Kingdom Hearts II for the PS2 is an exciting sequel to the original Kingdom Hearts that is actually worth going to the store for.  It has bad guys good guys, fat guys, and the occasional motor mouth that wont shut the hell up.  The gang is back, but with a few others in tow.  Yuiffe, Leon, Cid, and others from the last game have been sling shot right into this game with nothing mush more than a small dress change or two.  New people you will be excited to meet is a hardy bunch who hang out with another main character, Roxas.  And to spoil the big surprise, Roxas is Sora's Nobody.  Just read on to figure out what the hell a Nobody is.  Anyway, Hayner, Pence, and Olett are new to the game and give you a fresh taste of the city life.  No money, gangs, yes, too good to be true.  And while you do beat the crap out of another town rival "gang" a plot also unfolds inside this odd city.

    Sora is nowhere to be found, no one can remember him nor can they find him.  As Sora fades from memory, a deeper story begins to emerge.  Sora has a second being know as a nobody and he is living a life without Sora.  Know as a nobody for their lack of emotions, nobodies are mere shells of a person, a being with no feeling. Sora's nobody known as Roxas was created when Sora became a heartless previously, and was never suppose to exist.  Roxas begins to feel strange in his surroundings and starts to see premonitions that his friends Hayner, Pence, and Olett don't see at all. 

    Soon he finds himself fading away and panics.  Before long, he is tossed into a confusing introduction to his significant other, Sora by none other than Ansem.  Ansem shows Roxas his true self, Sora, locked in a slumber.  Sora stirs, and Roxas fades away into Sora for, he is half of him.

       As Sora wakes, Donald, Jiminy Cricket, and Goofy meet him.  They don't understand why or how they were sleeping but they ignore this thought and try to get out of the room they were sleeping in.  Sora goes onto a new adventure with nobodies that pose an even more deadly threat then the heartless for they are under control by Organization 13, a group that are nobodies themselves looking for a true body.  Sora sets out and tries to find Riku and tries to meet up with his true love, Kairi.  Sora, Donald, and Goofy also look for the king and a way to stop Organization 13 and the heartless and the nobodies before it becomes too late.

    With that said, you can obviously see that the plot is extensive and deep which is where another aspect of the game comes in, the in-game videos.  In this game there are noticeably more in-game videos than the last Kingdom Hearts and they range from long to short.  These videos are interesting and portray the story well however, they do tend to cut into valuable playing time and lengthen the game by hours.  The basic introduction to the return of Sora lasts at least two hours or more and the game at that point has just begun!  But when you do actually get your hands on the controller and you begin to play the game play is smoother than the last.  You will notice that the command bar changes with each level as an added effect and gummi ship flights are more like something out of cartoonish Japanese type Star Wars movie.  But mostly, commands for doing different things have stayed the same.

  A new type of attack option is also available to you depending on where you are.  By pressing the triangle button as it flashes on screen in certain situations can allow you to do combo moves.  These moves vary and depend on who you have in your party as well.  To us, this triangle feature did not go over well.  We found it a melee on the controller and not the enemy.  Mashing buttons to get a move to either start or stop is a hassle.  The x button should have been left as the only attack button in our option but that's what they wanted.

      Sound quality is superb along with the soundtrack.  It is a soundtrack that you would want to pick up in your records store nearby if it ever came out on CD.  Sound sequences blend and object sounds also match the environment and the playing field.

    As for weapons, there are many more to choose from.  More and different key blades are available in different worlds and vary in strengths.  Speaking of strengths, Sora also has many more affordable abilities than ever before.  They include defense and offence but also include weapon upgrading.  The game comes in three difficulty modes, unlike the last one where there were only two.  This one includes easy, normal, and hard.  If you play on easy, you can't see the secret ending.  If you collect everything in the game on normal, you can see the secret ending.  And if you play the game on hard and actually beat it, you can see the secret ending without collecting anything.

    So with excellent game play, a solid and in-dept plot, and options and levels that are a force to be reckoned with,

we give Kingdom Hearts II 5 Nobodies harassing Sora, out of 5.