[Re-Play] Kingdom Hearts

Walt Disney was notorious for being an innovator in many categories. His legacy, the Walt Disney company, is likewise known for adding magic to every aspect of life. It is for both of those reasons that Kingdom Hearts is a pleasant, but somewhat expected development. For those of you unfamiliar with Kingdom Hearts, it is a hack n’ slash adventure game with RPG elements that mashes Disney characters with some of the basic Final Fantasy principles and even features cameos from characters like Cloud and Tidus.

wikipedia.org

In Kingdom Hearts, You assume the role of Sora, a young teen with a good heart. Sora hails from a far away land called Destiny Island where he enjoys spending time with his friends Riku and Kairi. To make a long story short, Sora’s home eventually gets attacked some creatures called Heartless. Like Kanye West, Sora wonders how they could be so heartless, and is eventually awarded the Keyblade to defend himself. Lots of awful things happen and he eventually ends up in Traverse Town (which essentially serves as the main hub world) and meets up with Donald Duck (a mage) and Goofy (a knight). The three decide to work together and they become your allies for the remainder of the game.

Goofy, Sora, Donald

 As the story progresses, Sora and his pals travel to different worlds, each based on a different Disney movie. You’ll explore several familiar places including Wonderland, Agrabah, and Halloween Town as well as new worlds unique to this game. Most levels offer a world-exclusive ally (such as Aladdin in Agrabah or Tarzan in the Deep Jungle) and they generally have pretty sick abilities which make them worth using. There are also some areas that you can spend time with if you get tired of the main story: on Olympus Coliseum you can partake in tournament-style combat or you can venture into the 100 Acre Wood for some mini-games, but I don’t really recommend the latter. So, now that you know the basics, let’s dive into Kingdom Hearts!

kingdomhearts.wikia.com

The Idea: Combine two unrelated intellectual property to make one of the most unique gaming experiences in recent memory. Redesigning the Disney characters to make them more appealing to a young male demographic while also appealing to consumers as a “family friendly” game.

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The Look: Take the cartoonish animation Disney is known for and apply a layer of grit. Relive childhood memories as you explore your favorite hero’s hometown.

The Sound: The music is mostly remixed tunes from Disney films and tends to fit the mood well. Most are hits (“This Is Halloween” from The Nightmare Before Christmas, the music in Hollow Bastion) but some are better served in smaller doses (“Under The Sea” from the Little Mermaid). Voice acting isn’t bad, although the script is a little cheesy, but that’s to be expected.

The Play: Aside from a few camera issues during boss fights, the controls are extremely solid. Controlling Sora feels natural for the majority of the game. It’s when he leaves the ground that things become a little difficult to manage, but after about 10 minutes with the controls things start to make sense again.

The Entertainment: Watching Goofy run headfirst and smack little goons with his shield is pretty much the only reason I need to play this game. Luckily, there’s a lot more fun to be had here. For completionists, there are several things to collect (from 101 Dalmatians to Torn Pages) and two non-story worlds available to explore.  Aside from journeying to familiar locales and exploring them in greater depth, it’s interesting to see all the characters in the Disney Universe (loosely) tied together. If only I could bring Jack with me for every world…

The Challenge: The bosses are pretty unique and require a bit of trial and error to defeat. Non-boss combat is pretty much just to pass time and make levels feel longer, at least until you get to the later levels and enemies become more difficult. The game isn’t the most difficult and intricate game in recent memory, but it definitely requires some strategy and thought.

The Legacy: Besides spawning countless sequels, this game serves as one of the greatest mash-ups in gaming to this date. In fact, I can personally attest that this game made me reinvest my interest in Disney when I first played it and also got me hooked on Final Fantasy games.

LynxGriffen on deviantART.com

That's all for this week! What was your favorite memory of Kingdom Hearts? What’s your favorite Disney character of all time? Leave any thoughts below in the comments!