Square Enix and Buena Vista Games yesterday announced they’d shipped to retailers their new Kingdom Hearts II role playing game for the Sony PlayStation 2. Priced at $49.99, the game is rated “E10+†for ages 10 and up by the Entertainment Software Rating Board.
Kingdom Hearts II, said the two organizations, is the sequel to Kingdom Hearts, one of the top ten best selling PlayStation 2 titles of all times. In Kingdom Hearts II, gamers again pick up the roles of Sora, Donald and Goofy as they continue their quest to find their lost friends. Players will travel through the worlds of Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Mulan, Pirates of the Caribbean, Steamboat Willie and Tron as well as revisit worlds from the original, including Aladdin, Disney Castle, Hercules, The Little Mermaid, Winnie the Pooh and Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. The game features more than 100 Disney characters, including the new additions of Chicken Little, Stitch from Lilo and Stitch and one of Disney’s villains, Pete.
The game also introduces new, characters such as Roxas, members of Organization XIII and the Nobodies, all designed by Square Enix’s Tetsuya Nomura, director and character designer of the Kingdom Heart series. Nomura is best known for his creations in the titles Final Fantasy VII, VIII, X and X-2
Kingdom Hearts II also features a new and improved real-time battle system and an all-star ensemble voice cast, including people such as Haley Joel Osment, David Gallagher and Christopher Lee, who lend their voices to the game as various characters.
“Kingdom Hearts II is a perfect demonstration of what can be created when two companies with astounding resources come together,” said Daishiro Okada, president and COO, Square Enix, Inc, in a statement. “The result is an absolutely stunning video game that will engage gamers of all ages in multiple worlds both familiar and new.”
