History Videogame / KingdomHeartsII

* WeCouldHaveAvoidedAllThis[=/=]VillainBall: To any wannabe villain types out there, protip: If the key to your master plan calls for TheHero to go around killing the random mooks that's he's been killing since day one by his own accord, then all you need to do is sit back and wait. Don't go blackmailing him, hurting his friends, or even make yourself known to him. Really, that just smacks of ChronicVillainy and you're kinda asking for it.
** [[AllThereInTheManual The Director's Secret Report XIII]] gave this, if it makes any sense: [[spoiler: "...the Organization itself was using Sora for their ultimate goal. Soon enough, each of the Organization's expectations differed. By changing Sora and Roxas's movements, eventually they became unable to use Sora for their true meaning. As a result, Sora became an obstacle to the movements of the Organization itself and he had to be defeated."]]
** In all honesty, it was really [[spoiler:Axel]] who made the big reveal to Sora, and it had already been established that he had gone AntiVillain anyway. In elaborating the plans, taunting Sora, hurting his loved ones, etc., Saix and the rest were just trying to turn Sora's knowledge of their plans to their advantage, since it's been proven that Sora can get rather dumb when he's upset or when his loved ones are threatened.

* SpannerInTheWorks: Both [[AntiHero DiZ]] and [[BigBad Xemnas]] attempt to use Sora for their own plans, but Sora doesn't act in the way they envisioned him to and ultimately derails everything for them without really knowing it. {{Lampshaded}} by DiZ:

* SelfDeprecation: DiZ[=/=][[spoiler: Ansem The Wise]] calls Xehanort the "foolish apprentice of a foolish man" in one of the ending scenes.

* SpannerInTheWorks: Both [[AntiHero DiZ]] and [[BigBad Xemnas]] attempt to use Sora for their own plans, but Sora doesn't act in the way they envisioned him to and ultimately derails everything for them without really knowing it.

* BreatherEpisode: The Hundred Arce Wood, same as before. [[Disney/TheLittleMermaid Atlantica]] is also turned into one in this game, for better [[UnexpectedGameplayChange Or]] [[RhythmGame for]] [[EarWorm worse.]]

* ColossusClimb: The Groundshaker

* CrosshairAware: Xigbar
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Demyx

* DecoyProtagonist: Roxas

* {{Filler}}: Several worlds don't progress the story at all; notably Agrabah, Halloween Town, Pride Lands, Atlantica and Land of Dragons (even the second visit to that world, which tried to not be filler, ended up pointless, with Xigbar's unhooding and Riku's appearance there [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment never brought up ever again]]; Xigbar's appearance in the final world even continues off of his first one at Hollow Bastion, completely ignoring his unhooding scene.) 100 Acre Woods also has no story-relevance, but it was always a BreatherEpisode level so that's more excusable.

* {{Filler}}: Several worlds don't progress the story at all; notably Agrabah, Halloween Town, Pride Lands, Atlantica and Land of Dragons (even the second visit to that world, which tried to not be filler, ended up pointless, with Xigbar's unhooding and Riku's appearance there [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment never brought up ever again]]; Xigbar's appearance in the final world even continues off of his first one at Hollow Bastion, completely ignoring his unhooding scene.)

* {{Filler}}: Several worlds don't progress the story at all; noteably Agrabah, Halloween Town, Pride Lands, Atlantica and Land of Dragons (even the second visit to that world, which tried to not be filler, ended up pointless, with Xigbar's unhooding and Riku's appearance there [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment never brought up ever again]]; Xigbar's appearance in the final world even continues off of his first one at Hollow Bastion, completely ignoring his unhooding scene.)

* {{Filler}}: The second visits to Agrabah, Halloween Town, and Pride Lands. Previous world visits had some importance to the storyline by involving Maleficent & Pete (who, while not Organization XIII, are also relevant adversaries) These visits, on the other hand... do nothing. Though, to the Pride Lands second visit's credit, it at least has an awesome boss at the end.
** Some other world visits qualify as well, notably Atlantica, 100 Acre Woods, and Land of Dragons (even the second visit to that world, which tried to not be filler, ended up pointless, with Xigbar's unhooding and Riku's appearance there [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment never brought up ever again]]; Xigbar's appearance in the final world even continues off of his first one at Hollow Bastion, completely ignoring his unhooding scene.)

It also, however, saw a rapid growth of KudzuPlot and a lot of RetCon. This wasn't enough to stop ''II'' from becoming massively successful, because even though it becomes more and more convoluted over time, [[JigsawPuzzlePlot the story remains internally consistent]]. The game was followed by two prequels (''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'' and ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2'') and a sequel (''KingdomHeartsCoded'').

* TookALevelInBadass: Sora, Riku, and Kairi all get to do this.

* DistressedDamsel: Kairi and Naminé, though both subvert it at the end. Not so much on Kairi's part though. See TookALevelinBadass below.

