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| Full of heart. |
I was interested in the Kingdom Hearts series in the past after checking out and liking the art-style of the games. However, I was turned off by the Disney aesthetic despite being a fan of their works. Nevertheless, my interest was reignited when all of the games were collected as part of an HD compilation for the PS3 and PS4. With news of the long-awaited Kingdom Hearts III releasing late this year (hopefully), I found it a better time than ever to get into one of Square Enix's premier series starting with the very first one. I'll be looking back at the first game in the form of a retrospective while doing my best to cover the rest of the games in the coming months, so stay tuned for that. Without further delay, let's see what the original Kingdom Hearts has to offer.
The story follows 14-year-old Sora who, alongside his childhood friends Riku and Kairi, dream of venturing beyond their small island and see what adventures lie beyond the seas. However, that all changes when one day an evil force called "The Heartless" attacks their island and separates Sora from his friends. At the same time, Disney Castle's King Mickey is missing and it's up to wizard Donald Duck and royal knight Goofy to locate his whereabouts. Things start to take off when Sora meets up with Donald and Goofy and gains power of a mysterious key known as a "Keyblade" that can seal the Heartless' dark influence from reaching other worlds. Throughout the course of the journey, Sora will meet various famous characters from both Disney and Final Fantasy properties such as Pinocchio, Tarzan, Ariel, Arieth, Cloud, Squall, and many more. The story, with themes of light vs. darkness and friendship playing a part in the overall experience was engaging actually. I found the original cast to be also interesting and likeable as well.
Initially, I was worried on how the seriousness of Final Fantasy games would clash with the cartoony nature of Disney characters, but it turned out to be fine. While the story can confuse some with constant rambling on darkness and hearts and how the keyblade bearer will seal the darkness and stop it from spreading to other worlds, it was actually pretty cohesive and delivered it's ideas well. However, the story left certain plot-threads unanswered and even left a secret teaser of a sequel should the game sell enough copies. Back then, Kingdom Hearts was a relatively new IP and Square alongside Disney, weren't sure of the game's commercial performance. According to series director Tetsuya Nomura, certain plot-points were left unresolved in order to gauge fan interest of a possible sequel.
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Sora's journey to seal the darkness
was a memorable one.
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Kingdom Hearts was originally conceived as a rival to Nintendo's 1996 hit, Super Mario 64. Producer Shinji Hashimoto and Final Fantasy creator Hironobou Sakaguchi were talking of a game to rival the likes of Mario 64 and discussed how having iconic cast of characters such as Disney's could only rival such a giant. Final Fantasy VII lead designer, Tetsuya Nomura, overheard this conversation and offered to direct the project, to Hashimoto and Sakaguchi's agreement. By chance, Hashimoto met up with a Disney executive in an elevator (both companies used to work in the same building) and pitched the idea, thus Kingdom Hearts-- an iconic crossover series that initially wanted to rival the likes of Mario but ended up being something better-- was born, in an elevator...
It was also Nomura's directorial debut after serving as lead artist for the PlayStation Final Fantasy games. Despite many requests from Disney, Nomura insisted on creating an original cast of characters to suit the game's serious premise. In an effort to feature distinctive level designs, the development team had to incorporate various worlds from Disney properties that they thought would interest the player while having few restrictions thanks to Disney's then-president, Bob Iger. Furthermore, the name "Kingdom Hearts" came from Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park. Since it was difficult to obtain the right for just the word "Kingdom", the name "Kingdom Hearts" was chosen instead since the concept of hearts is emphasized heavily in the narrative.
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While jarring at first, Kingdom Hearts was
regarded as one of the best crossovers ever made. |
Unlike much of Square Enix's RPG games, Kingdom Hearts featured an action-based real-time battle system that's later seen in Final Fantasy games. Sora is controlled from the third-person and is accompanied by Donald and Goofy, both AI controlled. Donald acts as the mage offering elemental attacks while also doing some healing and Goofy is a mixture of offense and defense. Sora has a set of commands that has him directly attacking, casting magic, using items, and calling summons. Donald and Goody's battle behavior is adjustable to suit the player's needs, you can select how frequent they attack and use healing items. Like every other JRPG/RPG, Sora can use magic abilities to dish out damage and heal up. He also gains experience, thus increasing his overall attributes such as health and defense.
An aspect that has fared worse over the years is the game's camera, which tends to obscure Sora when in certain platforming sections and outright spazzes out erratically when in heavy fights. As for actual combat, you'll be button-mashing for the most of it. I mainly focused on a melee build with heavy reliance on curative spells. I've used summons and elemental spells for larger crowds but at towards endgame, I was over-level that I just kept slashing at them. As a fan of action-based RPGs, I found the gameplay to be a lot of fun despite its simplicity.
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Gameplay is solid, though it gets mindless later
on when you're at higher levels.
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The party will be venturing through various Disney-themed worlds along the adventure, the likes of which include Agrabah (Aladdin), Atlantica (Little Mermaid), Neverland (Peter Pan), and so on. Also, you're free to tackle on any available areas in any order you wish as well. Their means of travel is a ship called the "Gummi Ship". In Star Fox-like fashion, you control the ship and while shooting any oncoming enemies ahead. Initially the ship starts out slow and takes a while for you to reach a world. However, by collecting ship plans and "gummi" blocks, you can upgrade the ship by changing its appearance, adding extra firepower, and boosting its speed. Despite the archaic customization menu, there's a lot of fun to be had here if you put the time and effort in. I found them to be a bit out-of-place at first and when you acquire the warp ability later on, they mostly become obsolete.
