marketplace.comEver wondered what would happen if the worlds of Final Fantasy and character-themed collided? Its an odd concept to be sure but from the most schizophrenic of acorns the mighty gaming oak of Kingdom Hearts has grown. Legendary role-playing game makers Square have been given unprecedented liberties with the entire character-themed universe and have created a game featuring everything from The Nightmare Before Christmas to The Little Mermaid. This is odd enough in itself when you have characters as disparate as Tarzan and Donald Duck teaming up but becomes majorly freaky when Square thrown in a variety of their own characters such as Cloud Squall and Aeris from the various Final Fantasy games. But this incongruity has one side benefit in that the storyline behind the game is by necessity rather vague which seems to have stopped Square from filling three CDs full of their usual New Age whining about Mother Earth. Instead theyve spent even more time on the graphics and the end result is a quite stunning 3-D cartoon.As for the gameplay it may come as a surprise to learn that it doesnt actually feature as all the Final Fantasy games do turn-based combat. Instead its essentially a scrolling beat-em-up-cum-platformer with exactly the kind of complicated Square-style knobs youd expect. The game may be a little shallow but its an impressive artistic achievement and to be quite frank any title that allows you to magically summon Bambi out of thin air to attack evil demons of the underworld has got to be worth some sort of recommendation. --David JenkinsProduct DescriptionGuide a young boy named Sora and his friends Riku and Kairi as he saves the world from destruction at the hands of an evil group known as the Heartless. Set off from Soras island paradise home with the help of character-themed characters such as Donald Duck and Goofy who are on their way to find their missing king the one and only Mickey Mouse. Use Soras secret tool the keycutting tool in an adventure that takes you through familiar character-themed worlds. You will also run into many of Squaresofts favorite characters as they join the struggle.