Kingdom Hearts II

Where do I begin with this epic next installment of Kingdom Hearts? Twice the worlds, twice the battles, twice the enemies. The next numbered installment to be released, Kingdom Hearts II released for PlayStation 2 continues following our trio of heroes (or Junior Heroes, as they have been officially titled by Phill).
An entire year has passed for our heroes, and we start of the story with a particularly interesting new character Roxas.

Plot
So early on in the game we have this Mysterious boy Roxas, who has dreams of Sora, and in times of need he has been able to summon the Keyblade, but not just any Keyblade, Sora's Kingdom Key. As we progress we find out from Namine, that Roxas is a Nobody, unsure what that is he begins to question his entired being and questions what his ties with Sora, who he keeps dreaming about, are. While this story unravels, DiZ, awaiting the awakening of Sora from his slumber while Namine tries to finish putting his memories back to the way they were before she messed them up, seems to be working with a member of the Organization. He wears a the standard black coat but with the hood up so his face cannot be seen, and later on when asked by DiZ to reveal himself, the man lowers his hood to reveal who we knew to be as Ansem, and announces himself as such. DiZ and Ansem appear to be holding Roxas and leading him slowly to Sora for his awakening.
Roxas during this time has also run into Organization member Axel, from CoM. Axel is confused that Roxas cannot remember who he is, claiming to be Roxas' friend. Axel informs Roxas that he must either bring him back to the Organization, or destroy him, Roxas once being a member of the Organization. In a last effort to discover who he is after being attacked by monsters and Axel himself, (In the game Roxas goes through the Station of Awakening as well, but only fights Nobody's), Roxas makes his way to the mansion to get to the bottom of whats going on. Where he is for the last time confronted by Axel, after remembering who he was and what he is capable of, Roxas pulls out two Keyblades, this time taking the appearance of two different Keyblade upgrades you could get int the first game, the Oblivion and the Oathkeeper. Defeating Axel the two make a promise to meet in the next life.
Finally reaching the sleeping chamber of Sora he is confronted by DiZ. Who tells Roxas that he is a Nobody who doesn't have right to be. That he holds half of Sora's power within him and needs to give it back in order for Sora to awaken. Attempting to fight him, the Keyblade just phases right through him, DiZ informs Roxas that he is seeing a data based projection.
DiZ tricks him getting him close enought to Sora, for him to go back to where he belongs.
It is here where we take control of Sora, who by the way has outgrown his clothes. The gang travel through Twilight Town, not remembering anything after sealing the door to Kingdom Hearts.
By the train station they get attacked by the Nobodies, still tired from there year long sleep they begin to get surrounded. King Mickey jumps in saving our heroes, only he is wearing a black coat similar to that of the Organization? They are told to board the train and leave town.
They listen and take the train to the Mysterious Tower, (a separate area but still considered a part of Twilight Town), there they run into Pete (Mickeys rival) who has overrun the tower with heartless, he reveals that he was working with Meleficent, who Sora and the gang inform they have defeated. Fighting there way through the tower, the end up in the chamber of the great Yen Sid (Fantasia, name is actually Disney spelled backwards), who trained King Mickey.
It is hear that we learn the Heartless have not yet been stopped. We also learn about Nobodies. Nobodies are created when someone becomes a heartless, the heart leaves the body and the body or empty shell becomes a Nobody, for they don't really exist. We also learn that Organization XIII is made up entirely of Nobodies. For we also  find out that when a person with a strong heart becomes a heartless the nobody that's left behind actually takes on a human appearance and personality, looking only slightly different from the person they were created from.
So from this point knowing that Roxas combined back with Sora, and that he was a Nobody, that Roxas was Sora's nobody.
So we get some new duds from the three good fairies from Sleeping Beauty, these new duds actually give Sora a unique power, called Drive Forms. This allows Sora to wield two Keyblades at once (kinda like Roxas) and each form is a specific battle type.
From here we travel to the returning world of Hollow Bastion, running into Leon and the gang, and having our first run in with the remaining members (not the ones Sora and Riku defeated in CoM) of Orginization XIII.
From this point we begin traveling to other worlds, some familiar some new.
Worlds to travel to:
Land of Dragons (Mulan)
Beasts Castle (Beauty and the Beast)
Olympus Colesseum (Although we have an addition to this world, we now get to explore and face Hades in the Underworld).
Disney Castle, summoned by Queen Minnie the Cornerstone of Light is being attacked, the origin and keeper of the light the Cornerstone of Light is extremely important, having not been explained to deeply, I have a feeling will be returning in later titles. The Cornerstone is being attacked in Disney Castles past by Pete, our crew go to the next world through a door Merlin the Wizard open.
