He was talking about the PS2 version.
I thought that as well, but I just started playing KH again after playing CoM a while back and the castle doesn’t look very much like Hollow Bastion. It is far less spirey and it seems to be thinner.
Ironically, I just found myself playing the game again, because my four-year-old nephew Luis (whom I babysit often) saw it in my videogame pile and insisted to. The game is too hard for him, but I let him kill the easy monsters while I handle the rest. I must say, I’m enjoying playing it again, even if I still don’t like all the action game stuff like climbing roofs, or real time battles where you jump a lot. (And no, I haven’t defeated all the optional bosses. Maybe I’ll try again this time.)
BTW, how do you explain to a four year old that “No, we can’t jump ahead to the Tarzan part yet!” 
On the subject of KH mystery clues, as I started the game again, I noticed a scene that I had forgotten about. It’s a very brief one, that takes place right before the Heartless’s attack on Destiny Island: Sora , apparently in a vision, hears the voice of an adult woman calling him for dinner. Could that be a memory of his mother? Is Sora from Earth?
What’s so great about Kingdom Hearts? I don’t know, myself; I had it pretty much figured from the time I got to Wonderland that it would be an awful game, but I finished playing it JUST so I could write a bad review on it that wasn’t ill-informed. Here you go:
When you were young, did you ever daydream about making a game that combined some of your favorite games together, or maybe you played with your action figures from two different cartoons and made a long, drawn-out, awful story which was amusing for you at a young age. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if someone actually made a game based on those concepts? Well, there already is one, appearantly; its name is Kingdom Hearts. Unfortunately, it winds up being as uninteresting a as you could imagine (seeing as it will remind you of your preteen story-creating days).
The game starts out with an amazing introduction. The main character delves inward, pondering his existance, and, after a breathtaking CG introduction, we’re introduced to Sora, and his friends, Riku and Kairi. Sora and Riku are rivals of sorts, seemingly competing for the affections of their lady friend, Kairi. We join in as they are only days away from creating a raft and setting sail off of their island together to find new worlds. Three best friends going on an adventure - sounds great, right? Maybe if it even came to fruition, it would have been good. Instead, the night before they set sail, some mysterious beings appear on the island, and suck it into some vortex of darkness and doom, or something. You wake up in some random town, and find various Final Fantasy and Disney characters there. You wind up leaving the town with Donald Duck and Goofy to find your friends…and that’s pretty much when it falls apart.
You see, crossovers don’t upset me, really. I feel the need to explain this before I continue. I didn’t wind up disliking this game because it involved Disney characters; the game was atrocious cos it just did it all wrong. After the beginning, Sora and company simply just travel from one disney-themed world to another; first, you go to Wonderland and try to save Alice. Then, you go to a world based on the Disney movie of Tarzan, and you save some apes. This is how it goes right up until the closing hours of the game. You never meet any new important characters. Almost no character development is present, save for Sora and his rival, Riku. Near the end, it seems that someone realized that the NOT-disney part of the story was mostly untouched, and crammed a lot of it into the end of the game. It becomes very slightly more interesting, but the effort was too little too late. At the end of the game, an excellent ending sequence occurs that probably satisfied what expectations you had made when you started the game.
But that isn’t all that’s awful about this game; oh, no. The gameplay was not spared from mediocrity, either. The game’s combat is typical action RPG, a la Secret of Mana. The controls are rather awful, and the AI for Donald and Goofy is kind of stupid (though, to the game’s credit, you can tweak it a little bit). This isn’t a huge deal for the first 3/4 of the game, because it’s incredibly mindless and easy; however, almost every boss at the end of the game has some kind of attack that kills you in practically one shot. It’s ‘difficult’ per se, but not in a fun,
challenging way; one shot kills in an action RPG with awful controls is the kind of ‘difficult’ that makes you want to scream at the top of your lungs in frustration.
It doesn’t go by very quickly, either. Though you can probably finish the game in about 20-25 hours, you can feel every last minute of it due to the poor dungeon designs. A lot of times, progressing through the dungeons are very illogical and hard to figure out. It’s a long series of trial and error; almost never are you pointed in the right direction. The end result is a series of dungeons with terrible fighting and frustrating design that just has you wishing for a quick end (to the game, that is).
Squaresoft also decided that it would make travelling between worlds fun if they added a space-shooter minigame, a la Star Fox. The idea is good in concept, until you realize that you can beat just about every level by not moving at all, and just shooting continuously. I’m completely serious.
Much to the game’s credit, the visual and aural aesthetics are nothing short of amazing. The graphics were awesome, especially for being released so shortly after the launch of the PS2. The music, composed by Yoko Shimomura (Street Fighter 2, Super Mario RPG, Parasite Eve, Legend of Mana), fits the game very well, and there are plenty of well-written, catchy tunes. The game also features songs from various films; for example, in Atlantica, the world based on The Little Mermaid, the popular song ‘Under the Sea’ plays.
Ironically, those good qualities are symbolic of the true nature of Kingdom Hearts; an overhyped, beautiful game that quickly impresses, but has no depth. No depth in gameplay, no depth in storyline. It makes me really wonder what Kingdom Hearts would have been like if the entire middle section of the game had been cut out. There is definitely some vestige of an amazing adventure that could have been.
It’s not in a vision. It’s his mom calling him for dinner. As in he’s in his house and it’s dinner time. But Sora’s not there he’s gone to go check on the raft during the storm.
