Kingdom Hearts II: Difference between revisions

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[[File:kh2_1524.jpg|frame|<small>[[Badass Longcoat|Badass]] [[Mickey Mouse]] and company.</small> ]]

 

{{quote|''The story is not over.''}}

 

 

 

 

 

Just like the first game, the game was a massive success, both critically and commercially. Like many Square games, it was re-released in Japan with English voices plus extra content, known as ''Final Mix''. (The game itself is properly ''Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix''. The collection of that and ''Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories'' is ''Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix'''+'''''.)

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[Abnormal Limb Rotation Range]]: Subverted with Groundshaker, Living Bones and Shaman Heartless.

* [[Actionized Sequel]]: The combat system's improvement allows for much more impressive battles, especially with some of the Reaction Commands.

* [[Adaptation Explanation Extrication]]: How Prince Eric knows Ariel's name even though she's mute at the time.

* [[All Your Powers Combined]]: Armored Xemnas uses all of the weapons used by Organization characters in KHII.

* [[Animated Armor]]: ''Final Mix'''s secret boss, the Lingering Will.

{{quote|'''Tifa:''' Spikier.}}

* [[Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving]]: The end of the first Land of Dragons quest features the verbatim quote from [[Mulan]] (also that trope's page quote), with Sora thinking that everyone is in trouble and interrupting, "We get the picture..."

** Trinity Limit: The normal attack tends to be buggy and may or may not work, but does a ton of damage when it does. The imperfect attack (when one of the trio isn't present) does a ton of damage, juggles the enemy, and can be repeated up to three times.

* [[Ax Crazy]]: Saïx in berserk mode, Sora's AntiForm.

* [[Bag of Spilling]]: Sora has forgotten all of his magic, something Merlin is happy about. This is Justified in that he recently had his memories wiped and put back together.

* [[Bash Brothers]]: Sora and Riku

* [[Bishonen Line]]: Xemnas' final form.

** The entirety of Organization XIII crossed the Bishonen line. They're the only human form nobodies; all the other nobodies are grey monsters.

* [[Blessed with Suck]]: AntiForm. As others have noted, it's quite lethal in the right hands... but the complete inability to heal or earn experience while it's active leaves much to be desired.

* [[Blind Idiot Translation]]: The Canadian release of the game comes with a French instruction manual that translates "Nobodies" as "Personnes", which literally means "[[Irony|Persons]]".<ref>This is because the manual was based on the English version of the game (as the only language available on the disk). "Nobody" (as in "nobody there", rather than "no body" as was intended) translates as "personne" in French, so they just took the plural.</ref> For those interested, the (European) French dub translated it as "Simili".

* [[Bonus Boss]]: Sephiroth again, Organization XIII Data, and {{spoiler|Terra's Lingering Will}}. Note that the last two are only available in ''Final Mix'' .

* [[Breather Episode]]: The Hundred Arce Wood, same as before. [[The Little Mermaid|Atlantica]] is also turned into one in this game, for better [[Unexpected Gameplay Change|or]] [[Rhythm Game|for]] [[Ear Worm|worse.]]

* [[British Stuffiness]]: [[Magnificent Bastard|Diz.]]

** Similarly, Axel's line of "What's our boss' name?" to Roxas. In ''Days'', the name of their boss is one of the first things Axel insists the then zombie-like Roxas familiarize himself with.

** A smaller example: When visiting [[Mulan|The Land of Dragons]] and [[The Lion King|The Pride Lands]], Mushu and Simba remember the time they spent fighting alongside Sora, Donald and Goofy as summons.

* [[Chained by Fashion]]: Shadow Stalker/Dark Thorn.

* [[Colossus Climb]]: The Groundshaker.

* [[Combination Attack]]: Every party member, and a handful of the summons can do a Limit Attack with Sora. Donald and Goofy get two each, plus Trinity Limit.

* [[Crazy Prepared]]: Xemnas is either this, or playing some serious [[Xanatos Speed Chess]].

* [[Credits Medley]]: Combines "Sora", "Dearly Beloved", "Destati", and "Another Side" with an original theme.