The Timeless River (taken from Disney's first animated feature Steamboat Willy) they visit King Mickey and Pete's past, as the Castle is being built.
After saving the Cornerstone and locking the doors to the past  our crew continue on.
Port Royal (Pirates of the Caribbean)
Halloween Town (with the addition of Christmas Town)
Atlantica (Instead of being a world where you actually fight, they have changed it to a musical interactive game and is actually optional to play through.)
Agrabah (Aladdin)
The Pride Lands (Lion King)
Once all of these places are visited once with the exception of Atlantica as that is optional we see a short cut scene of Kairi on Destiny Islands who has decided that she is done waiting and is going to venture forth and find her boys. Before she can do so Axel shows up to abduct her, wanting to cause Sora pain and turn him back into a Heartless (to see his friend Roxas again). A portal of darkness appears and though she is afraid Kairi uses the portal to escape as Pluto actually shows up and runs through first. She wakes up in Twilight Town in the secret spot that Roxas and his friends, Hayner, Pence and Ollette used to hang. She tells her story to Hayner, Pence and Ollette and just manages to finish before Axel has tracked her down and kidnaps her.
Our crew then return Twilight Town, where they learn Kairi was taken. From there they travel to Hollow Bastion where a massive pool of darkness is attacking. They land to find that a massive amount of Heartless and Nobodies are gathering force. They learn that Leon has discovered Ansems computer in the ruins of the Castle they are working on rebuilding. Sora and the gang decide to go check it out where they hope to learn information on where Riku, the Nobody World and now the lost Kairi may be. Before learning anything from the computer it fights back and our trio are transported inside, to the last Disney world in the game Space Paranoids from Tron.
Tron saves Sora and the crew from the MCP and sends them back to the real world to find the password to Ansems dataspace, file titled D.T.D. They search Ansems study for some kind of clue, when a woman appears asking if they have seen a man with spiky hair (Tiffa from Final Fantasy VII) Sora tugs on a spike of his hair and she says spikier, to which they respond they haven't seen him. She trys looking around and takes down the painting of Ansem hanging off the wall, revealing a diagram of something Ansem was studying. There they notice the words Door To Darkness, but the first letter in each word can be easily seen the rest  are faded. Sora puts two and two together and realizes the D.T.D. is in reference to the Door To Darkness. At which point King Mickey suprises the crew by moseying in to the study.
After the excitement of seeing there King and his exclamation that if the Heartless attack he will stand and fight, they fill the King in on what they were looking for. To which the king informs him that there are Seven Princesses to open the door (the princesses of heart from the previous game). So they return to Tron and give him the password. Then after a boss fight  they leave the world to look through Ansems records.
They begin searching for information, about Nobodies, Riku, and Kairi and all of the data on those subjects is corrupt. Mickey states that maybe the computer can help them figure out where Ansem is, causing some confusion with the crew as they defeated him in the previous title. Sora then drags the King to the study and shows him the portrait of Ansem, after finding a picture of a man on the computer who Mickey calls Ansem the Wise, and reminds him who Ansem is. Mickey decides to fill in the crew on what actually happened.
It turns out that the man who possessed Riku was a heartless of a man, the heartlesss went around telling everyone that he was Ansem. Mickey knows who the man is but cannot remember.
Saddend that they may have another enemy to defeat other then the Organization, since they only defeated a Heartless they become down.
At that moment the Heartless begin attacking. It turns out to be a massive battle, the characters from the Final Fantasy realm jumping in and fighting.
It is during this huge war (after you control Sora and take out 1000 Heartless on your own) they run into the leader of the Organization, who after removing his hood looks a lot like the man who pretended to be Ansem, and Mickeys Memory is jogged, the man in the portrait was not Ansem but Ansem's Apprentice, Xehanort. The heartless fought was Xehanorts Heartless, as well the leader of the Organization is Xehanorts Nobody.
Chasing him down and loosing him and the King as Xehanorts Nobody left through whats called a Corridor of Darkness and the King jumped in to follow.  Realizing they have been left behind the party loses hope again when Axel appears to whom they name the culprit for kidnapping Kairi, and to which Axel actually apologized for, and that he lost her to fellow Organization member Saix, and the name of there leader Xemnas. Who then appears and Axel leaves. Siax informs the crew that Axel is no longer acting in the interests of the Organization and being hunted. Sora begs for Saix to take him to Kairi, which he refuses.
Saix then fills our crew in on the Orginizations plan, force Sora to destroy the Heartless who hold captive hearts and then use all the hearts to create a doorway to kingdom hearts, to retrieve there hearts and become whole once more.
Sora now doubts his ability to use the Keyblade to fight, and yet he has no choice, he has to stop Heartless from hurting folks, and he must find his friends.
