Have you ever seen a film? Have you ever played a game? If you answer yes to any of these questions then I have just the game for you. I can’t understand what possessed Square, the makers of the final fantasy series, and Disney to create a game that contained characters from both of their fields. Whatever it was I think they have hit a real winner.

To be honest this game defies any kind of real explanation. You play Sora (voiced by none other than Halley Joel Osment) a young boy who lives on an island with some friends, Riku and Kairi. Sora has a real obsession with Kairi and Riku is the elder of the two lads and fancies the pants of Kairi, too! I then need to tell you that Sora has been having some pretty screwed up existential dreams recently where his gloriously animated body is falling through sky and water and all manner of crazy hallucinogenic stuff. He finally ends up on a stained glass window of Cinderella and you then have to choose your weapon (sword, shield or wand) and you are told of a group called the ‘heartless’. He tells his two friends, who then question what is beyond their island and if their existence is real. They decide to leave the island by building a boat but some nasty big shadow people come along and cause loads of agro. We then get a cut-scene of Donald going to visit King Mickey who has gone AWOL. The heartless have dropped you away from your friends in a new world and you meet up with Donald and Goofy who keep calling you the keyblade master. You then have to travel to lots of different worlds as the heartless are destroying them one by one. All the worlds happen to be related to Disney films. Phew… I think that is about the measure of it.

What you actually do is very broad as well. I chose the sword as my weapon and I am not sure how much that affects the story but you basically have to run around hammering the hell out of various huge monsters, which once defeated increases your power level. The monsters are generally themed to the world they inhabit; for example, in Agrabah they all have turbans. You then have smaller missions to do in each world and on-going missions that keep reappearing like finding all 99 Dalmatian puppies or fighting in the various tournaments at Hercules’ Coliseum! To travel from one world to the next is also a game within itself. You have a Gummiship which you can add many different parts to, such as armour, engines, weapons, cockpits and warp drives, and then fly it through space dodging through obstacles and shooting other ships until you make your way to the world you desire. What it has to do with the grand scheme of the game I’m unsure but it is a pleasant relief from the hacking and slashing.