It has been fifteen years today since Kingdom Hearts 2 first 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 with future releases like Kingdom Hearts Union X since then.
Among fans, it’s hard to argue that Kingdom Hearts 2 might 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.
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 and Final Fantasy obsessed 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 a deck-based Kingdom Hearts spin-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 that aired on X-play and the secret ending from the original Kingdom Hearts, that got a Japan-only extension in the Final Mix version. Regardless, internet forums and Kingdom Hearts fan 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 the Kingdom Hearts canon.
When Kingdom Hearts 2 finally 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 major filler criticism from the Kingdom Hearts series hadn’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 battle are 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 the Lion 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.
One way that the Kingdom Hearts series has always looked back on and improved each game is by releasing the Final Mix version, 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 Mix almost added a whole new game’s worth of material. However, while the new Data Organization boss rush for Kingdom Hearts‘ add-on content and 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 2 might 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 the whole Kingdom Hearts series 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.
There’s no way to talk about the fifteen year history of Kingdom Hearts 2 without getting into what the series has been up to in that huge amount of time since it was released. Since its release, the Kingdom Hearts series 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 3 released, 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 2 launched in North America two years before the premier of Marvel’s Iron Man, and the next numbered entry released only three months before Avengers: Endgame. Fans had even hoped that the Avengers would somehow find their way in the next Kingdom Hearts, considering both the Disney involvement and Square Enix’s recent privilege with the Marvel properties. This is why it seems strange that the wait between Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 seemed like it took forever, now that players have had to endure such a long wait for the third installment.
That being said, there were some stellar entries in the time between Kingdom Hearts 2 and 3, and others that might have missed their mark, but are still appreciated for their own reasons. Most notably among this extended Kingdom Hearts universe is the prequel title Birth 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 in Kingdom Hearts 2, a reward for beating every challenge available in the game. The Final Mix version extended what was essentially a cinematic trailer for Birth By Sleep, but even in the original release, this was the first look at new 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 2 is available now for PS2, PS3, PS4, and Xbox One, with a PC release set for March 30th.
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