So they then leave and travel to each world once more (why I basically said twice of everything). In search now for the Nobody world to take out there Organization XIII, before there plan of making a door to Kingdom hearts can be realized.
As you fight through the worlds and complete everything A giant world starts to appear in the top of the worlds map. Once finished something strange happens in Twilight Town, it appears there are two of them. Upon our arrival we figure out that there is an "Alternate Twilight Town" with a portal between the two being in the basement of the Mansion where DiZ worked on returning Roxas to Sora. It is in the Alternate Twilight Town that Sora and the crew find the portal to the final battle field. The Wold that Never Was, the world of the Nobodies , lies in between the Darkness and the Light, and existence of nothing. As the crew makes it way to the Castle to save Kairi and defeat Xemnas we see a cut scene of Kairi in a cell. Saix tells her they will not let her go as she is the fire that fuels Sora's rage, after Saix leaves a portal of darkness appears in the back of Kairi's Cell as Namine is on the other side attempting to save her, when the two hands touch a light apears granting access to Sora to enter the castle.
As they fight through the castle we also see a scene of Kairi and Namine attempting to flee, they are stopped by Saix when a man in the Organization coat appears to fight Saix,  who then escapes. The hooded man tries to follow but is stopped by Pluto, when Kairi and Namine catch up Namine states " You can take it from here... Riku." This surprises Kairi, she moves forward to remove his hood and the face of Xehanorts Heartless. We then see a scene of Mickey fighting he way up through the castle when he comes upon DiZ being attacked by Nobodies, who Mickey fights off. After recovering DiZ begins to remove his head bandages revealing the man underneath. Ansem the Wise was hiding and seeking revenge on his apprentices under the guise of Diz. (We have also learned at this point through a secret report received in the game that DiZ stand for Darkness in Zero. A name Ansem the Wise took after being banished to the Darkness by his apprentices.) Ansem tells Mickey he was sick with thoughts of revenges and in doing so, tried to get Sora to take vengeance on the Organization, by returning Roxas. Ansem is now trying to help stop his once apprentice, and Mickey decided to aid him.
After this Sora arrives at his first boss fight, Xigbar, number II in the Organization, once Sora defeats them he is surrounded by Heartless in which Kairi shows up to help, Xehanorts Heartless gives her a keyblade and uses his own and begin fighting the Heartless.
Once clear and on the same level Sora and Kairi reunite after a year, Xehanorts Heartless tries to leave and is stopped by Sora who thanks him for helping Kairi. He smiles and continues to try to leave but is stopped by Kairi who shouts "Riku don't go!"
Surprised by this as Sora has been looking for his best friend this whole time, he asks what shes talking about, Xehanorts Heartless responds with "I am nobody, just a cast away from the darkness."
Kairi holding on to his hand calls for Sora, "Sora come here, say something to him," Sora walks over and Kairi grabs his hand and says, "Close your eyes, you will understand". Upon closing his eyes the true form of Riku is revealed in his heart.
Sora looses it, finally has found his friend, who states he didn't want to be found, he had given in to the darkness to use its power and was ashamed.
Our main trio together again, they continue to fight there way through the castle, facing another member of Organization XIII, Luxord, then facing Saix. After defeating the two of them we return to the King and Ansem who are setting up a machine to encode Kingdom Hearts into data. As he turns on the machine he realizes that the heart cannot be formatted into data, and that he should have realized this when in his data projection of Twilight Town where he had Roxas to combine him back with Sora (which is why there appeared to be two Twilight Towns) Roxas and Sora and Kairi all came into connection although Roxas and Sora's were hidden in the digital real. He realizes his failure and that the machine is going to explode.
At that moment the crew all meet up with Ansem and the King, Xemnas also appears just as the machine is about to detonate. Ansem apologizes to Sora, and also to Roxas who Sora now knows about and knows was his Nobody.
The machine detonates exploding into a white light, scattering the collected hearts becoming the door to Kingdom Hearts.
When the light fades, the crew recover and they realize that Riku as assumed his normal form, no longer taking on the appearance of darkness he had to embrace.
They then venture forth to defeat Xemnas, this takes place in multiple battles. First in a battle of the minds, between just Sora and Xemnas, which ends up being a distraction, while Xemnas then summons more hearts to complete Kingdom Hearts once again, he disappears to another dimension.
The worlds prepare a door similar to Kingdom Hearts for the heroes to stop Xemnas. They go through and face the next boss battle, they make there way to different sections of what appeared to be a giant Nobody Dragon, and on the head of the beast sits Xemnas now in armor and sitting on a throne.
They face of with the armored Xemnas and he looses and fades. The crew now stuck in the other dimension wonder now how to get home. Riku attempts to open a corridor of darkness but he is no longer of that realm, now a Warrior of Light. And yet a portal appears from out of no where. Donald, Goofy, Mikey, Pluto make it through. As Kairi and the others approach a ghostly apparition of Namine appears, whom Kairi thanks.
