Kingdom Hearts II Sells A Million

Opposable Thumbs reports that Kingdom Hearts 2 has sold a million copies here in the states. From the article: "Squeenix deserved this home run, and it'll be interesting to see how well Final Fantasy XII does in America after its perfect score in Japan, but lukewarm reception of the demo in North America. Even with Final Fantasy there are no guarantees, and Squeenix has to be glad they have another high-performing franchise under their belt so that the big-haired emo kids of FF don't have the burden of the entire company on their shoulders." It really does get better after the first two hours.

Re:Snobbery and RPGs

[Anonymous Coward]

pointless wastes of time with little story and a complete lack of fun- see Baldur's Gate, NWN, and TES lines

Feeds the troll...

Um, no. Baldur's Gate +sequels +expansions have extremely detailed plots. You may or may not enjoy them, but the poblem is NOT with the story. Further, while the NWN single player story was a bit of a snoozefest, there is sooo much entertaining user created content that the game is worth the price of admission EVEN IF YOU IGNORE the included single player content.

Re:Snobbery and RPGs

[giorgiofr]

WTF! Are you on crack? You call Baldur's Gate (2) "boring, pointless wastes of time with little story and a complete lack of fun"? Did you even bother *playing* it? Sheesh... the heresy.

Re:Million Units Sold = Greatest Hits Mark?

[Anonymous Coward]

Greatest Hits is an optional program, minimum requirements are: sold 400k units, is 9 months old.

Though, why voluntarily drop the price if it's selling like hotcakes? Some Nintendo games don't go into bargain bins for two years!

Re:Snobbery and RPGs

[Adam Whisnant]

Not one I'd buy... but its definitely an RPG.

Have you played KH? I feel the same way about the FF series as you do, and was loathe to even touch the thing, but I bought it for my girlfriend and finally picked it up after listening to her sing its praises nonstop.

Even with all my preconceptions of "oh God, weapons-grade cuteness," it sucked me in. It deserves the praise and the sales. The story is engrossing and the play is addictive; it's the first game in a long, long time in which I found myself running around picking fights, because combat was actually enjoyable. And if there was any exposure to Disney in your childhood (and how could there not be?), these games will find that part of you and joyfully exploit it. Really, the only thing that bugs me about it is the cheap FF 7/8/10 fanservice that doesn't really fit, but that's kept mercifully in check.

And while we're on the subject of "Is this an RPG?" and FF, your opinion of Zelda's RPGness is a good gauge of how you'll feel about KH's RPGness. It's the same style of play, except that you always have a menu to pick spells from the menu rather than pausing, equipping your item of choice, unpausing, and casting. And, if I'm remembering correctly (been a year since I played the original and haven't pried the sequel from girlfriend yet), even that part is simplified; you can map 3 spells for L1 + Square/Triangle/Circle for your most-used ones. I'd say it's about 10% FF-esque menu-usage and 90% Zelda. The KH story is a good deal more in-depth than Zelda, though.