I've been playing a friend's imported copy of this for a little while today, so here are a few impressions. For fear of spoilers, and because I haven't the faintest clue what's actually happening (I've yet to finish Chain of Memories on the GBA, plus the damn thing's in Japanese), these are only gameplay impressions rather than story ones - I'm dead excited about the plot continuing from KH1 and CoM, but that can wait for the US version in March.
First up, the graphics are stunning. I've not actually been into any of the Disney worlds yet, and I have to admit that the initial/hub area, Twilight Town, is a bit underwhelming compared to some of the shots I've seen of later bits (if only because the town's mostly composed of small houses and paved streets - not the most inspiring building blocks for a graphical showcase), but it still looks a cut above the vast majority of PS2 games. Textures are pretty simple and sparse, in keeping with the painted-looking, dreamy artistic style, but the whole thing fairly tears along at 60fps and the monster/costume/character designs are Square at their (increasingly rare) best. The character models are excellent, though - the animation's amazing and feels sort of naturalistic and cartoonish at once, and the faces are more expressive than in the original game. I've got to mention the new enemies and the one boss I've fought here, too - they do this sort of twisty, flowy thing when they move that looks fantastic. The presentation's slicker than ever, too.
Thing number one, in terms of gameplay: they've sorted out the jumping. Let me say that a bit louder - THEY'VE SORTED OUT THE JUMPING! No more hopelessly floaty, flailing, camera-spazzing leaps into the unknown here. Jumps are still on the floaty side, but are precise enough that they wouldn't feel out of place in an actual platformer, which is nice. I've certainly not had the sort of control/camera breakdown that'd occasionally leave Sora plunging from a cliff while the camera did backflips in a corner in KH1.
Combat and general control are great - I've yet to get access to any magic or party members, but there's a bit more nuance in the fighting even solo - both in the field and in combat, the Triangle button's context-sensitive and allows for dodges, dashes and mini-QTEs (where you can avoid/return an attack if you're quick on spotting the green flash) when fighting, and opening chests/saving/talking without having to fiddle with the quick menu when you're exploring. One negative thing, though - Square have moved camera control to the right stick, which leaves only the D-pad for flicking around the magic/items/etc menus in combat, and makes it a bit fiddly to grab potions or whatever while dodging attacks. Oh well.
Other stuff... the intro movie is the single most impressive bit of game CG I've seen. I can believe it's by the same people behind Advent Children, I'll say that much. And the new theme song rules. The pre-adventure scene-setting is going on quite a bit longer than it did in KH1, but this time it's actually fun (by which I mean there are no coconuts/rope/mushrooms to search for), and full of little mini-game sections. The game doesn't make much allowance for people who've not played KH1 or CoM (at least, there wasn't much Japanese speech over the quick visual recap in the intro, so unless it's an incredibly succinct summary...), so it'll probably be worth reading a plot FAQ or something if you're new to the series.
I'm sort of treating this as a demo, so I don't intend to keep going too far - I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone who's not fluent in Japanese import this, since I've absolutely no idea what's going on so far (and am sort of stuck for where to go next at the moment). On the strength of the bits I can understand, though, this is going to be sodding amazing come March and the US release.
First up, the graphics are stunning. I've not actually been into any of the Disney worlds yet, and I have to admit that the initial/hub area, Twilight Town, is a bit underwhelming compared to some of the shots I've seen of later bits (if only because the town's mostly composed of small houses and paved streets - not the most inspiring building blocks for a graphical showcase), but it still looks a cut above the vast majority of PS2 games. Textures are pretty simple and sparse, in keeping with the painted-looking, dreamy artistic style, but the whole thing fairly tears along at 60fps and the monster/costume/character designs are Square at their (increasingly rare) best. The character models are excellent, though - the animation's amazing and feels sort of naturalistic and cartoonish at once, and the faces are more expressive than in the original game. I've got to mention the new enemies and the one boss I've fought here, too - they do this sort of twisty, flowy thing when they move that looks fantastic. The presentation's slicker than ever, too.
Thing number one, in terms of gameplay: they've sorted out the jumping. Let me say that a bit louder - THEY'VE SORTED OUT THE JUMPING! No more hopelessly floaty, flailing, camera-spazzing leaps into the unknown here. Jumps are still on the floaty side, but are precise enough that they wouldn't feel out of place in an actual platformer, which is nice. I've certainly not had the sort of control/camera breakdown that'd occasionally leave Sora plunging from a cliff while the camera did backflips in a corner in KH1.
Combat and general control are great - I've yet to get access to any magic or party members, but there's a bit more nuance in the fighting even solo - both in the field and in combat, the Triangle button's context-sensitive and allows for dodges, dashes and mini-QTEs (where you can avoid/return an attack if you're quick on spotting the green flash) when fighting, and opening chests/saving/talking without having to fiddle with the quick menu when you're exploring. One negative thing, though - Square have moved camera control to the right stick, which leaves only the D-pad for flicking around the magic/items/etc menus in combat, and makes it a bit fiddly to grab potions or whatever while dodging attacks. Oh well.
Other stuff... the intro movie is the single most impressive bit of game CG I've seen. I can believe it's by the same people behind Advent Children, I'll say that much. And the new theme song rules. The pre-adventure scene-setting is going on quite a bit longer than it did in KH1, but this time it's actually fun (by which I mean there are no coconuts/rope/mushrooms to search for), and full of little mini-game sections. The game doesn't make much allowance for people who've not played KH1 or CoM (at least, there wasn't much Japanese speech over the quick visual recap in the intro, so unless it's an incredibly succinct summary...), so it'll probably be worth reading a plot FAQ or something if you're new to the series.
I'm sort of treating this as a demo, so I don't intend to keep going too far - I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone who's not fluent in Japanese import this, since I've absolutely no idea what's going on so far (and am sort of stuck for where to go next at the moment). On the strength of the bits I can understand, though, this is going to be sodding amazing come March and the US release.
He's headed back to Uni now so it looks like I'll get to progress at my own rate.
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