Namine then looks at Sora and states "See we meet again like we promised." (here she is speaking not only to Sora who made a promise to meet again in CoM, she made the same promise to Roxas when she tried to tell him who he really was). Then a ghostly apparition of Roxas steps out from Sora, and says " you were right, you said we might not recognize each other but I knew you." to which she responds, "its strange." Roxas replies "I think I see myself the way you remember me, and you see yourself the way I remember you." and Namine states" so we can be together again." To which Roxas stands now by her side and faces Sora and Kairi, " Right any time Sora and Kairi are together". To which Kairi states, " We'll be together every day right Sora?", he nods an Kairi stretches her hand out to Namine, and Namine combines for the last time with Kairi. And Roxas follows suite with Sora.
Kairi then walks through the portal which closes behind her, leaving Riku and Sora behind in the Nobody world.
The Dragon reappears and Sora and Riku face off with it once more, once they defeat the Xemnas once more they are taken to an alternate dimension to face of  with him one last time.
Once defeated they then face off against hundreds of Nobodies, and finally they collapse. Unsure of where to go they begin walking Riku and Sora talking about needing to always best one another, when a door opens and leads them to a beach in the world of darkness. They relax for a minute and Riku states " if this is what the world really is maybe I should fade back into the darkness..." " if the world is made of light and darkness, we'll be the darkness." Sora somewhat agrees, stating " yeah, the realm of light is safe now, Kairi, the King and the others are there." Riku then requests as he is injured that Sora help him down to the water.
Riku states " Sora, those things I said earlier, about thinking I was better at stuff than you, its because I was jealous of you. I wished I could live life the way you do, just following my heart."
Sora responds, "yeah well I got my share of problems to, like wanting to be like you"
Riku retorts, "well there is one advantage to being me, something you could never imitate, having you for a friend."
Sora responds "well I guess I'm ok then, I've got something you could never imitate too."
They then stare at the water and Riku states "at least the waves sound the same."
Some time passes, unsure of how much, when something bumps into Rikus foot, its a message in a bottle (one in a cut scene we saw Kairi send off in hopes it reached Sora.) Riku reads it over then hands it to Sora, where after reading the letter allowed the Door to Light appears they walk through together.
We are take to a beach and two lights fall from the sky into the water, Riku and Sora surface, Kairi calls to them from the beach knowing they would find there way home, they swim and meet up with her and discover, Donald, Goofy and King Mickey are there waiting for them.
They unite and we are given the ending credits.
After Riku is seen sitting in the spot where Sora lost him in the first game and Sora comes running back to sit with him.
Riku states "Nothings changed", to which Sora responds, " nope nothing will."
Riku laughs "Small world," and Sora states, " but part of one that's much bigger."
Sora then asks "Hey Riku what do you think it was? The Door to Light?" Riku jumps down from the tree he is sitting on and points at Sora's heart, "This." Sora responds "this?", and Riku retorts " its always closer than you think."
At this moment Kairi comes running up with a bottle in her hand, inside is a message from the King, and we are not told what it said.
Thus ends Kingdom Hearts II.

So wow what an epic game!! Sora went through soooo much to try and get back home  and find his friends.
Became a Heartless, discovered his Nobody, and still has more to learn and do as the chosen wielder of the keyblade.
Something stated to pay attention to was the names of the members of the Organization, and the facts they all have X's in them, we learn this is part of a Nobody naming ceremony. It is a mix up of the letters of there name and adding the letter X to give them there new name.

I. Xemnas: As he was calling himself Ansem at the time Xemnas is Ansem with an X.
II. Xigbar
III.Xaldin
IV. Vexen
V. Lexaus
VI. Zexion
VII.Saix
VIII.Axel
IX. Demyx
X. Luxord
XI. Marluxia
XII. Larxene
XIII. Roxas, which if you take out the x and mess around with the letters spells Sora.
Now from reading Ansems Secret Reports we learn he had other apprentices, Even, Dilan, Ienzo are some of the names mentioned, which if you play with them make Vexen, Xaldin and Zexion.
We have other mysteries to ponder.
What is the Keyblade?
Why did it choose Sora, instead of Riku?
From the secret reports we also have learned there are two legends of the Keyblade, one says its wielder saved the world while one says he wrought chaos and ruin upon it.
We have barely skimmed the surface of the Keyblade.
Also what are the heartless and Kingdom Hearts what purpose do they serve?
And what has become of the young apprentice of Ansem, Xehanort, who's Heartless and Nobody have both tried to turn the world to darkness?
We learn a litte more every title so onward we continue.
Next up Picture Time! Followed by the next released title to the series Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days.