With abilities, Sora wasn't exactly like a specific type of player like donald and goofy, so whether it's you or me plays a significant role to how Sora plays since you can equip your abilities a whole lot differently than I could equip them. A magic type, an attack type, a berserker type with no finishing moves, all of these are just quick examples of how Sora can be played differently. Key blades played a big role here too with special abilities of their own so you can literally have a long list of different ways Sora can play. Unlike the first KH, KHII had a special new feature, the introduction of dual key blade wielding, an ability that Sora didn't have unless tapped into by special threads in the clothes he wore. Roxas had this talent without any special clothing whatsoever, so he could fully utilize the power of his trademark Oblivion, and Oath keeper key blade pair. Sora couldn't do this unless he was in a special form, Valor, Master, and Final form all allowed him to dual wield two key blades and attack differently with more vigor and power than ever before. Wisdom was the only form without this and I've got to know why it was not included. I guess magic users are hard to come by when looking at people who play this. The way that these forms work is pretty much like your abilities and how they enhance them overall. Valor form increases the attack power and doesn't allow any magic use, plus it gives you new abilities as you level up. High Jump and Combo boost are support abilities used by this form, plus they can be obtained to equip on Sora's abilities he can use outside of Valor form. Wisdom Form increases the magic power but doesn't allow any physical attacking, plus it gives you permanent abilities like MP Haste, and Air Slide. Master Form increases both the magic and attack power by a significant amount but not as much as Valor and Wisdom forms, and unfortunately it takes away both donald and goofy to utilize it in battle. (Most of you say this isn't a bad thing, but donald has pulled me out of hot water with his lightning quick Curaga. You don't know how many times I was caught in a lethal combo with out the option to use either Curaga or a Mega Elixir. Look at Sephiroth and tell me how to get out of one of his combos once you're even tagged by that Muramasa.) Master form gives you both abilities such as Aerial Combo Boost, and Air Dodge to use while in Sora's normal form. The last form is Final form and it's a real doozy. I'd recommend only using this form for those real tough battles since this form can easily burn through this whole game without even batting an eye. Magic power is through the roof and attack power doesn't even compare to that of Valor form, it's just too overwhelming.
You gain a few new abilities, but this time you don't get one to your attacking value. You gain both the Glide ability and the Form boost ability which lets you stay in all forms for a period of time longer than normal. Of all of these forms, clearly Final form is the most powerful. Combined with two heavy hitting key blades such as Oblivion and Fenrir or Decisive Pumpkin and you wouldn't want to go back to any other form. Sora has other forms in this game, but this is clearly only for blending into other words, which I found to be really cool since it allows you to focus on that worlds aspect of playing. For example, on Pride Lands Sora becomes a lion and this changes how he originally plays to where he can utilize his new form to the best of it's abilities. This was really neat since when you go to this world, you can't just play like any other world, you have to switch it up to how they'd want you to play. The other thing I loved about this game was the Limits. This was one of the most coolest things I've ever seen on the game and I couldn't wait till I had unlocked limit attacks for both donald and goofy. Unfortunately that came later so I had to make due with disney character limits and special limits from summons. Not to say they weren't good, but when it can only be done in that one particular world, it got kind of old. The best limits I found were the ones that Sora had personally, called Trinity Limit, and the Eternal Session Limit with Riku. If I could use that Session limit anywhere in this game, I would spam it so much that no battle would be done without me using it at least once. The next new good thing is the Action Command button. The green triangle that appears every where you go and is without a doubt the most useful button in the game. You can use this to do actions specifically for each moment, boss, and enemies to gain a quick upper hand in the situation. All the bosses have the moment where you have to press that green button to either finish them or deal major damage to their health bar. This can also be used defensively to block incoming attacks or to activate special scenes where you have a chance to counter and attack. The only bad thing is that it was kind of "too important" to where if you didn't have a triangle button or if it was just plain broke, you couldn't get through most parts of the game. Still, it was very fun to use plus it made disney boss battles a whole lot more enjoyable when doing these actions. The last thing on the list is the enemies since this is a "Mini" review and I can't go in much more further than this. If you want the full icing on the cake, go to http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/915410-kingdom-hearts-ii/faqs
The enemies on this one game are more fun than they are harm just because they have that special Disney/FF flare to all of them. The heartless are one of the coolest things I've seen in an enemy since they all look so nonchalant with their wavy mouths and blank yellow golden eyes. Their shape is always different though since they're so diverse and there's a special one for each world where you can only see it there. Fortunately their shapes have a lot to do with how they attack instead of all of them doing quick claw strikes like the normal heartless. Even though they look funny and cool, these things are actually good at whittling your health down to a bare minimal before you get a a certain place. Even though thats not really good for Sora, I find this great because I love a good challenge. It'd be pretty stupid if you could easily overwhelm them all with just one key blade strike. The heartless bosses are just out of this world blow my mind amazing. These things tower over you with beastly forms and they still have that nonchalant jagged mouth with the most interesting characteristics imaginable. Some of them are like beasts while others are like titans when you go up against them. Do not take their funny looks for granted though since they are very powerful. Most of them aren't even fazed by normal attacks unless you hit that weak point or sweet spot. They also have attacks that cover an entire field and can take down several notches of your health. The next enemy is new, and they also have a funny look, in an "Alice in Wonderland" type of way. These are called Nobodies and are very fun to fight against. Most of them are mostly silver and dull colors like periwinkle and dark gray. These are cool but not in a Disney kind of way, more like FF if you ask me and they don't have that crazy outlandish movements like heartless have. These enemies are calm cool and collected until they attack which they then go absolutely insane. When they attack you'd better be ready to block since they deal massive damage quickly and more efficiently than heartless. Some of them go out with a Kamikaze bang, and others slash at you with several heavy hitting attacks that leave you speechless. You never really know when they'll attack until it's too late since they move so slow at first then they just go into overdrive attacking you. Action Command buttons help out mostly with these enemies since they all have their own way of attacking that can be countered and used against them. Take the berserker and the Samurai for instance, it has you use the same attack as them and even have you take away the enemy's weapon to do it for the berserker. There's just one Nobody boss and thats the one where you get your Key blade and awaken Sora. With Organization XIII already on the roster, there isn't much need for Nobody Bosses. Organization XIII members are just like Nobodies (They are nobodies in reality) and they correspond to a specific Nobody enemy like Saix to berserkers and Xigbar to snipers So in actual terms, they are the Nobody bosses. Playing against them is fun, but also one of the hardest battles you'll face compared to heartless bosses. If you compare them to their Nobody counterparts and use the action command you should be fine for at least a quarter of the battle. The rest is pure skill in evasion and attacking since they do have super attacks that will take away half of your health. Keep up the tempo and you'll eventually win. Thats it for my KHII review and I hoped this will get you rev-ved up for KHBBS since there is so much to look forward to. With all of this on a game for the PS2, you have to wonder how much will be on the PSP which is clearly the better upgrade of it's previous installment.
