Product Description

Kingdom Hearts: Greatest Hits is a classic role-player for the PS2 -- now rereleased at an affordable price, for those who missed out the first time around! This is the story of Sora, a 14-year-old boy whose world is shattered. When a violent storm hits his island-paradise home, he is separated from his two best friends and goes to look for them. Meanwhile, King Mickey is missing from Disney Castle and Captain Goofy and the court wizard Donald are off to search for him. When Sora, Donald and Goofy meet, they hear about the Heartless: Strange and powerful creatures who caused the terrible storm and kidnapped King Mickey. They'll work together to help each other meet their goals - and have an incredible adventure as they go!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #439 in Video Games
• Brand: Square Enix
• Model: 662248902012
• Published on: 2002-09
• Released on: 2006-06-15
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: PlayStation2
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .59" h x 5.43" w x 7.53" l, .35 pounds

Features

• Real-time battle system that incorporates innovative new elements with traditional RPG gameplay
• Meet other Disney characters from films like Aladdin, Tarzan, Hercules & Alice In Wonderland
• Disney characters act like their film personas - Peter Pan flies, Tarzan climbs and King Triton swims, among others
• Cameo appearances by Final Fantasy characters - Meet Selphie (FF VIII), Tidus & Wakka (FF X) and others
• Integrated voiceovers, with actual voices of Disney characters

Amazon.co.uk Review
Ever wondered what would happen if the worlds of Final Fantasy and Disney collided? It’s an odd concept to be sure, but from the most schizophrenic of acorns the mighty gaming oak of Kingdom Hearts has grown. Legendary role-playing game makers Square have been given unprecedented liberties with the entire Disney universe and have created a game featuring everything from The Nightmare Before Christmas to The Little Mermaid. This is odd enough in itself when you have characters as disparate as Tarzan and Donald Duck teaming up, but becomes majorly freaky when Square thrown in a variety of their own characters such as Cloud, Squall, and Aeris from the various Final Fantasy games. But this incongruity has one side benefit in that the storyline behind the game is by necessity rather vague, which seems to have stopped Square from filling three CDs full of their usual New Age whining about Mother Earth. Instead they’ve spent even more time on the graphics, and the end result is a quite stunning 3-D cartoon.

As for the gameplay, it may come as a surprise to learn that it doesn’t actually feature, as all the Final Fantasy games do, turn-based combat. Instead it's essentially a scrolling beat-'em-up-cum-platformer with exactly the kind of complicated Square-style knobs you’d expect. The game may be a little shallow, but it’s an impressive artistic achievement and to be quite frank any title that allows you to magically summon Bambi out of thin air to attack evil demons of the underworld has got to be worth some sort of recommendation. --David Jenkins

Amazon.com E3 Preview
A game combining Final Fantasy-style role-playing with virtually every Disney franchise that's ever existed? It might sound like a corporate property leveraging exercise from hell, and an idea sure to alienate Final Fantasy purists, but Kingdom Hearts turns out to be a smooth and hypnotically weird merging of brands. Even if the original impetus was to make mucho bucks by capturing both Disney and FF fans, this game is a product of loving attention to detail. Developers Disney Interactive and SquareSoft haven't merely stuffed a bunch of Disney characters into Final Fantasy, but have created an innovative and accessible RPG experience with real-time (instead of the usual turn-based) combat and dazzlingly beautiful environments. A customer on Amazon.com's sister site in Japan (where the game is already a smash hit) writes, "I pity anyone who doesn't play this game."

Customer Reviews

Disney and Squaresoft, The Perfect Couple!
I got this game when it first came out, and I was amazed! As a huge Final Fantasy fan, and a person who used to watch disney films, it was a real treat. It starts out with Sora (the main character), Riku, and Kaikri on the fun Destiny Islands. You also meet Selphie (Final Fantasy 8), Wakka, and Tidus (both from FFX) here, although they are all kids. After a series of events, Sora ends up in Traverse Town, where he soon runs into Donald Duck, and Goofy, (who make up your battle team). Traverse Town is a great location for FF fan's, Leon (a.k.a. Squall from FF8) is there, along with FF7's Cid, Yuffie, and best of all Aeris (or Aerith)! You will come to Traverse town many times throughout the game.

After saying goodbye to the FF cast, Sora and the others head off to Wonder Land (Alice in Wonder Land). This is probably my least favorite location, it's still fun, but the music is not the best in this area, and the events isn't that interesting. Characters from the movie include, Queen of Hearts, Cheshire Cat, White Rabbit, Doorknob and of course, Alice!

From here the group heads to Olympus Coliseum (Hercules), which is completely different from any other location in the game. You can't do very much right away, but the coliseum let's you enter tournaments and collect prizes, everytime you win. This helps a LOT with character development (when it comes to battles). Characters featured include, Hercules, Phil, Hades, and Cloud (FF7).

Deep Jungle (Tarzan), is the next location in the game. It is one of the longer levels, and really helps the story move along. There are one or two side quests here, that can be pretty fun. Characters featured include, Tarzan, Clayton, Jane, Sabor, and Terr.

Agrabah (Aladdin), is like two levels in one, it features Agrabah, and than the cave of wonders. This level involes a lot of jumping, but it's not that bad. Characters featured include, Aladdin, Jafar, Jasmine, Abu, Magic Carpet, Iago, and Genie. Genie is one of 6 disney characters that can be used as a summoning tool in battle.

