A few observations, criticisms, and questions about kh2 (SPOILERS BEWARE!!!)

[Acid Raine]

I think I would like to start by saying how much I love Kingdom Hearts 2. It is a BIG step up from the first one, and was improved in several ways. Also, I havent beat it yet, mainly because I am afraid to, because after I beat something, it becomes less enjoyable, and I get bored. I am currently revisiting Agrabah to take care of Jafar.

I did however, have a few problems. First off, that irksome long intro. It kind of hurts the replay value, knowing you are going to have to spend several hours going through that, whether you skip the scenes or not. Another was (this has been a problem for all of the KHs) how the storyline pretty much didnt go anywhere for most of the game. One of the biggest problems I had was the miniscule parts of characters that were highly advertised. I mean, they had interviews with the VAs for YRP, Tifa, Cloud, and Aerith, when their parts were tiny, and they barely spoke anyways. I mean, you guys never even MET Tifa. She just kind of showed up, and that was that. It seems they were advertised to have much larger parts than they had, especially the Gullwings. My last complaint is about the Disney worlds. Some of them are extremly short, such as the Land of Dragons, and the Space Paranoids. Yet some were EXTREMLY LONG, like Olympus Coliseum. I would think that they could've balanced them out a little more.

I do also, have a few questions. Like at the begininng, Sora says something like "You guys [Donald and Goofy], me, Riku, and the King. The five of us, I mean, the six of us....." six? Who's the sixth? Am I missing something?
Another is about CoM. Is it absolutely necessary to play CoM to understand what's going on? I mean, I never played it, and I understand most of it. I get who the organization is, I get how Kairi forgot Sora, I know who Namine and Roxas are, and such, but I was asking if I should play CoM before I go to the World that Never Was (where I'm sure it will be pretty story-heavy.)

Thanks in advance to anyone who bothers to take the time to read, and hopefully answer this.