Caution! This is not a PS2 game, it is an interactive DVD movie so if you are expecting a real-time epic adventure, go back to FF9 or Majora's Mask. Although Kingdom II may not actually be a game, it's still in interesting concept if you always felt compelled to have your own control over the direction of a movie.

Gameplay
This is an interactive movie from Rick Dyer, the creator of Dragon's Lair and is in cartoon format. The storyline is very clich. You control what the main character in the game does who is typically young and nave and needs to constantly seek advice from a friendly old wizard who seems to know something about just about everything. Your mission? Seek out two remaining amulets, defeat the evil Torlock and impress the beautiful Princess. It's strange why they start your journey midway through the quest but oh well. The game seems to be directed more towards the younger audience mainly because the storyline is quite basic and the animation style suits the kids as well but that doesn't mean a fan of these movies wouldn't like it.

The interface is simple and easy to use although a bit sluggish when selecting different items. You watch the movie as it unfolds but you have the ability to control what the main character, Lathan actually does and it is up to you to help him find his way through to finish the movie. You are given a book of history to familiarize yourself with the background of each of the characters you'll meet, locations and items to be found. It's too bad that the text is virtually unreadable unless you are playing on a high definition T.V. with S-Video. This is really a big setback for the movie/game because there is a lot of necessary material that would otherwise help you solve some of the puzzles.

You also have a belt of items which can be used depending on the situation and there is an action orb which automatically selects items that can be used for a given event. Everything is pretty much handed to you on a platter. The only way you can get into trouble is if you are so slow choosing that your hour glass runs out of sand.

For the most part you'll be running around from location to location on the map screen, watching brief sections of the movie and listening to what people have to say. Despite this being an "interactive" movie, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interaction available. For example, in most situations there is only two things that you can do, use an item or run away. You don't have a large list of choices for what to do or what to say, in fact you can never choose dialog which is a shame because that would have added a lot to the experience. There is also sporadic occasions of bad scripting where you even if you know a path leads to death, there is no way to turn back during a certain point so you are actually forced to die. Not my idea of fun at all. One last annoying thing is that there is no way to save a game so you better prepare to sit down for a long time if you want to beat/finish the movie.

Graphics
Hum, this is a tough one, believe it or not this game has NO aliasing whatsoever! Amazing. Slow down is non existent but sadly, the frame rate (animation) seems to be choppy at times and not very fluent on the whole. To be honest, this kind of animation style doesn't appeal to me at all but that is just me. Someone else may love the style but it is definitely no anime! It looks like the animation was done with watercolors which gives everything a dull, unrealistic washed out look. But like I said, this just isn't my style.

Sound
Hey, you have a choice of listening in Dolby Surround or DTS. The music and sound effects are very clear and sharp, just what you would expect from a movie but the speech seems to be unusually low volume and the music has a tendency to drown it out. There isn't anything really spectacular to hear but the music sets the mood well and adds atmosphere for the current scene in the movie.

Value
There is absolutely no redeeming quality once you've played it through on apprentice and wizard difficulty but so far I haven't been able to finish it. The movie can get quite boring and repetitive after a while as you'll find yourself back-tracking through scenes and having to watch them over and over again. But if this is your sort of thing you could really get into the story or if your kids are bugging you for something to do, let them try it on for size.