SG: Actually, I can’t argue with any of your points. They’re all entirely valid. But I still ended up enjoying the game for some reason (I’m now on my fourth playthrough). I’m not quite sure why, but it’s really fun for me. ^^;
Eh? There are adults in Destiny Island? I never saw any. In fact, from their comments, it sounded to me that not only did the kids live by themselves, but that they had no memory of where they came from or what their lives where like before they got there.
Whoa. That’s probably the first and last time I’ll ever hear you say that on a game we disagree about. 
Oh well, to each their own. There has to be SOME kind of appeal about the game to SOMEONE; a lot of people liked the game.
I understand your points too, SG, but this is coming from a guy who likes BoF 3 and hates BoF 2. I simply can’t respect your opinion (j/k) 
That’s it: fun. SG, you’re right: the storyline is a hollow (no pun intended) and this game had a lot of (sadly undeveloped) potential, but I have fun while I play it and that’s ok for me. Cid, about KH and CoM’s Hollow Bastion, I don’t know since I still haven’t got there, I’ve read about Sora’s comment in a walkthrough. You know what, it didn’t spoil my game at all hehe…
Actually, I just got up to Hollow Bastion in my current playthrough and Sora repeats his remark that he’s seen it somewhere. So that puts that to rest.
Does anyone know if the knew Kingdom Hearts 2 will have something where you can take finished data from KH and import it to KH2 (sort of like Arc the Lad)? The reason is, is that my PS2 has been having issues and freezing from time to time. I had been replaying it and was at Atlantica. I was saving it and it froze on the message that says that it’s saving and that you shouldn’t remove memory card or controller. I had to turn it off and the file was corrupt. I was only replaying it for that reason and if it doesn’t I won’t replay it again.
I wouldn’t have disliked the game so much if I found it fun. If you find it fun, that’s cool for you. But it’s not like I was all “Mmm…this game is fun…but it STILL has all these problems, so I’m going to ignore the fun I’m having!” Honestly, I was ready to put this game down by the time I got to Wonderland; I already knew what I was in for.
I honestly don’t have fun if I don’t like a game’s storyline. Instead of focussing on the gameplay, my mind goes back to the shabby and shameful reason I’m doing this.
Now that I think about it, if I didn’t play KH with the guide I would be confused anmd frustrated about a lot of things. Today I got to Wonderland, and I spent the potions I had in some fights, so when I get to the garden where you have to keep giving potions to the flower that makes you grow, I had to return to Traverse Town to buy more -TWICE. And now, I can’t seem to get the tree branch to stay in the right position so I can search for the kidnapped Alice. The fact that I have to fight Heartless EVERY time I leave and come back -including during the !@#$ing flights to and from Traverse Town- only pissed me (and Luis) even more. By all rights I should’ve beaten Wonderland by now. -_-
As for the story, well, the WHOLE point of KH was for Disney and Square to rehash their characters. If it were up to me, I would’ve written NEW scenarios instead of rewriting the Disney Movies, but I guess the chance to remarket them -especially old ones like Pinocchio- was too tempting for Disney. I keep getting the impression that the whole Sora/Heartless storyline was tacked on the Disney stuff (or vice versa) and that it would’ve been better as its own game.
Still, I have to agree, KH IS fun, mainly for the presentation: the graphics, the music, the concepts, etc. And I’m the kind of player who usually doesn’t even notice those. Hopefully KH2 will, if not be a great improvement, at least avoid some of the first one’s problems.
KH2 is supposed to be much more serious, and while it still will contain Disney stuff, it’s supposed to tone it down a little.
Though I can’t wait to see Auron and Jack Sparrow in it…that’d be cool to see.
Although from what I’ve heard, it still is mostly just a rehash of the Disney stories.
KH2 is definitely going to be another rehash of Disney movies but will be slightly more oriented on the over all storyline of the KH series. The disney elements can be easily seen by the fact that Pete has apparrently taken on Riku’s role from the last movie as he can be seen wearing Riku’s Sonic armor.
And having the PotC world will be stupid at best. The game is for the most part cartoony and although the disney worlds in the first KH game weren’t all of the same art style they were all at least cartoons. They’re mixing the KH art style with a realistic rendering style which will likely look extremely stupid since they don’t match at all. There’s also the fact that Sora is 15 and if the screens I’ve seen are true then he’s barely past Jack Sparrow’s waist. So with that as an example the art styles clash…a lot.
when i first got KH i was reluctant to play it. partly because it was a disney game and partly because we forgot to buy a memory card for the ps2 so i couldnt save yet. but i began to play it, and i thought it was great despite its affiliation with disney. its a great game. the story was a bit interesting, and the graphics were great. but the best reason to play it is for the battles. the combat in com wasvery new, though admittedly annoying at times. im really looking forward to kh2, mostly because of Auron. but kh2’s auron looks a little younger than ffx’s auron. but auron’s awesome and sora’s got cooler, black clothes. and im looking forward to exploring new worlds. i thought i saw a pict of Twillight town…
Reviews of disliking KH are basically coming from people who arent childish.Shit,I know I am sometimes and I rather enjoyed the game, not counting some goofy embarrasing scenes.So if you dont like KH then what can anyone do about it.No need to get serious and stab the poor thing, keep in mind its just a game.