That's No Moon...That's a Kingdom Hearts

I finally picked up Kingdom Hearts II again and finished it. I'm going to keep this fairly vague so that lizalou doesn't get spoiled or anything, but I wanted to record my reactions.

I have to say that Xehanort is on my shit list for having far more forms and life bars than even a final boss should have. Plus, that dude has some scary lips. But, at the very least, I was grateful that he didn't go around saying, "Come into the darkness," every five seconds like Ansem did at the end of the first Kingdom Hearts. Boy was he a bitch though. That final form really pissed me off--especially with the Triangle/X alternating action at the end. Let's just say my carpal tunnel ain't doin' so hot today.

Christopher Lee is an amazing actor, but I believe the word he performs best is the word "fool." Apparently, the KH crew felt the same way since he managed to squeeze in the words "fool," "foolish," and "foolishness" before the end of the game more times than Ash did in Galerians. It was truly impressive. I don't claim to understand everything there is to know about Ansem, but I am pretty sure that he's a fool, whatever the case. In fact, he just might be a foolish fool.

Boy that Organization XIII is one clandestine organization. (I threw that in just for BBD in case he's reading.) They're so secretive I still don't entirely understand what they were after. I get the basics, but really what was the point of it all anyway? They made a heart shaped moon. And I'm going to make an educated guess it was made out of cheese as well considering the cheesiness of the dialogue--oh, and (here's another one for BBD) the pretentiousness as well. All of the Organization guys love their big words. It's almost painfully dense in the rare and antiquated vocabulary category. Come on guys, this is a kid's game! Still, that doesn't take away from the fact that most of the XIII guys are pretty hot. And we can't forget about Axel. Not all XIII members are given the same rigorous vocab training, it seems. Or maybe they are all given that training, but it just sticks better for some than others. This could shed some light on Axel's favorite catch phrase. Perhaps it is a byproduct of the trauma involved in remembering words. "Got it memorized?"

Poor Roxas. I've been saying that from the beginning, and though he didn't have an unhappy ending it left me feeling wistful. But I won't say more here in this mostly spoiler-free post. I'm sad to say that I really do like him better than Sora. But now I feel guilty for saying that. Sorry, Sora.

The Little Mermaid shall not be spoken of here, other than to mention I never want to hear about Ursula's poopsies again. I've also had just about enough of Seifer saying "Isn't this romantic?" because I went back and did the Struggle thing again thinking I'd get something good out of it but was sadly disappointed. I should have looked up the walkthrough before I wasted my time. I just had such hopes that there would be an extra Setzer something... I was also surprised that Rinoa never showed up after all--surprised, but relieved. Our luck her voice would probably be played by someone like Reba West (or whatever name she's going by now--why, oh why do English voice actors have SO MANY different names?!), although Minmei just might have been better than the chick who played Aeris. Ouch.

Overall I was very satisfied with the game--although some parts of Aladdin and Lion King had me ready to lose my lunch with the camera angle craziness (they got me almost as bad as Katamari Damacy). I have to say, though, that some points in the plot still left me a little confused. Maybe I'm missing something, but why are the creatures created from a person's missing heart called "Heartless" and the empty bodies left behind when a heartless is created is called a "Nobody." The nobodys have bodies and the heartless have hearts. Isn't that rather back asswards? And I thought the heartless were called that because they were what was left behind when a person lost their heart and there for had no heart. But now it seems that they do have hearts because half the point of this game was that while Sora was killing heartless he was releasing hearts and inadvertantly aiding the Organization's nefarious plan--whatever that was. I mean I know what they were trying to do, but I just don't get why exactly.

But in the end, the plot isn't so important to me. They certainly wrapped it up far better than I thought they would. In the end, it was about pretty people, adorable characters, fun gameplay and lots and lots of button mashing. I'll have to go back and play it again. Really. Because I should have known better than to choose "standard" mode. Maybe I'll just borrow neowolf's save point so I can see the extra secret ending in hi res...