* TookALevelInBadass: Sora, Riku, and Kairi all get to do this. Though with Kairi, it isn't a significant improvement. [[spoiler:She gets a Keyblade but she doesn't even hit a single Heartless with it]], while Sora [[spoiler: can now wield TWO Keyblades. THREE in the Final Mix, but only in the previously unplayable battle.]]

** On the whole, [[HalfArcSeason much less story progression takes place]] in the Disney-based worlds in KHII than in the first game, chiefly because the game goes out of its way to awkwardly follow the plotlines of the movies to the letter, even when - such as in the case of Atlantica - these events make ''no sense whatsoever in the context of the games''. Pretty much the only Disney-based worlds that avoid this are Beast's Castle, Olympus Colusseum, Disney Castle, and Space Paranoids.

* {{Filler}}: The second visits to Agrabah, Halloween Town, and Pride Lands. Previous world visits had some importance to the storyline by either involving Organization XIII or Maleficent & Pete (who are also relevant adversaries) These visits, on the other hand... do nothing. Though, to the Pride Lands second visit's credit, it at least has an awesome boss at the end.

** On the whole, much less story progression takes place in the Disney-based worlds in KHII than in the first game, chiefly because the game goes out of its way to awkwardly follow the plotlines of the movies to the letter, even when - such as in the case of Atlantica - these events make ''no sense whatsoever in the context of the games''. Pretty much the only Disney-based worlds that avoid this are Beast's Castle, Olympus Colusseum, Disney Castle, and Space Paranoids.

** Some other world visits qualify as well, notably the Land of Dragons, all of Atlantica and the first Port Royal (Though it is needed to set up the second Port Royal visit which introduces Luxord, explaining how Sora knows him in the final world. By contrast, the second Land of Dragons visit doesn't contribute much of anything, with Xigbar's unhooding and Riku's appearance there [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment never brought up again]]; Xigbar's appearance in the final world even continues off of his first one at Hollow Bastion, completely ignoring his unhooding scene.)
** On the whole, much less story progression takes place in the Disney-based worlds in KHII than in the first game, chiefly because the game goes out of its way to awkwardly follow the plotlines of the movies to the letter, even when - such as in the case of Atlantica - these events make ''no sense whatsoever in the context of the games''. Pretty much the only Disney-based worlds that avoid this are Beast's Castle, Olympus Colusseum, Disney Castle, Space Paranoids and 100 Acre Woods (though that last one is optional like before).

* HoYay: Sora and Riku get ''much'' more of this than they did in the past two games, and then there's Axel's infamous obsession with Roxas....
** ''How'' are you going to make it worth my while, exactly, Setzer?
** What about in The World That Never Was, when [[spoiler:Sora cries at Riku's feet]]? See RelationshipWritingFumble [[invoked]] in the YMMV tab.
*** VGCats [[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=208 had a field day with that.]]

** Models from Re:Chain of Memories are reportedly on the disc as well. The Final Mix version seems to support the idea that the missing members of Organisation XIII were originally made to be [[Bonus Boss}}es in the original version.

** Models from Re:Chain of Memories are reportedly on the disc as well. The Final Mix version seems to support the idea that the missing members of Organisation XIII were originally made to be [[BonusBosses bonus bosses]] in the original version.

** Donald freezing himself with a ricocheting Blizzard after waking up from his memory-restoring sleep. Not to mention that said scene looks like it would be in an [Atlantis AtlantisTheLostEmpire] world

** Models from Re:Chain of Memories are reportedly on the disc as well.The final Mix seems to support the idea the missing members of Orgy XIII were to be bonus bosses in the vanilla version..

** There is a ingredient that increases a synthesized items rank by one. It can be applied to the creation of the Ultima Weapon and Goofy and Donald's highest level weapons making them Ultima+ and Save The King/Queen+.

** TheDragon - Saix

** SixthRanger - Xigbar

* GlamourFailure: In the prologue: Whenever something happens that [[spoiler:interferes with artificially created memories, and the simulated Twilight Town]], the whole screen flickers like TheMatrix going haywire.

*** Or that could just be what the real Seifer does on a regular basis. Somebody has to protect the town from the Heartless infestation that occurred on a regular basis while Organization XIII wasn't fighting them. He doesn't know what it is or where it's from, but it's a monster, so he's going to fight it. He is the head of the Disciplinary Committee after all.

* TookALevelInBadass: Sora, Riku, and Kairi all get to do this. Though with Kairi, it isn't a significant improvement. [[spoiler:She gets a Keyblade]], while Sora [[spoiler: can now wield TWO Keyblades. THREE in the Final Mix, but only in the previously unplayable battle.]]

It also, however, saw a rapid growth of KudzuPlot and a lot of RetCon. This wasn't enough to stop ''II'' from becoming massively successful, because even though it becomes more and more convoluted over time, [[JigsawPuzzlePlot the story remains internally consistent]]. The game was followed by two prequels (''KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'' and ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2'') and a sequel (''KingdomHeartsCoded'').