Kingdom Hearts II: Atlantica

In 1989, a little film called The Little Mermaid premiered in movie theatres across the nation. The film, based off of a fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson, chronicles the adventures of Ariel, mermaid princess and daughter of King Triton, who falls in love with a human. After difficulties with her father over the subject, Ariel seeks the helps of the evil sea witch, Ursula. The witch transforms Ariel's fins into legs, giving her access to the human world in exchange for her beautiful voice. Ariel has to endure three days of silence and win the heart of the handsome Prince Eric in the process. If she cannot win Eric's kiss of true love by sundown on the third day, she returns to her mermaid form and belongs to Ursula. As Ursula succeeds in her plan of usurping Triton's magical trident, Ariel and Eric team up to do battle. With Ursula a thing of the past, Ariel returns to a human form with her now-accepting father's help, and she and Eric are wed.

The original fairy tale was a little less cheerful. It follows the movie up until Ariel visits the Sea Witch, who really has no intention to usurp the throne. Instead of taking Ariel's “vocal energy,” the Sea Witch goes right for the throat (almost literally) and takes Ariel's tongue, instead. Ariel's fin is split in twain, though it feels as if a sword is passing through her. Also, walking on her newly-formed feet feels like Ariel is walking on blades, and it just so happens that Prince Eric loves seeing women dance. Despite the excruciating pain, Ariel dances for the prince she loves. When Eric's father tells him that he's to marry another princess, Eric tells Ariel that he cannot love another princess, because he's sure the priestess that found Eric after his shipwreck is the woman he loves. Surprise! That princess IS the priestess that found him. Eric weds the other princess and Ariel is heartbroken. Ariel's sisters find her and give her a knife, saying the Sea Witch told them that if Ariel kills Eric with the knife, she'll be able to regain her mermaid form. Ariel cannot bring herself to commit the deed and falls into the sea, dissolving into sea foam.

Needless to say, this film was a pretty big deal for Disney. It pretty much kick-started the “Disney Renaissance,” when Disney returned to making profitable animated movies and switched from endorsing their live-action and amusement park ventures. This ars nova for Disney resulted in making the Broadway musical style of animated films a standard, a style still found in other movies such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. As if setting the stage for those movies wasn't enough, a spin-off television series was produced, as well as two straight-to-video movies and plenty of Disney World attractions. Yeah, The Little Mermaid was that important.

Fast-forward to 2002. A little game called Kingdom Hearts comes out, a joint venture between Disney and video game giant Square Enix. The game follows Sora (the game's protagonist), Donald Duck, and Goofy as they travel to various worlds inspired by Disney movies. One of those world's is Atlantica, home to Ariel, Sebastian, and a host of other characters from The Little Mermaid. Ariel teams up with Sora and the others to kick the crap out Ursula, Flotsam, and Jetsam, as well as various other monsters. Ariel fights alongside you, and the world features a control system that utilizes swimming, as Sora's now a merman. Overall, it's really super bad-ass and cool.

That's right. Ariel will FUCK YOU UP.

Fast-forward to 2005, when Square Enix announces Kingdom Hearts II. This game does what all sequels should do, yet few actually accomplish: take everything great about the first game, make it better, and get rid of all that crap that didn't work. This being the case, Atlantica, one of the first game's coolest worlds, is sure to make a comeback and is destined to overshadow the action and enjoyment of the first game, right? Right?

Let me put this nicely: Atlantica in Kingdom Hearts II sucks balls.

From the outside, you look at Atlantica and think “Awesome! I'm gonna fight under water, just like I did in the first game. THAT was awesome!” Then, you look at the data the game presents about the world. There's a number called “Battle Level,” which tells you how difficult the enemies in the world will be. Previous worlds have shown battle levels of 5, 10, 13, etc. Atlantica gives you a big, fat “0.” That's right. You don't fight. At all.

Well, that can't be all bad, you think to yourself. I did fight a battle earlier that was completely dependent on Reaction Commands towards the beginning of the game, after all. Clearly, you've missed your own use of the words “fight” and “battle.” Anyway, you've entered the world, and you see the introductory movie where Ariel greets you and says how good it is to see you again. It's good to see you, too, Ariel. Can't wait to whoop some ass with you!

That's when Goofy speaks up. He notices that there doesn't appear to be any sign of the Heartless, one of the game's main enemies. You mean there's no one here to fight? Wait a minute, this is an action game! What am I doing here unless I'm gonna kick the crap out of something, ANYTHING! What am I gonna do, SING my enemies to death?

Sorry, folks! That game's coming out this fall!

You guessed it. That's what you do. You sing. Because that's what Ariel does in the movie. Sing.

To be fair, it isn't really fair to compare this part of the game too much to the first one. While you do fight the main antagonist of the movie in the first game, you mainly take this detour to help Ariel out and learn about your weapon a little bit, the enigmatic Keyblade. Prince Eric doesn't even show up in the first game. That being the case, it's natural to go back to the meat of the film, which didn't feature as much ass-kicking as the first game seemed to let on.

Pictured above: Needed Ass-Kicking

Instead of fighting, the game takes a more Dance Dance Revolution-like approach. The actual gameplay takes place during songs, either made especially for the game or arranged versions of ones taken from the film. At key moments in the song, you have to take certain actions. Sometimes you press the X button when the screen tells you to. During one song, you have to pressed the X button when it shows a picture of Ariel, but do nothing when it shows a picture of Sebastian. You have to meet certain goals in order to progress within this world, and if you don't, you're subjected to further musical torture. And one or two songs isn't enough. You've got FIVE songs to work through. Even the epic fight where Ursula is IMPALED WITH THE SHATTERED PROW OF A SHIP is reduced to pressing a button at just the the right moment. 

So, you brace yourself and work through the shoddily written songs (or, in my case, mute the television). Glad that's over! Suddenly, Ariel talks about how she's not feel great. It's not like she's sick or anything, it's because she's just too sad to rehearse for Sebastian's musical. As someone who's performed in front of people for a long time, I can tell you my suspension of disbelief is already long gone. If I had a nickle for every rehearsal I wanted to skip just because I didn't feel like it, I'd be a rich man. If I had a nickle for every rehearsal I didn't actually go to because I didn't feel like it, I'd have maybe fifteen cents.

Anyway, I digress. Flounder has a great idea! There was a shipwreck not too long ago, and it's got a lot of human goods, the kind Ariel's been collecting as of late. Wouldn't that be great to get some of those for her? So you follow Flounder to the shipwreck site and find the statue of Eric. Try as you might, you just don't have the strength to lift the rock it's buried under. The screen turns black, and you're back outside the world. A message comes up that says “You need the spell Magnet to lift those rocks! Come back when you have that spell!”

That's right. The game won't even give you the satisfaction of just plowing through this horrible, horrible experience. You have to come back every now and then, dragging the awful experience throughout the game.

In the interest of decency, I'll stop my review right here. As someone who graduated with a degree in music and spent most of his time in that respect performing vocally, I can attest to the power of singing and everything it's given me throughout my life. However, I've also spent a lot of time playing video games, too. Enough, anyway, to tell you that this little musical adventure has NO place in an action game. Kingdom Hearts II is one of the greatest games ever made, but it's not without its blemishes, this being the worst blemish of all.