I agree with you on that. With the forms, it does seem to be a walk in the park, sometimes, when it comes to fights with enemies and bosses. I, personally, only use them for the abilities. After that, I don't use them.

Kingdom Hearts 2 was better because it had a better storyline and graphics.
And I agree Kingdom Hearts 2 was way much harder than KH1.

I'm a bit torn on this particular issue. On one hand, Kingdom Hearts II had much better gameplay. Don't get me wrong, I'm not speaking for the difficulty; as far as KH2's challenge goes, I was sorely disappointed. However, there's really nothing wrong with the core combat in the game. It's fluid, quick, and stylish with just the right amount of flash to be aesthetically pleasing, though I think I could've used a bit more variety when it came to building up combos. Even the difficulty was fixed with Final Mix+ in the form of Critical Mode, and the game is obviously very well-designed, seeing as how a Level 1 Critical Mode Run is entirely possible. Aerial combat was also vastly improved to the point where certain battles were fought primarily in the air. I'm not sure why, but fighting twenty feet above the ground always struck me as being much cooler than fighting on ground level. People often complain about the implementation of Reaction Commands, but I really don't see the problem with that. They VERY rarely do any significant damage to the bosses, and when they do (Xaldin), it's usually the only decent way of doing so. Most of the time, Reaction Commands are just flashy ways of rendering the boss vulnerable to a combo.

However, the writing in KH2 is quite...bad. So Ansem is really Xehanort, and the real Ansem is actually a good guy who's currently pretending to be a guy named DiZ, and he's working with a guy who LOOKS like Ansem/Xehanort but is actually Riku in disguise. The bad guy is, by the way, Ansem/Xehanort's Nobody, Xemnas, whose name is an anagram of "Ansem" rather than "Xehanort" like it probably should be. Depth is one thing, but throwing in unnecessary crap for the sake of "shock value" is just sad. Did the actual Ansem the Wise really NEED to exist? Did he have to be Ansem? Why couldn't he have just been DiZ? Personally, I liked the idea of Ansem being a corrupt wise man better than the idea of him being the whiny apprentice of a good wise man...I guess I could understand their logic if there were unexplained mysteries or plot holes surrounding Ansem/Xehanort's identity, but it all seemed pretty clear to me; "Ansem was a wise man from Hollow Bastion who gave in to the darkness". What they did with it in KH2 is just bad writing. Don't get me wrong, the storyline was deep, especially with the Ansem Reports, but the writing was still horrible...

Organization XIII was a bit of a disappointment to me, too...well, up until the end of the game. The final battles against the last couple members of the Organization were made of epic, but otherwise? Just another batch of generic, brooding pretty boys. Which is a real shame, too, because they looked incredibly badass in Deep Dive and Chain of Memories. "Guys in black cloaks who run up the sides of buildings and phase through walls? Well, alright, then!" I was very eager to see this Superior everyone was afraid of. Considering the way the rest of the Organization was talking about him, he must've been the ultimate powerhouse. Well, no, not exactly. He was really just another silver haired force of "ultimate evil" who talked like William Shatner and wanted to take over the world/universe. Severely disappointing...The lightsabers and skyscraper-destroying Reaction Commands were cool, though.

Oh, and what the hell did they do to Maleficent?! I understand that she was never the main villain of the games, but she was at LEAST a competent force of evil who appeared to have SOME sort of power at her disposal. In this game? Sure, they attempt to make you take her seriously, but really, the way she talks like she's still in power while obviously getting her ass kicked and thrown to the curb made her come across as nothing more than comic relief. Why bother reviving a villain at the beginning of the game if they're literally not going to do ANYTHING until one of the last cut scenes? *sigh* We didn't even get to fight Maleficent...Stupid writers of KH2...

One last paragraph; the level design was horrendous. Don't get me wrong, I realize that this is an RPG (well, action RPG, but you get my point). Linearity has been a staple of the genre since it was first created. However, KH2 takes it to ridiculous extents. The levels all consist of walking forward in a perfectly straight line, watching a few cut scenes, walking forward in a perfectly straight line AGAIN, watching a few more cut scenes, fighting a boss, watching still more cut scenes, and then receiving a Key Chain for your efforts. Why couldn't we have had more worlds like the Cavern of Remembrance in KH2:FM+? THAT was platforming done right! Instead, as far as the main storyline goes, we get to walk forward, open some chests (all in plain sight), watch some scenes, and fight a boss. Woo~...*groan*

On the other hand, you've got Kingdom Hearts I, which is pretty much the polar opposite of KH2. The gameplay is rather clunky at times. Menus are rather difficult to navigate in the middle of combat, Limits are thoroughly useless, and the camera angle is laughable. When I press R2 in the middle of a swarm of Heartless, I do not want to lock on to a treasure chest 50 feet away, nor do I want to lock on to a Shadow on the other side of the room. Locking on to the NEAREST ENEMY and having the camera turn to put that enemy in my line of sight would be nice, thank you. I suppose there's nothing wrong with actual combat with the Keyblade in situations where locking on isn't an issue. Boss battles are actually very fun and have a sort of simplistic charm to them, but when you need to target one enemy out of several, it's just ridiculous. Seriously? I know Sora is just a kid who was handed a magical blade and told to save the universe. Obviously, he's not going to have much skill in combat and is going to be relying primarily on the superhuman strength and speed that the Keyblade gives him, but I THINK he'd be smart enough not to go for the chest 30 meters away from him while being swarmed by Wyverns...

The storyline, however, was incredibly charming. True, it wasn't as deep as KH2's, but I really didn't expect a storyline in a Disney/Square crossover game to be all that deep to begin with. There was real beauty in its simplicity. It somehow gave off a sense of wonder, as if you were dealing in things that were much bigger than yourself. Whereas KH2 seemed to operate on a more individualized level, KH1 somehow seemed to deal more with the big picture. Sora really had no idea what it was he was doing. He was just going on what little he did know; Keyblade good. Stop the bad guys. Save friends. Overall, it was just an epic adventure reminiscent in many ways of classic RPGs, but with the welcome addition of Disney characters and Final Fantasy cameos. It was very simplistic, but that's what made it great.

So, to recap...

KH1- Superior storyline, inferior gameplay
KH2- Poorly written storyline, fluid gameplay

To me the major factor for the choice was the STORY. I mean I loved Kh1's gameplay, and KH2 was good if you played it on expert mode (Playing it on normal WAS too easy).

But... KH2 really lacked in the story department IMO. They really cut down on the FF part and overly emphasized the Disney part. It would've been nice if the ratio of FF to Disney worlds was 1:1. Not like... 1 FF world for ALL the Disney worlds in the game.

It would've been awesome, if we visited FFVII, FFVIII's and FFIX's worlds in Kh2. The game had such potential in that respect.

In fact, even the Roxas scenario that kicks off the game was FRIGGIN awesome. But once Sora came in... everything went lame. It all became nothing more than a "I must find RIKU!"

The whole plot about the nobodies and everything had much potential as well... but in the end it was just bare and boring too.

Overall, my dissapointment from KH2's story was extreme. So that's why I prefer Kh1 to Kh2

I liked II better. Continues the story. Introduces a new enemy, while still keeping the old enemy (the Heartless). Also, the forms were nice. I liked the soundtrack a bit better, and I enjoyed the massacre of Organization XIII. :]