* [[Crosshair Aware]]: Xigbar.

* [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]]: Demyx.

* [[Deadly Upgrade]]: [[Super-Powered Evil Side|AntiForm]].

** Also something of a [[Lethal Joke Character]]. If you're good at evading attacks, [[Super-Powered Evil Side|AntiForm]] can actually inflict a lot of pain.

* [[Decoy Protagonist]]: Roxas.

* [[Deliberately Monochrome]]: Timeless River - the only color is in the HUD, and even that's muted.

* [[Determinator]]: Subverted with Hercules.

* [[Deus Ex Machina]]: It's mentioned that if {{spoiler|Ansem's Kingdom Hearts Encoder}} explodes, anything could happen. {{spoiler|It transforms Riku back to his true self, weakens his dark powers, and teleports Ansem into the Realm of Darkness}}.

* [[Dual Boss]]: Volcanic Lord and Blizzard Lord.

** One of the final Hades Paradox Cup fights pits Sora (alone) against Cloud, Tifa, Squall and Yuffie, making it a ''[[Dual Boss|Quadruple Boss]]''...or a [[Wolfpack Boss]].

* [[Duel Boss]]: Sephiroth, Hercules, Luxord, {{spoiler|Roxas}} in Final Mix...

* [[Dull Surprise]]: Mena Suvari's performance as Aerith is often seen as this.

* [[Dumb Is Good]]: A lot of people complained that Sora seems much less intelligent in this game, as opposed to the first.

** Although averted at the end, when Sora has just beaten down {{spoiler|Xemnas}}, he ask Sora why {{spoiler|Nobodies}} should be destroyed. He then gives an entirely convincing lecture about [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|what measure a non-human is]], regarding their hearts and emotions. This speech was good enough to fool some of the players themselves! And what does Sora do? {{spoiler|He instantly dismisses it, because he knows that Xemnas has no emotions to speak of}}. [[Good Is Not Dumb|Good is not dumb indeed.]]

** Models for the Wyvern and Behemoth from the first game were also made at some point,as they can be seen in one of the early trailers.

* [[Easing Into the Adventure]]: The "Longest Prologue Ever" (which ranges around three hours normally, and five hours on Proud Mode.)

* [[Eldritch Location]]: The World that Never Was.

** They're not just fully leveled. Your growth abilities have 4 levels, and your maxed out Drive Forms will make use of a [[Up to Eleven|secret 5th level]] that's a lot more powerful than the 4th. The final level will grant you [[Serial Escalation|a secret secret 6th level]] of each Growth ability. At that point, it just pulls out all the stops and gives you infinite duration for the double jump and glide, which gives you complete and infinite mobility in the air.

* [[Enemy Mine]]: A villainous example - though the Heartless and the Nobodies seem to be natural enemies, they will nonetheless team up in order to take out Sora, although at one point Sora is "saved" from an onslaught of Nobodies by a bunch of Heartless jumping in to fight the Nobodies instead.

** Maleficent is also an example of this trope, as {{spoiler|she saves Sora, Donald and Goofy at Hollow Bastion because she wants Organization XIII gone just as much as they do}}.

* [[Era Specific Personality]]: Referenced with The Timeless River

* [[Evil Makeover]]: [[Deadly Upgrade|AntiForm]].

* [[Evil Sorcerer]]: Xemnas.

* [[Fake Difficulty]]: So, in order to finish off a boss or special enemy, you have to hit it with the finishing move of a combo. Makes sense, considering Sora is the only one who has said moves, and you want him to dispatch the big guns. But then, in the Hades Paradox Cup, you get pitted against Leon, Cloud, Tifa ''and'' Yuffie. ''Four'' major enemies, each tricky in their own way. Now, taking them down to the edge of defeat? Tricky, but, with a bit of discretion and tactical use of magic, not too difficult (though complicated by the fact that Cloud is apparently immune for some reason; another, smaller example of [[Fake Difficulty]]). However, trying to get a full combo so you can finish one of them off? Near IMPOSSIBLE, because you have to get in close to do so, and the other three characters won't let you get a combo going, much less complete one. And it's not like you can take them all down to 1 health, since they maintain full ability until hit by a finisher. This is the ONLY reason this boss is so difficult (it would be difficult anyway, of course, but not THIS difficult).

