Games Played 05/05/2009

Black & Bruised - GameCube
Breath of Fire III - PlayStation
Conan - X-Box 360
Neverwinter Nights 2 - PC
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - PC
World Racing - X-Box

RANDOM GAME OF THE DAY:


Kingdom Hearts (2002)
Developer: Square Co., Ltd.
Platform: PlayStation 2
Purchase Date: 09/21/2002


The real reason why you play this game.

What Square has done with tons of Disney characters in this game is just simply astonishing. Kingdom Hearts is an action role playing game that features child-like versions of Square's characters alongside those highly recognizable faces from the Disney universe. A lot of careful artistic decisions were taken into consideration to ensure that the combination of both worlds makes sense in the game. The tone of the tale is more Square than Disney but it was well-written and highly engaging. I really don't want to ruin the plot but I would like to point out that for a game that is aimed towards the younger audience, Kingdom Hearts is incredibly epic in its scale and its concept of reality is potentially thought-provoking. While playing the game, I didn't care too much about the main character, Sora. It's probably because Donald Duck and Goofy just completely outshine him in terms of star quality. It's tough to pit a generic Square character with the typical Square characterizations against classic Disney icons. The only flaw I could find in this game is that the Disney characters are merely reduced to supporting roles/villains: It's obvious that Sora is always the game's focal point. There are sections of the game that play like a 3D shooter where you control a customizable "Gummi" ship. I remember many people were complaining about these parts of the game but I thought that they were able to provide a nice change of pace in between the actions. I was expecting to be able to see many graphical flaws during my play session today but I couldn't believe just how beautiful this game still remains. It's certainly one of PlayStation 2's best looking games. The real time cut scenes are -dare I say it?- Disney-quality. I picked up the sequel to this game in 2006 but I was not able to get through the first hour of that game without falling asleep! I am now reminded of the need to complete the sequel soon because this first game is not a complete experience in itself.

LIBRARY STATUS: 5 out of 5