Monstro (Pinocchio), doesn't have a lot going for it. The main point of this level is to move the story along. Some major story developments happen here, but the level it's self is annoying, and dull. Luckily you don't have to play it very long.Characters include, Pinocchio, Geppetto, and of course Monstro the whale.

Atlantica (The Little Mermaid), the underwater battles can be annoying, but this one of the better, levels. This level is another long one, and features the hardest boss in the game (and I am including the end boss). Characters include, Ariel, Sebastian, Flounder, King Triton, Flotsam and Jetsam, and Ursula.

Although short, Halloween Town (The Nightmare Before Christmas), is one of the best levels in the game! The music, bosses, characters, and locations are all great. Characters featured include, Jack, Sally, Dr. Finkelstein, Oogie Boogie, the Mayor, Zero, and Lock, Shock, and Barrel.

Neverland (Peter Pan), is short, but sweet. It's fun, but kind of pointless. The shory line develops a little here, however not as much, as in other loactions, however you do learn to fly in this level. Characters include, Wendy, Peter, Smee, Captain Hook and Tinker Bell.

The Hollow Bastion, is by far, my favorite level. Although it's atmosphere is not based on any disney movie, it has a more Final Fantasy vibe to it, and has a lot of elements from FF games in it. Characters featured here include Beast, and Bell from Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora (Sleeping Beauty).

Other characters included are Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty), Sephiroth (FF7, some people may never see him in the game), all 101 dalmatians, and Ansem, who may not be a disney character, but is still very memorable. I would tell you more about the plot, but I would be ruining it. Overall Kingdom Hearts is a great game, with lot's of side quests! And even though I mention a ton of characters, there are still more in the game! And don't worry, they are making a Kingdom Hearts 2!

What Will Undoubtably Be THE Release of The Year
When Kingdom Hearts was first announced, many thought Square had finally lost it. Not only had they partnered with Disney, a company that Square has seemingly little in common with, but Square was also throwing its own creations into the mix. The game was described as Final Fantasy Meets Disney.

However, as it has many times over, Square has proven the critics wrong. Kingdom Hearts has gorgeous graphics that pushes the PS2 to its limits. Many of the Disney characters look and move as if they were ripped right from their respective cartoons. Disney has also spared no expense on voice acting, in many cases brining back a character's original actor when it came time to give the incredibly large ensemble cast voices

The game also features returning characters from Square's reknowned Final Fantasy series. Specifically, the game will feature Cloud, Aeris, Cid and Yuffie from FF7; Squall from FF8; and Tidus and Wakka from FF10. One of the most interesting scenes from Kingdom Hearts is a scene where Donald Duck and Aeris have a conversation.

Fans of the Secret of Mana will be excited to learn that the battle system is more like it than Final Fantasy. Fighting is done in real time and with little menus. Even spells can be fired off with menu-less ease by linking them to buttons on the control pad. This gives a very interesting feel since many of the spells come from the Final Fantasy series. Summoned Monsters are also used in Kingdom Hearts, but this time around they're Disney characters. Simba, Bambi, Dumbo, and Tinkerbell all come to your aid in battle.

In short, buy this game. Younger fans will enjoy the nearly limitless cast of Disney characters. Older fans and Square veterans will enjoy seeing familiar characters and the type of story that has made Square games the standard for RPGs. The story, while light-hearted at times, can also become incredibly dark. The packaged is rounded out with incredible music, not the least of which is "Light", an English version of Utada Hikaru's song "Hikari". For more info, visit Square's game site...

RPG at it's finest...
If your just now purchasing a PS2 this is the game to turn you on! I would personally buy a PS2 "just" to play this game.
The incretible graphics in this game are mind-boggling, this game is the first of it's kind and is the most fun I've ever had playing a video game.

You play the lead character "Sora" who is living on Destiny Islands, longing to see far off worlds he and his friends Karai and Riku build a raft to see travle to new worlds on. But you get [pulled] into a new world on your own one stormy night. There you meet up with Goofy and Donald who will be your companions for the rest of the entire game. There are ten different worlds and within most of these worlds you have the advantage to select new characters to your party- such as Aladin, Peter Pan, Ariel- ect. There are 10 worlds and over 100 disney characters to meet, I finished the game in 5 days. That's called "dedication", but it's impossible to put down the controller once you've started playing. You are able to obtain new items, abilities, weapons, as you battle through it- you are able to design and build your own "Gummi Ships" which are what you use to get from one world to another. The more "Munny" you collect in each world/battle the more you can buy! You can even buy news weapons for Donald and Goofy along with posions to heal yourself and much more.

I gave the game 5 stars because there is NOTHING wrong with this game, aside from not being able to open treasure chests during battle, you'll come to think like me the minute you start playing.
Better quality than "ANY" Final Fantasy game I have ever played, and I recommend that you DONT buy the Strategy Guide- I played through the entire game without. All you really need to do is look up a "Walkthrough" to the game on the net whenever you need help.
After the game you'll be begging for more- and if your able able to obtain the "Special Secret" at the end of the game.. well my friend the suspence will eat you alive!

Kingdom Hearts.. the ultimate Disney Game.