Kingdom Hearts Platinum (PS2)

To have characters as disparate as Tarzan and Donald Duck teaming up is odd enough, but it becomes very freaky when Square throws in a variety of its own characters, such as Cloud, Squall and Aeris from the various Final Fantasies. We are, in short, talking Incongruity City. But this has one side benefit in that the storyline behind the game is by necessity rather vague, which seems to have stopped Square from filling three CDs full of new-age whining about Mother Earth, as is its usual wont. Instead it has spent even more time on the graphics and the end result is a quite stunning three-dimensional cartoon.

As for the gameplay, it may come as a surprise to learn that it doesn't actually feature--as all the Final Fantasy games do--turn-based combat. Instead it's essentially a scrolling beat-'em-up-cum-platformer with exactly the kind of complicated Square-style knobs you'd expect. The game may be a little shallow but it's an impressive artistic achievement and any title that allows you to magically summon Bambi out of thin air to attack evil demons of the underworld has got to be worth some sort of recommendation. --David Jenkins

Customer reviews:

Great game, but AVOID this version at all costs!, 2008-09-07
This game is pretty good, considering I've never been a Disney fan even when I was a kid, it manages to pull even an adult gamer in this enchanting tale. The merger of squaresoft-style rpg, their characters, and disney heroes & villains is very well done. The gameplay, while suffering from a serious lack of ergonomy, is quite entertaining.

However AVOID this version at all costs. Square Europe ONCE AGAIN show their comtempt for European gamers by slaughtering an initially beautiful game with a Megadrive-style 50hz PAL conversion. This means that just like with FFX and FFX-2, we are "treated" to a horribly squished image, and a game that runs slower than normal!

I find it utterly disgusting that such a major company as Square does not take the trouble to offer us proper conversions. The time of the SNES is long past, our TVs are perfectly capable of handling 60 Hz games, and they already were when this game was released. Every other company had long been offering properly converted games. But not Square, oh no. Square Europe's PS2 conversion policy can be summarized by "they will buy the games anyway since it's got Square on the box, so why should we bother with proper conversions?".

This game is well worth a try, but ( as usual with Square PS2 games ), stay away from this pathetic EU version, and get the US one instead.

Brilliant, magical game!, 2008-06-13
All that has to be said about this wonderfull game has already been mentioned in the many reviews so here's my point...
Isn't the end credits' song "Simple and Clean" by Utada Hikaru beautifull? It's on my ipod along with an extended techno remix!
It made me cry when I finished my epic adventure and wound down with that song ;o)
Worth many hours of play just to hear that song alone!! LOL