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These Gummi sections definitely haven't fared
well over the years. |
Each level has a "guest" character to join Sora and since the party limit is three characters, you'll have to select your team accordingly. Unlike Final Fantasy's Bahamut, Shiva, and Ifrit summons, Kingdom Hearts feature the likes of Simba, Genie, Tinker Bell, and Dumbo (for some reason), all of which possessing different abilities ranging from healing to offense. From Deep Jungle's green woodlands to Halloween Town's spooky environments, Kingdom Hearts has diverse levels to help keep the adventure from feeling repetitive. Though looking back, some didn't age well with the exception of Halloween Town, Agrabah, and Hollow Bastion. I felt that most were monotonous such as Deep Jungle, which has you constantly going back and forth between areas, Atlantica's barrenness despite its scope (and the swimming controls weren't that great), and Monstro, which I found was bland in execution. Still, I managed to find some enjoyment out of them, mainly thanks to the interaction between the party and the Disney cast of each area.
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Some of the interactions Sora will have with
the Disney cast are genuinely entertaining. |
Kingdom Hearts has some side-activities to partake in. These include finding pages of Ansem's Report, which details the villain's descent to darkness; locating different-colored "Trinity Marks", which grant hidden treasure chests and items; synthesizing powerful weapons and items by finding required materials; participating in the coliseum fights, which pits you against waves of enemies, including battles with Cloud as well as the One-Winged Angel himself, Sephiroth; and lastly locating all 101 Dalmatians that's are scattered through the game's worlds. They're all nice little distractions from the main plot and add a bit to the game's surprisingly brief runtime of 20 hours. Also, for those struggling in a specific world, the coliseum's always open for you to gain some experience.
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There's some nice secrets to uncover during the
game's brief runtime.
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Kingdom Hearts has aged well over the years. While it obviously isn't as fluid compared to later entries, it remains to be one of the better games in the series. Additionally, it manages to hold up well by today's standards. The colorful aesthetic also serves it well as many of the game's character models and environments look exceptionally well despite it being over a decade old. The HD release (which I'm playing) includes redone character models, improved frame rates (the standard 30fps for PS3 and a boosted 60fps for the PS4), and trophy and 1080p resolution support to ease newcomers in and give old fans a treat. If you're planning on playing Kingdom Hearts, then the HD remaster is the way to go as it offers a much more refined experience. Furthermore, Kingdom Hearts includes the official voice-talents from Disney's movies and it's amazing. It was a joy to hear James Woods as Hercules' villain, Hades again. Longtime Disney voice actors Tony Anselmo and Bill Farmer also lend their iconic voices to Donald Duck and Goofy, respectively. As for the soundtrack, Yoko Shimomura (of the Mario & Luigi RPG series fame) composed most of the tracks and it's simply outstanding. The soundtrack features both original and arranged tracks from various Disney movies as well. The opening "Simple and Clean" theme by Hikaru Utada is definite highlight of the presentation and remains a great listen many years later.
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Despite some lip-syncing issues, Kingdom Hearts
holds up decently by today's standards. |
Upon release, Kingdom Hearts was widely praised from both critics and fans and found that the odd mash of Disney and Final Fantasy to have blended quite well. Many praised the real-time action gameplay, colorful visuals, and soundtracks and considered them highlights. However, it was unanimously agreed that the camera and gummi ship sections were the weakest aspects of the game. Launching during the holiday period, Kingdom Hearts was a commercial success. It sold over a million copies by late 2003 and the game was even among the 10 best selling PS2 games of all time. In late 2002, a revised edition titled "Kingdom Hearts Final Mix" was released in Japan, featuring various improvements and expanded material over the original Japanese and Western releases. These revisions included new cut-scenes and an optional boss fight hinting at a Kingdom Hearts II. A direct spin-off, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, was released in 2004 for the Gameboy Advance. The much-anticipated sequel, Kingdom Hearts II was released in 2005 to critical acclaim. Kingdom Hearts even spawned a manga adaptation in 2005 closely following the game's story.
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Nomura alongside promotional artwork for
Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix.
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In 2011, Nomura expressed interest in bringing the series into HD. He later clarified that the original assets for Kingdom Hearts were lost and most of the game had to be recreated from scratch. The result was the Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix collection released for the PS3 in 2013 and on the PS4 in 2016. It marked the first time that the West had received the Final Mix content originally exclusive to the Japanese release. As the years went by, multiple spin-offs were released on various systems such as the DS, PSP, and 3DS. However, one thing that fans continuously demanded over the years was a third main entry, Kingdom Hearts III. In 2013, Kingdom Hearts III was announced to be in development for the PS4 and Xbox One. While it's been a while since the announcement Square has clarified that the game is finally releasing sometime this year, hopefully.
As a newcomer to the series, I was pleasantly surprised by Kingdom Hearts. I loved the premise as well as the charm of the characters and their interactions with one another. The gameplay was great and I'm fan of its real-time structure, which means you have to be constantly on the move. I've enjoyed the game's various worlds though I hope they would've added some Final Fantasy-related areas to balance things out. Square ad Disney did a commendable job with the presentation, voice-work, and soundtrack for the game. While its share of imperfections, I still found it to be an overall enjoyable experience. For fellow newcomers, get the HD compilation of the series as it gets you up to speed with the series' events and includes a plethora of improvements to enhance the journey. Veterans are likely to already have the collection in an effort to quench their thirst while Kingdom Hearts III takes its sweet time to release. Overall, I really liked Kingdom Hearts and I'm looking forward to playing to the rest of the series.
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| Still waiting... |
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