** Averted if you do actually use magic attacks, as they also count as finishers.

* [[Fighter Launching Sequence]]: The Gummi ships.

** On the whole, [[Half Arc Season|much less story progression takes place]] in the Disney-based worlds in KHII than in the first game, chiefly because the game goes out of its way to awkwardly follow the plotlines of the movies to the letter, even when - such as in the case of Atlantica - these events make ''no sense whatsoever in the context of the games''. Pretty much the only Disney-based worlds that avoid this are Beast's Castle, Olympus Coliseum, Disney Castle/Timeless River, and Space Paranoids.

* [[Five-Bad Band]]:

** [[The Brute]] - Xaldin

** [[Evil Genius|The Evil Genius]] - Luxord

** [[Sixth Ranger Traitor]] - Axel

* [[Five-Man Band]]: The heroes form one at the end of the second game.

** Seifer and his group ''immediately'' take up arms against some random Nobodies, without having any clue what they are or what they want, {{spoiler|likely as a defense mechanism for the fake town.}}

*** Or that could just be what {{spoiler|the real Seifer}} does on a regular basis. Somebody has to protect the town from the Heartless infestation that occurred on a regular basis while Organization XIII wasn't fighting them. He doesn't know what it is or where it's from, but it's a monster, so he's going to fight it. He is the head of the Disciplinary Committee after all.

** But more importantly, {{spoiler|both virtual!Hayner and virtual!Seifer inadvertently ([[The Computer Is Your Friend|or perhaps not]]) cause Roxas to question his reality with lines like, "Make the most of the time we have," and, "I don't feel like cooperating with destiny." Other characters do the same, and the hints increase as time goes on.}}

* [[Grave Humor]]: Zero's grave in Halloween Town; though the grave itself is just a grave, Sora will say that Zero is usually sleeping here.

* [[He Was Right There All Along]]: The Tresholder Heartless is part of a set of double doors in Beast's Castle, and announces itself by taking a swing at Donald once he gets close enough.

* [[Hijacked by Ganon]]: Played with: {{spoiler|Xehanort is behind everything, always, but it's not apparent from the start that the new villain of the game is still some version of him.}}

* [[Holy Hand Grenade]]: Queen Minnie's magic spells all fit in this category.

** King Mickey has several variations on the Pearl spell, a reference to the rename of Holy used for ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]''.

* [[I Like Those Odds]]: Leon and Cloud do this during their [[Back-to-Back Badasses]] moment while surrounded and vastly outnumbered by Heartless.

{{quote|'''Leon:''' Think you can handle this many?

'''Cloud:''' What, you're fighting too? }}

* [[The Imp]]: Pete.

** There is a ingredient that increases a synthesized items rank by one. It is necessary for the creation of the Ultima Weapon and can be applied to Goofy and Donald's highest level weapons making them Save The King/Queen+.

** Final Mix adds a ''third'' variation. Winner's Proof. It has the highest magic in the game, but it can only be gotten by beating the twelve Organization Mushroom mini-games. Plus its ability is EXP Zero, which isn't that useful outside a low level challenge.

* [[Invisible Parents]]: Roxas and his friends (just like Sora and co.). {{spoiler|Of course, Roxas himself doesn't have any "parents", unless you count Sora.}}

* [[Ironic Echo]]: When Maleficent intervenes between Sora's confrontation with Saix and Sora tries to stop her, she tells him, "I don't take orders from you!" {{spoiler|When Maleficent saves Sora and company from the Nobodies, telling him to find a way to get rid of the Nobodies, Sora repeats the same line and tries to help her to no avail.}}

{{quote|'''Leon:''' Finished?

'''Cid:''' Would be, if it weren't for the old loon's magic.

