Kingdom Hearts II review

A duck with a wand, a dog with a shield, and a story that might have you holding back tears ... they did it again

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You don't care that a few of the boss battles are straight-up lame (attention Jafar, Xaldin, Luxord and hyenas: you suck), because the rest of them rock. You've teamed with Final Fantasy X's one-armed samurai Auron to pummel Hades about the head and shoulders. That was after you swooped through the sky upon Pegasus' back, hacking away at the hydra's many viperous heads, but before you summoned Chicken Little to hurl a barrage of baseballs, first-person shooter-style, at an undead buccaneer.

You don't even care that you have to jump into your Gummi spaceship and blast your way through another old-school, outer space shoot-out, because except for the way your ship often blocks your view of your targets, they're pretty fun. You also don't care that you have to revisit almost every world, because you get to hang with Disney's heavies, including Pirates of the Caribbean's Captain Jack Sparrow, Tron and black & white Mickey Mouse from his earliest days.

More info

GenreRole Playing
DescriptionIt's back: that mystical merger of Disney characters, Final Fantasy cameos and Action RPG combat against sub-human agents of nothingness. Weird? Oh, yeah. But also wonderful.
Platform"PS2"
US censor rating"Everyone 10+"
UK censor rating"Rating Pending"
Alternative names"Kingdom Hearts 2","KH 2","KH II",""
Release date1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK)
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Eric Bratcher
I was the founding Executive Editor/Editor in Chief here at GR, charged with making sure we published great stories every day without burning down the building or getting sued. Which isn't nearly as easy as you might imagine. I don't work for GR any longer, but I still come here - why wouldn't I? It's awesome. I'm a fairly average person who has nursed an above average love of video games since I first played Pong just over 30 years ago. I entered the games journalism world as a freelancer and have since been on staff at the magazines Next Generation and PSM before coming over to GamesRadar. Outside of gaming, I also love music (especially classic metal and hard rock), my lovely wife, my pet pig Bacon, Japanese monster movies, and my dented, now dearly departed '89 Ranger pickup truck. I pray sincerely. I cheer for the Bears, Bulls, and White Sox. And behind Tyler Nagata, I am probably the GR staffer least likely to get arrested... again.