[Slythe]

Basics

Getting Started


Kingdom Hearts II is just as easy to control as the first one was. Seeing as it's still an action RPG, there are various opportunities to customize the combat of the characters you control. But first let's start with the basics.

Attacking and stuff . . .
The basic attack button is the X BUTTON. There's a menu in the left-hand bottom corner from where you make all of your combat decisions. It's automatically set to attack, from which you deliver all of your hits with the X BUTTON. If you hit it several times in succession, this will carry out a combo attack. Jumping in the air and hitting the X BUTTON several times will deliver special "aerial combos." All of this evolves through-out the game, as different abilities will unlock after fighting certain enemies, and completing various events.

To jump, hit the CIRCLE BUTTON, and to block, hit the SQUARE BUTTON. Although jumping is pretty straightforward, blocking is not. To successfully block attacks, you have to hit SQUARE at exactly the right moment, which is hard to do in the chaos of KH2. I found it worked best when taking on certain bosses where you only had one visible attack to worry about at a given moment. But for the most part, a large part of the fights you'll get into will go faster if you just beat everyone to death.

Reaction Command
Throughout Kingdom Hearts II, there is a new ability called "Reaction" that allows Sora to do deliver specialized attacks. When the green TRIANGLE BUTTON flashes over the attack selection in the menu, press it, and an animated scene will play in where Sora attacks his enemy without you controlling him. More often then not, the challenge to using this is the timing required.

Sometimes, the Reaction Command is a simple animation, and other times, it's a mini-game of sorts. When you face-off against the Samurai Nobody, you initiate a mini-game with the enemy in where you take him on on-on-one. You're menu selections turn to question marks and you have to pick the right one to deliver a powerful slash. When fighting Shan-Yu, you may lock swords with him, and then muscle him down by rapidly pressing TRIANGLE. Just keep an eye-out for opportunties to use this feature. For simplicity, I refer to the "Reaction Command" as TRAINGLE BUTTON through-out the walkthrough.



Camera Control
In KH2, all that R2 and L2 crap is out the window. If you want to get a lay of the land, just swing the camera around with the RIGHT analog stick. Other than that, the camera will follow behind whatever character you're controlling. There's also a first-person view available by hitting select.

Locking On
This command is essential in KH2 because you'll often find yourself in a fighting frenzy, and it's tough to stay focused. If you hit R1, you'll target specific enemies. This way, the center of your world becomes that enemies, and all you have to do is keep moving forward and attacking. This also comes in handy if you happen to get hit, knocked back, and lose who you're fighting for a sec. Locking on will put you right back on track.

Items
Just like the first KH, you have to manage your items by giving everyone their own personal stock to carry into battle with them. You can access the entire stock of items in the Items sub-menu found on the status screen. You'll primarily use potions and hi-potions with this feature. Keeping Donald and Goofy equipped with potions will ensure you'll always have them to help replenish your life in the heat of battle.

You can also access the AP Boosts you collect throughout the game from the main Item Stock. From here, you can decide which character gets which boosts, and then decide what abilities you want equipped. It pays to check the stock from time to time, as you might have AP Boosts in there you may have forgotten about.

Magic
Magic pretty much works the same way it did in KH. You can access from the menu on the left hand of the screen. But that's hard to do in the heat of battle so. So your best off using the shortcut maneuver for accessing magic. During a fight, simply hold L1, and all your face button will become magic attacks. You can customize them any way you want by accessing them on the stats screen. Once you get "Cure," this will become the easiest way to heal yourself.

Save Points
These are as straightforward as they come. When you want to save progress, go up to one of those glowing vesper-looking things and save. These are also useful for jumping to the world map to fly around to other worlds.

Character Attributes
All the characters in the game have five basic attributes:

Attribute Description
HP Hit Points, or the life bar in the right hand corner of the screen. You can extend it with special items.
MP Magic Points, or the magic bar, just above the life bar. This determines how much juice you have to deliver magic attacks, limit attacks, and using cure magic. Use magic as often as you want because this bar replenishes fast.
AP Ability Points. These are points you can spend on specialized skills for each character. By using AP Boost on someone, you can increase the amount of points they have to spend.
STR This is basically strength, which determines how strong the attack of a character is.
DEF This is defense, which is determines how affected a character is when they get hit.