The gameplay is actually pretty complex, especially for games that came out on early gen consoles or devices. One of the core features in both KH 1 and 2 are reaction commands. When a certain opportunity arrives, you hit whichever button it wants you to hit, which usually is triangle.

There are several different abilities that each character develops, allowing you to make a variety of different playing styles. there are also summons, which take different support characters from Disney worlds and allow you to deal some massive damage for a short time.

The general playing style is your simple 3-hit combo system. Beat things up, move on to the next stage. Sometimes little timed challenges can be put into place as well.