{{quote|'''KINGDOOOOM HEEEAAAAARTS'''! '''FILL ME'', WITH THE '''POWER''' OF '''DARKNESS!'''}}

** Epcar has since stated in a podcast interview that the voice directors kind of forced his performance then and that he was free to have more restraint in Re:Chain of Memories.

*** Unlike the other members of Organization XII, who can call on their own memories to fake a passable semblance of humanity, Xemnas has no memories to speak of. He simply can't understand emotions enough to emulate them properly. His overblown persona can be seen as [[Ambiguous Situation|either a desperate attempt to recapture his humanity or a sign that he cares less about restoring his soul than the other Organization members]]. Justified in {{spoiler|Kingdom Hearts:Birth By Sleep, in which it is made clear that Xehanort loses his memory of his past after merging with Terra.}}

* [[Larynx Dissonance]]: Played a bit well with "Ping" when "he" fights alongside Sora and his companions in battles... {{spoiler|before "he" is accidentally revealed to be Mulan who later fights alongside them for the remainder of the game.}}

* [[Late Arrival Spoiler]]: A peril of the of [[Intercontinuity Crossover]]; the visit to Olympus Coliseum spoils a major plot point of ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' (that {{spoiler|Auron [[Fist of the North Star|was already dead]].}})

* [[Lip Lock]]: Averted.

* [[Lotus Eater Machine]]: At the end of the prologue Roxas learns that the Twilight Town he was in was one of these.

* [[Make My Monster Grow]]: The MCP does this to Sark.

* [[Meaningful Echo]]: When Saix confronts Sora over how important Kairi means to him, Sora replies, "Yeah. More than anything." Kairi replies similarly later when Saix questions her if she wants to see Sora.

** [[Only I Can Kill Him]]: Mickey is completely incapable of killing bosses, though. You'll have to get Sora back on his feet to do that.

* [[Message in a Bottle]]: Kairi sends one, and because [[A Wizard Did It]], Sora and Riku find it in an alternate shadow dimension.

* [[Mind Screw]]: The opening, and much of the prologue. Though the opening makes more sense if you played both the first game and ''Chain of Memories''.

* [[Missing Trailer Scene]]:

** A scene of the trio beating off a gaggle of Neoshadows and chasing after a black-coated man on the outside wall of Hollow Bastion, not to mention the world looked exactly like how it was back in the first game.

** Axel comes across as more of a rat bastard and delivers one hell of a [[Slasher Smile]] before fighting Roxas.

** Played straight by Sephiroth: "Only Cloud can eliminate me." Probably a [[Justified Trope]] as this version of Sephiroth is implied to be a physical manifestation of Cloud's inner darkness and as such, isn't really alive in the first place.

* [[Never Split the Party]]: One of the mini-games in the Hundred Acre Wood involves keeping all the characters together through a spooky cave.

* [[Non Dubbed Grunts]]: The ''[[Chain of Memories]]'' Organization members in ''Final Mix'', whereas the rest of the game reuses the North American version's English voice track.

* [[Nonstandard Game Over]]: You get sent to the continue screen if Jack Sparrow dies in the battle against Barbossa.

* [[Radial Ass-Kicking]]: In the Battle of 1000 Heartless this is how Sora, Donald, and Goofy begin the fight.

* [[Rank Inflation]]: The Gummi ship missions. Once you go past "A", it switches to "S" and then starts adding numbers after that, reaching S++10.

* [[Retraux]]: The level "Timeless River", which is one big homage to the [[The Golden Age of Animation|oldest]] Disney shorts.

* [[Royals Who Actually Do Something]]: God Bless the [[Mickey Mouse|King]].

** "Sora, Donald, Goofy!"

*** Played with when every Organization member addresses Sora as "Roxas!"

* [[Self-Imposed Challenge]]: The game was regarded as way too easy by many fans, so it's natural that these would arise, but the most epic of these is the No Abilities, No Summoning, [[Minimalist Run|No Pride Lands]], No [[Level Grinding]], No White Magic run. You are not allowed to use any form of cure spell, get saved by Mickey, use any abilities not linked to equipment (including drive forms), use any summons and you are underleveled.

