E3 is around the corner and since information on "Revolution" may be scarce, Kingdom Hearts II is pretty much the only thing I'm REALLY looking forward to hearing about from E3. I'm just finishing up the Final Mix version of the first game from Japan and the new optional boss (one of the members of The Organization from Chain of Memories) was really awesome. So I'm really in a big Kingdom Hearts mood, I even bought a Keyblade replica from somebody on eBay.
Anybody interested should really check out the extended teaser that was only on Final Mix, it's amazing.
http://www.kh2.co.uk/forums/dl/dl.php?ad=khfmdd
And here are some actual trailers of Kingdom Hearts II.
http://www.kh2.co.uk/?kh2=Videos
Among things shown in the trailers that I took interest in were: Mickey Mouse kicking ass donned in one of the Organization black cloaks (also shown in the Deep Dive video and the 2nd ending to Chain of Memories) with his Golden Keyblade (seen in the ending of the first game, the keyblade for the world of darkness); Hades (! - James Woods is awesome!) manipulating another Final Fantasy character; Sora dual-wielding keyblades doing some INSANE air combos; and a return to Hollow Bastion that looks to be overrun with literally THOUSANDS of Heartless.
Here's kind of a "wish list" I've had for the game.
* Better AI for Donald and Goofy. They were alright for normal battles but seemed to eat every special attack in certain boss battles (Dragon Maleficent, Hades, etc.). This seems like a natural upgrade for a sequel, so I'm not worried about it.
* More interaction from the Disney characters with other Disney characters and characters from the main storyline. My favorite parts of the story in the first game were when the characters broke from the set stories and characters of their own worlds; all the Disney villains conspiring together, Maleficent manipulating all of them, Hades manipulating Cloud (and calling him a sucker!), the whole Princesses of Heart thing (though why Alice was a princess and Ariel wasn't still confuses me.. other than the fact that Ariel was to be a playable character). This has already been confirmed to have been improved upon, after the success of the first game Disney has given Square-Enix much more freedom with the characters.
* Better magic system. I was a huge magic-whor* in the first game and being that it was an action game, having to use the menu to access half of your spells was a sore point. The magic and summon system has said to have been improved for better flow in the action setting, but how I don't know. Hopefully the summons aren't totally useless again (save for Bambi and Tinkerbell).
* More rare/unique monster drops. There were only two in the first game: the Defender's Shield and the Wizard's Relic. They are, without contest, my favorite items in the game.. even Donald and Goofy's new weapons in Final Mix aren't as cool. I've always been a sucker for these kinds of rare items that are only acquired from monster battles and I want more! Plus, seeing Goofy wield that giant monster-faced shield was hilarious.
* Less or better mini-games. A lot of these were just pointless and/or poorly done. Square tradition I guess.
* Soundtrack has to be on the level of or surpass the first, which could be a mighty feat because the soundtrack to the first game was probably one of the best I've heard since Square's Super Nintendo days. The very small amount of new music in Chain of Memories indicates this is off to a good start.
* Costumes!! This was something I felt was a missed opportunity in the first game as a New Game+ bonus or something. Donald and Goofy are seen in three different outfits in the game.. I always though it would've been really nice to play through the game in their original outfits (as seen in the ending) or their more traditional wizard and solider outfits (seen in the opening parts of the game while they're in Disney Castle). Sora has new clothes in the sequel, and they change when merging with Donald or Goofy (see Drive Mode below).
* A better "Expert" mode. The expert mode in the first game was pretty weak. The only thing it changed was that all enemies did double damage, so you more or less just spend a good portion of the game healing yourself as opposed to putting extra effort or strategy in the battles.
Of course, complaints from others have been addressed as well. First, the camera.. already improved upon in Final Mix (allowing you to disable the auto-centering camera and making Sora transparent when in tight spots) its already been confirmed to have been totally reworked and much better. The Gummi Ship is no longer a main part of the game, but more of a side mini-game. I thought this part had great potential myself.. the main part wasn't really well made but I really, really, really enjoyed the building ships part. Hopefully the new version is much better.
The story seems to revolve around the world between light and dark.. thus the main city of Twilight Town (stuck between day and night) and the new enemies called Dusk. Pete seems to be central Disney villain much like Maleficent in the first game. My guess is that The Organization is probably more up-front as a antagonist than Ansem was in the first game, so having a more comical mediator for the Disney worlds might work better here. We'll see.. it's of my personal opinion that you really can't get any cooler as Maleficent as the main bad guy in a Disney game, so it was probably better to go a different direction than to attempt (and fail) at trying to fill her shoes.
Confirmed Disney Worlds so far: Disney Castle (you get to see, but not go to it in the first game), Fabled Countryside from Beauty and the Beast, Ancient China from Mulan, The Underworld from Hercules, Christmas Town from Nightmare Before Christmas and Agrabah from Aladdin returns. Twilight Town is the new central town like Traverse Town and Hollow Bastion also returns.
One of the big new gameplay elements is called "Drive Mode" that allows you to merge with Goofy (and presumably Donald) to gain extra abilities and attacks. Merging with Goofy is shown off in one of the trailers and by doing so Sora gets a new red outfit and can duel-wield keyblades, gaining what looks to be like a lot of combo-centric abilities based on this. The obvious assumption is that merging with Donald will give you massive magic abilities (DROOL!).
There's still no release date, but the rumor is that it'll get a worldwide release this winter (this is a prime holiday release obviously). Hopefully they'll at least divulge this information at E3. The game has been worked on for almost THREE full years now (and started from scratch, they threw all code from the first game out of the window) and it really appears this may be the rare chance that a game lives up to the wild expectations I'm building for it.
Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to share my excitement and some information to a group that wasn't fully retarded or just flat-out creepy (see: all Kingdom Hearts forums). Feel free to share your thoughts and I'll bring this up whenever new information comes out.
