Gamerz Needs - For All Your Gaming Needs! - Game: Kingdom Hearts 2 (ps2)

Kingdom Hearts II (キングダムハーツII, Kingudamu Hātsu Tsū?) is an RPG video game developed by Square Enix and partly published by Buena Vista Games, directed by Tetsuya Nomura, character designer of several popular games such as Final Fantasy VII. Kingdom Hearts II was first released in 2005 in Japan for the PlayStation 2. After one month of availability, it sold a million copies in North America.

Kingdom Hearts II is the followup to the 2002 PlayStation 2's Disney Interactive/Squaresoft RPG Kingdom Hearts, and its 2004 Game Boy Advance sequel, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. The game's story centers around a group of heroes continuing to search for lost friends while trying to decipher and defeat the mysterious Organization XIII with the help of a large cast of characters from both Disney and Square Enix properties.

The in-game music is composed by Yoko Shimomura, who composed the music for the first game, and the theme song "Passion" ("Sanctuary" for the international release) is written and performed by Japanese pop music star Utada Hikaru.

Kingdom Hearts II begins where Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories left off. Sora and his companions have been asleep for about a year, regaining their memories. When Sora awakens, he arrives in Twilight Town. Gaining new clothes and powers, Sora begins his journey anew, his memories of the events that took place in Chain of Memories wiped. Sora continues his quest by unlocking paths to new worlds, fighting Heartless and Nobodies, as well as facing the remaining members of the mysterious Organization XIII.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy have been asleep for the past year in order to regain their lost memories. In order to hasten the process, Riku and DiZ plot to find Sora's Nobody, Roxas, who was, at the time, a member of Organization XIII. Roxas, meanwhile, had recently left the Organization to look for Sora. Riku confronts Roxas at the World That Never Was and is defeated. Riku makes sure that the next time they meet, he will win. In order to defeat Roxas, Riku takes on the form of Xehanort's Heartless, and uses the power of darkness to defeat him. He then takes Roxas to DiZ's hideout and sends him into a digitized version of Twilight Town, with Naminé stripping Roxas of his memories and creating new memories to have Roxas believe he is an inhabitant of Twilight Town. Naminé uses her powers to restore Sora's memories, which, in turn, affects Roxas.

Meanwhile, Kairi has stopped going back to the small island where they once played. She releases a letter in a bottle into the ocean in the hopes that Sora will find it and return to the Islands.

During his time in Twilight Town, Roxas has recurring dreams of Sora's adventures, and increasingly mysterious activity is taking place in Twilight Town during Roxas' last days of summer vacation. After obtaining the Keyblade to defend himself from Nobodies that invaded the digital world, Roxas comes in contact with a young man in black named Axel. Axel appears to know Roxas, though Roxas has no recollection of him. Roxas eventually makes his way into an abandoned mansion where Naminé informs him that he is a Nobody, although he did not quite know what a Nobody was at that time. DiZ also briefly appears. Naminé promises that they will meet again. Then Roxas discovers Sora, Donald and Goofy sleeping in the hidden basement of the mansion. Roxas seems to disappear at this point as Sora (with Jiminy Cricket), Donald and Goofy awake from their year-long slumber. They search the town for King Mickey, only to be ambushed and overpowered by Nobodies. A cloaked Mickey jumps in and saves them at the last second. He gives them instructions and money to board the train and runs off.

After speaking with Yen Sid at the "Tower", the party is informed that they must once again visit many worlds to protect them from both the Heartless and the Nobodies in an attempt to stop Organization XIII. Meanwhile, Maleficent is resurrected, and joins with Pete to bring about her revenge on Sora.

Sora and his friends fly to each world on their Gummi Ship, defeating the Heartless and Nobodies and unlocking pathways to worlds both familiar and unknown. They find the worlds' troubles are due to either Pete and Maleficent or the Organization. During this time, Sora is constantly reminded of Riku, Kairi and his home on Destiny Islands.

Kairi is walking along the beach and finds a corridor of darkness and Axel, who has a desire to kidnap Kairi to lure Sora. Kairi follows King Mickey's dog, Pluto, into the corridor of darkness to escape Axel and winds up in Twilight Town. Her visit is short-lived as she is kidnapped by Axel.

Eventually, Sora and his friends finally meet up with King Mickey at Hollow Bastion. He reveals that Ansem, the main antagonist of Kingdom Hearts, was merely an impostor and actually the Heartless of Ansem the Wise's apprentice, Xehanort, and that the real Ansem is still alive somewhere, but before he can reveal more, an army of Heartless storm Hollow Bastion. The four go off to fight the army.

