Square Enix and Buena Vista Games announced today the Hollywood talent that are taking part in Kingdom Hearts II and the official North American release date of this PlayStation 2 exclusive RPG that combines Square-Enix universe chracters and storylines with perennial Disney favorites.

The voice cast is led by Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense, A.I. Artificial Intelligence) as the main character Sora and is joined by David Gallagher (7th Heaven) as Riku, and Hayden Panettiere (Racing Stripes, Raising Helen) as Kairi.

KINGDOM HEARTS II will also feature the voice talents of Jesse McCartney (Summerland, Recording artist, Beautiful Soul CD) as the mysterious boy Roxas, Brittany Snow (The Pacifier, American Dreams) as Namine, Christopher Lee (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring) as Diz; Steve Burton (The Last Castle, Taken) as Cloud, Rachael Leigh Cook (She's All That, Josie And The Pussycats) as Tifa and Mena Suvari (American Beauty, Rumor Has It) as Aerith.

The game will also feature Hedy Buress (Boston Common, If These Walls Could Talk), Tara Strong (Fairly OddParents : Shadow Showdown, Teen Titans), and Gwendoline Yeo (Desperate Housewives, 24) as the popular female-trio Yuna, Rikku, Paine from FINAL FANTASY X-2. In addition, many of the original Disney film star voice actors are reprising their role for this project, including Ming-Na (ER, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within) as Mulan, James Woods (Be Cool), returning as the villain Hades and Zach Braff (Scrubs) as Chicken Little.

Finally, fans will be happy to know that Japanese pop artist Utada Hikaru returns to sing the theme song for KINGDOM HEARTS II. The song titled "Sanctuary," which is the English version of its original Japanese release "Passion", was written specifically for KINGDOM HEARTS II. More information on the artist can be found at www.utada.com .

KINGDOM HEARTS II will ship to North American retailers on March 28th exclusively for the PS2. The game will carry a rating of E10+ by the ESRB and will retail for $49.99 (USD). Find out more about the game by checking out www.kingdomhearts.com .