* [[Sequel Difficulty Drop]]: Which makes whichever one's your personal [[That One Boss]] even worse in comparison.

* [[Series Fauxnale]]: Wraps damn near everything up and, aside from a post-credits [[Sequel Hook]], feels like a finale for the series' story. Of course, it's not.

* [[Shoot'Em Up]]: The Gummi ship levels.

** The giant Nobody that Roxas fights is called Twilight Zone in the Japanese version, obviously a reference to [[The Twilight Zone|the TV series of the same name]]. This ties in with the Darkside from the first game, a reference to ''Tales from the Darkside'', another anthology horror series.

** The role Yen Sid takes in the opening is pretty much based on the Wizard from [[Captain Marvel]]. Running a ghost train that takes the heroes to his home so he can give them new powers?

** Averted in Beast's castle; when Belle is grabbed like so, she elbows her assailant in the gut, steals the rose back, and runs back to Beast to the cheers of not only Sora, but the players, too. The fact that the "assailant" is [[That One Boss|one of the game's many one bosses]] made it even more awesome. That exchange had many wishing that Xaldin would grab Sora's arm, [[That One Boss|so he could get rid of him as easy]].

** Played straight when Axel kidnaps Kairi, although she "got away from him" later, so this example might have not worked out so well in the end.

* [[Stock Footage]]: At the end of every world's first story run typically, where Sora opens a new Keyhole to travel to further worlds; the only differences are where the scene starts and what item is used to make the respective Keyhole appear. Everyone else present even conveniently disappears during these scenes and then reappears right afterwards.

* [[Storming the Castle]]: Sora and company must fight through Organization XIII's castle in order to reach Xemnas.

* [[The Time Traveller's Dilemma]]: Merlin alludes to it before the gang goes to the Timeless River; Donald's the only one who seems more than the slightest bit tempted.

* [[Tomato in the Mirror]]: Roxas.

** Sora, Riku, and Kairi all get to do this. Riku and Kairi {{spoiler|get Keyblades}} and Sora gets to wield '''''two''''' Keyblades. Potentially three if you fight a certain Final Mix boss.

* [[Totally Radical]]: Seifer's [http://youtube.com/watch?v=pY30kR3bQ4U undeniable proof of owning the lamers].

* [[Unexpected Gameplay Change]]: Gummi Ship levels, most of the minigames, Hundred Acre Wood, Atlantica, etc.

* [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]]: The World that Never Was.

* [[Video Game Flight]]: Final Form.

* [[Villain Based Franchise]]: This game pretty much solidifies that just about everything that happens was caused by Xehanort in some way or another.

* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: Saix sheds his calm personality near the end of the game, and becomes seemingly insane as he attacks Sora like berserk, which is fitting seeing though he controls the Berserker nobodies.

* [[The War Sequence]]: You get to mow down 1,000 enemies. And it's still one of the easiest battles in the game, provided you abuse Reaction Commands and finishers.

* [[Weapon Tombstone]]: There is a room in The World That Never Was that houses graves with pictures of the weapons {{spoiler|that each Organization member used}}.

* [[Whole-Plot Reference]]: The scenario in Agrabah takes quite a few plot points from [[Aladdin (Disney film)|The Return of Jafar]] which was the direct to video movie that preceded the Aladdin TV series. Points include {{spoiler|Iago's [[Heel Face Turn]], Jafar manipulating someone in order to gain his freedom and destroying Jafar's lamp to stop Jafar.}}

* [[Wistful Amnesia]]: Kairi, before Sora wakes up, due to everyone's memories of him being altered. Sora experiences this himself immediately after waking up, when he meets Hayner, Pence and Olette and doesn't quite get what's so familiar about them...

* [[Yin-Yang Bomb]]: Xemnas by the end of the game. Sora and {{spoiler|Riku}} when using "Eternal Session," and Sora himself in Final Form.

* [[You Fool!]]: Xemnas is fond of this. "Cursed FOOOOOLS!"

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Eastern RPG]]

[[Category:Licensed Game]]

[[Category:Action RPG]]

[[Category:Video Game]]

[[Category:Kingdom Hearts]]