "photo" because they associated it with Roxas. How they did so, I have no idea. But again, floaty jumpsuit zipper creatures and keyblades.
Namine must make haste.
Hey, Namine is back! Before we spend too long celebrating, the scene fades to static and we get some more images of Kingdom Hearts 1.
Music
Treasured Memories
That's Pluto, long lost cousin and last scion of one of the less well bred branches of Goofy's family tree. Mickey seems to think this enough to justify slavery, but all in all, Pluto seems happy as Mickey's property.
Ewww...
Sora did not take being displaced from Destiny Islands all that well. Luckily, he got the Keyblade before Destiny Islands fell to the Darkness, so at least he can shank hobos in self defense.
And Heartless, I guess. But seriously, man. Those hobos.
Well damn. Not sure Sora can take an army of hobos. Maybe if he funneled them into alleys and took out the stragglers one by one...
Oh--what--get out of here! I'm here for the Disney! Not you!
Ugh, well, that's Squall Leonhart, originally of Final Fantasy VIII. He reached the Angst Event Horizon and changed his name, but he's otherwise the same Final Fantasy protagonist. He's a refugee in this game, by the way. His original world disappeared like Sora's.
This city is called Traverse Town. Those who are lucky and/or have a strong Heart can find their way here once they're tossed into space. Most try to make a new life there, but the Heartless invasion has reached even there. Leon and some of his friends combat the Heartless, but they're nowhere near as effective as Sora. He recruits Sora to his cause, and then releases him to wander through Traverse Town some more, slaughtering the Homeless and the Heartless and...
In the process, a beautiful friendship is born.
Vessel meaning Gummi Ship:
And no, it only looks like it's made of candy. It's actually made of the corpses of dead worlds. I am not kidding.
Okay, I've learned the hard way never to turn your back on prepubescent girls dressed like strippers. This is Yuffie Kisaragi by the way, a stereotypical Asian stripper from Final Fantasy VII. Not sure what her precise role is here, but she seems to be Leon's sidekick/underage girlfriend.
As if these two even need to introduce themselves. You guys are cultural icons!
Bow in the presence of greatness, Sora!
I'm sure they do, but the crazy monkey in a jumpsuit and clown shoes bashing them over the head with it probably has something to do with that.
Yeah, that's the Key. Doesn't look all that impressive. I mean, what's the worst you could with it?
Oh, shit! Okay, it can shoot lazers, too.
That's certainly enough to wake Roxas up from his seizure induced fever-dreams.
That's right, Roxas. It's exactly as stupid as it sounds. And exactly as awesome. Just like the rest of this game.
Dearly Beloved
Passion
Lazy Afternoon
Sinister Sundown
Treasured Memories
MOOD: NOIR