After fighting their way through the Heartless, Sora and co. find Xemnas, the leader of Organization XIII. Xemnas leaves through a corridor of darkness with King Mickey in pursuit, both of them disappearing. Axel appears and tells Sora how the Organization is using Sora to slay Heartless in order to take the released hearts to form Kingdom Hearts. Saïx, another member of Organization XIII, shows up and Axel runs for it. Saïx explains that Axel had gone AWOL, left the Organization and that Kairi is now their captive. Sora begs Saïx to let him into the realm of darkness to find Kairi, but Saïx refuses to take him to her. Maleficent suddenly appears and defends Sora from Saïx's Nobodies, telling him to devise a way to defeat the Nobodies. When Sora refuses, Maleficent teleports him, Donald, and Goofy into the realm of darkness where a cloaked Riku leaves a gift.

Sora and his friends return to Twilight Town, where they meet up with Hayner, Pence and Olette, who lead them to the Mansion. They are attacked by Nobodies, but Mickey appears and helps fend them off. They all journey to the Mansion's basement, where they use the teleporter to enter the basement in DiZ's alternate Twilight Town. There, Sora, Donald and Goofy find a portal that leads to the Organization's headquarters. They go inside and find themselves in "Betwixt and Between", where they are ambushed by an army of Nobodies. Axel is seen, struggling against the army of Nobodies, and he tells Sora to run, but they end up fighting side by side against the endless amount of Nobodies. As it seems impossible to defeat the entire group, Axel ends up sacrificing his own life in a kamikaze attack, destroying every single Nobody in the twisted realm. As he fades away, he apologizes for kidnapping Kairi, and also opens a rift to the World That Never Was.

Upon arriving at the World That Never Was, Sora is attacked by a hooded member of the Organization and the two fight alone. Sora bests him, and the figure reveals himself to be Roxas. The fight is implied to be an internal conflict between Sora and Roxas; Donald and Goofy state seeing nobody other than Sora. Sora, Donald and Goofy continue towards the Organization's headquarters, the Castle That Never Was, as they make their way through "Dark City".

Kairi, meanwhile, has been in a holding cell in the castle. She is freed by Naminé who escorts her through the castle to search for Sora. When they enter the castle, Sora, Donald, and Goofy are reunited with Kairi and Riku. Riku has taken the form of Xehanort's Heartless so he could use the powers of darkness to fight the Organization. The company fight their way up the castle, facing the members who refer to Sora as "Roxas". Riku reveals Roxas as Sora's Nobody who merged back into Sora prior to his awakening.

At the same time this occurred, Mickey encounters DiZ who reveals himself to be none other than Ansem the Wise. He plans to use a device to encode Kingdom Hearts into data to prevent Xemnas from using it. By the time Sora and co. find the two near the peak, Ansem the Wise is coming to the conclusion that hearts cannot be encoded by data and what a fool he is. He apologizes for all the pain he has caused, and especially expresses his regret to Roxas, even though he is unsure if Roxas can even hear him. The machine explodes, taking Ansem the Wise and a chunk of Kingdom Hearts with it. After the explosion, Sora and his friends are overjoyed to find that Riku has returned to his true form. When Sora asks why he tried to do so much on his own, Riku replies: "Because I'm not a total sap like you."

Reunited, the group heads up towards the peak of the castle, where Xemnas awaits. Xemnas fights Sora one on one and is defeated. Xemnas goes inside Kingdom Hearts with Sora, Donald, Riku, Goofy, Kairi and the King following, and is defeated a second time, or so it seems. Roxas and Naminé briefly appear and discuss the promise they had made before returning to their original selves. Sora and Kairi are finally complete. But Xemnas separates Sora and Riku from the others for a final battle, where he is defeated a third and final time. Thus all traces of Xehanort are finally no more. However, Sora and Riku end up stranded in the realm of darkness. The two discuss their adventures and accept the fact that they are stranded in darkness forever, at peace because the realm of light is finally safe.

Kairi's letter in a bottle washes onshore. Sora and Riku read it and the "door to light" suddenly appears. With newfound hope, the two friends step through and find themselves back home at the Destiny Islands where they are greeted by their overjoyed friends. The credits roll with Sora returning Kairi's good luck charm that she gave him in the first game. The game ends with Sora, Riku and Kairi reading a mysterious letter from Mickey.

A teaser for what appears to be a fourth title in the series can be seen after Kairi, Riku and Sora read the King's letter if the player accomplishes certain tasks.