It has been fifteen years today sinceKingdom Hearts 2first released in North America, though it would still be a few months until the rest of the worldwide rollout came to Europe and Australia. This game might be when the story started becoming more complicated, but the series has exploded into a huge interwoven narrative withfuture releases likeKingdom Hearts Union Xsince then.
Among fans, it’s hard to argue thatKingdom Hearts 2might have ever been topped by any game from the franchise that has released since, though every player does have their own favorite from the series. However, as one of the series' high points, this fifteen-year milestone is reason enough to celebrate some of the best moments this game had, and all it set up for the rest of the games.
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The Long Wait For a Sequel
The idea might be strange now, but back when this game released, the wait had felt almost unbearable, due in no small part to how young the Disney andFinal Fantasyobsessed fan base would have been at the time. Still, when the game was first announced not long after the release of the first title, it felt like the sequel would never actually arrive as fans grew impatient. Sure, there was adeck-basedKingdom Heartsspin-off/sequel in between the two numbered titles for the Game Boy Advance, but that could only do so much to hold players over for the fast-paced action and platforming from the original.
For the longest time, the only new information players had to go on was a trailer thataired on X-playand the secret ending from the originalKingdom Hearts, that got a Japan-only extension in theFinal Mixversion. Regardless, internet forums andKingdom Heartsfan sights began picking apart any bit of information they could get on the upcoming sequel. From interview translations, to bootleg footage from special events, every public breath from Game Director Tetsuya Nomura was like a new addition to theKingdom Heartscanon.
Kingdom Hearts 2’s Highest Points
WhenKingdom Hearts 2finally released it was everything some fans wanted, though it certainly earned more than a little criticism for the changes made from the original. While the majorfiller criticism from theKingdom Heartsserieshadn’t quite started to set in yet, some players claimed that the introduction of the reaction commands made the game too easy. That being said, combat had improved greatly from the first game to the sequel, with attacks now having a faster pace, longer reach, and better target tracking.
As a result,Kingdom Hearts 2’s encounters like the thousand Heartless battleare still some of the highest points in the series, both as simple gratuitous fun as well as a test of a player’s endurance. Follow up some of these moments with a collection of incredible cinematic combat sequences available on the PS2, such as the Groundshaker from theLion King-inspired Pride Lands world. It’s all topped off with the final boss fight against Xemnas, which acts as an improved version of the finale against Ansem from the original, and a huge piece of fan service by fighting alongside Riku.
Final Mix Eight Years Later
One way that theKingdom Heartsseries has always looked back on and improved each game is by releasing theFinal Mixversion, most of which include new enemies, keyblades, and new bosses. While the first game’s final mix added a decent amount of new content, such as better rewards for the Sephiroth and Ice Titan fights,Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mixalmost added a whole new game’s worth of material. However, while the newData Organization boss rush forKingdom Hearts' add-on contentand the Lingering Will final challenge were well-received, international players wouldn’t get there hands on this for eight years.
In this way,Kingdom Hearts 2might be fifteen years old at this point, but the full experience has only been available worldwide for the last seven. This has worked to keep the experience fresh and changing over time as new versions add new content and update the visuals on each new platform it has been released to. Now with thewholeKingdom Heartsseries coming to PC, it’s likely that fans will now have access to community made changes to the game as well, keeping this evolution moving for some time.
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The Longer Wait For Another Sequel
There’s no way to talk about the fifteen year history ofKingdom Hearts 2without getting into what the series has been up to in that huge amount of time since it was released. Since its release, theKingdom Heartsseries has added five new games to the list, all of which are necessary for the larger narrative being told across each title. Then, thirteen years after the release of the last numbered title,Kingdom Hearts 3released, with too much hype for any piece of media to possibly live up to.
To put that in perspective with another longform media franchise,Kingdom Hearts 2launched in North America two years before the premier of Marvel’sIron Man, and the next numbered entry released only three months beforeAvengers: Endgame. Fans had even hoped that theAvengerswould somehow find their way in the nextKingdom Hearts, considering both the Disney involvement and Square Enix’s recent privilege with the Marvel properties. This is why it seems strange that the waitbetweenKingdom Hearts1and2seemed like it took forever, now that players have had to endure such a long wait for the third installment.
Kingdom Hearts 2’s Sequel Setups
That being said, there were some stellar entries in the timebetweenKingdom Hearts 2and3, and others that might have missed their mark, but are still appreciated for their own reasons. Most notably among this extendedKingdom Heartsuniverse is the prequel titleBirth By Sleep, which originally launched on the PSP. While it is often pointed at as the moment that the combat in the series started leaning towards floatier mechanics, it still managed to make a huge impression on the fan base.
A lot of that impression, however, comes from the way that it had been primed from the secret ending inKingdom Hearts 2, a reward for beating every challenge available in the game. TheFinal Mixversion extended what was essentially a cinematic trailer forBirth By Sleep, but even in the original release, this was the first look atnew Keyblade Wielders, and the series' big bad Xehanort. It was a great point to jump off from into how the series would expand for the next decade and a half.
Kingdom Hearts 2is available now for PS2, PS3, PS4, and Xbox One, with a PC release set for March 30th.
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