Kingdom Hearts
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 You'll never know who you’ll run into next
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Kingdom Hearts is an action role-playing video game for the PlayStation 2 developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) in collaboration with Disney Interactive, and is the only Kingdom Hearts game to be developed by the original Square company before its 2003 merger with Enix to form Square Enix. It was released in Japan on March 28, 2002, and in America on September 16, 2002.
There is also an updated version of the game known as Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, which adds additional content that was released in Japan on December 26, 2002, and wouldn't see a release in the West until it was included in Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix for the PlayStation 3 on March 14, 2013 in Japan and September 10, 2013, in America, which also included Kingdom Hearts: Re: Chain of Memories which was the PS2 3D remake of Chain of Memories on the Game Boy Advance. The Final Mix version of the game was later re-released along with the Final Mix versions of Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts 2, Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, and Kingdom Hearts: Re: Chain of Memories in the PlayStation 4 game Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 Remix.
A sequel to this game, Kingdom Hearts 2, was released in 2006. (2005 in Japan)
Plot
Sora, a young boy on the Destiny Islands, wishes to see other worlds with his friends, Kairi (also his love interest) and Riku. That day comes when the Heartless, creatures of pure darkness, born when a heart is consumed by darkness, attack his island and destroy his world. Sora can escape with a magic weapon known as the Keyblade and must now travel to other worlds with his new allies, Donald and Goofy, find the keyholes and seal them, and fight the Disney Villains controlling the Heartless and the force behind it all.
Why It's Simple and Clean
- Characters from classic Disney movies and franchises crossover with characters from the Final Fantasy franchise. While the idea at first does sound ridiculous by execution it's cool for various reasons.
- While it may be true that Final Fantasy characters do show up in the series you don't need enough Final Fantasy knowledge to enjoy the series due to the characters being portrayed differently and many of them being just cameos.
- Each Disney world Sora travels to has a different story and situation thus adding some variety to each world. For instance, Wonderland has you trying to defend Alice in court while Halloween Town has you trying to help Jack bring back a stolen artificial heart.
- Amazing soundtrack, especially the final boss theme, courtesy of Yoko Shimomura (who had also composed for games like Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Street Fighter 2, and the Mario and Luigi series, and has composed for every game in this series since). The music is also remixed in the PS3 and PS4 versions of the game for a less MIDI-sounding soundtrack.
- Combines hack and slash with RPG elements.
- The voice acting is amazing, especially Haley Joel Osment and Billy Zane as Sora (former) and Ansem (latter) respectively.
- On top of that, Haley Joel Osment's performance of voice acting Sora was the perfect fitting casting choice, since before this game, he worked with the movies Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump, M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense and Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
- Many Disney characters have their voice actors reprise their roles, such as Jonathan Freeman as Jafar, Pat Carrol as Ursula, Gilbert Gottfried as Lago, Jodi Benson as Ariel, Brian Blessed as Clayton, Chris Sarandon as Jack Skellington, and Kathryn Beaumont as Alice and Wendy. The same can be said about the alternate VAs voicing the existing Disney characters (due to various factors like the death of a respective VA or budget reasons of not getting anyone like Robin Williams to reprise a role) like Tress MacNeille as The Queen of Hearts, Kevin Michael Richardson as Sebastian, Jeff Bennet as The Mayor of Halloween Town, and Dan Castellaneta as The Genie.
- Fight against various Disney Villains.
- Customize your own Gummi Ship to travel to other worlds.
- Near the end of the game, the story becomes darker and more serious.
- A tech points system is implemented into the game where you're rewarded with experience points for exploiting the weaknesses of enemies and successfully defending attacks, thus incentivizing you to play the game better.
- The Olympus Coliseum is a great way to level up Sora.
- Sephiroth, the main villain of Final Fantasy 7, is present as an optional boss (who was added in the international and Final Mix versions of the game and includes his theme song). Other optional bosses include the Ice and Rock Titans in Olympus Coliseum, The Phantom in Neverland, and Kurt Zisa in Agrabah (who was named after the winner of Square's "Kingdom Hearts Name-in-Game" contest, which was held 2 months before the American release of the game), and Xemnas (then known as "The Unknown") in the Final Mix version.
- Moogles can synthesize items you find by defeating Heartless and act as a crafting system. The most powerful Keyblade, the Ultima Weapon is made by doing this.
- Scattered throughout the world are the Dalmatian puppies from 101 Dalmatians. Finding them will earn you rewards from Pongo and Perdita.
- Sora can work alongside several Disney heroes like Tarzan, Aladdin, Ariel, Jack Skellington, Peter Pan, and the Beast.
- Sora can summon various Disney characters such as Tinker Bell, Bambi, Dumbo, Genie, and Simba.
- The opening cutscene looked amazing for its time and still looks impressive today.
- The opening song "Simple and Clean" by Utada Hikaru is considered one of the best video game theme songs. It even got 2 remixes, Planitb (the version used as the opening in this game, Re: Chain of Memories, and Birth by Sleep) and Ray of Hope (used as the opening theme for A Fragmentary Passage in HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue)
- The version of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix found in Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix improves the texture quality and is rendered at a much higher resolution, making it look even better than it did back on the PS2. The two HD compilations that came after also took this approach.
- All versions of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix include new content, including a boss battle with Xemnas, the final boss of Kingdom Hearts 2 (called "The Unknown" in-game), or a secret ending (Another Side, Another Story) that sets up Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and is unlocked with a different method that depends from the difficulty, like the secret ending in Kingdom Hearts 2 and Birth by Sleep.
Bad Qualities
- The Final Fantasy characters' personalities are kinda messed up here, most notably Cloud from Final Fantasy VII, who was made much more of an angsty, brooding loner than he was in the original game (where he was surprisingly quite the opposite). This may be why some people think that Cloud is an "emo". Also, Sephiroth is depicted as being the dark side of Cloud when in Final Fantasy VII this is not the case and is kept as a villain for fanservice (or because the portrayers forgot why the way he was) even though he only descended into villainy due to his tragic origins. Vincent Valentine was supposed to be in the game but was cut out of the story due to how similar he and Cloud are in the final version.
- The controls in the original PS2 version (both vanilla and Final Mix) take some time to get used to and are dated by today's standards (for instance, you use the L2 and R2 buttons to control the camera and the right analog stick to cycle between commands). Sequels and subsequent rereleases rectify this issue.
- The Gummi Ship stages, while fun, were often criticized for ripping off Star Fox 64 and the ship levels were really slow.
- David Gallagher's performance in acting/voice providing Riku was pretty bland. Thankfully, he improves in the following games.
- The original PS2 release doesn't allow you to skip cutscenes. This is most notable during the battle against Riku-Ansem, which is preceded by a long cutscene that you have to rewatch in case you die. Like most other issues with the game, it was fixed in the sequels and the rereleases.
- While the Mortal Jafar form has a decent fight, The Genie Jafar Boss fight is disappointing and underwhelming as it mostly consists of attacking his lamp and The Genie Jafar form is not even stronger than a mortal form of Jafar.
- While it is nice that Sephiroth appears, the platinum match against him is unfair as his blade can kill in three hits, his heartless angel attack can insta-kill and his initial health is significantly higher than five health bars.
- The same can be said about Cerebus during the Hades cup due to having more health bars comapred to the first time you fight it.
- The original PS2 release had a glitch where, if you didn't activate the Red Trio under Oogie Boogie's Manor, the Red Trio couldn't be accessed, thus making the game impossible to 100%. This glitch has been fixed in the PS3 and PS4 versions by moving the Trio near the river.
- The camera often tends to not cooperate in narrow spaces and it's zoomed too close to the player in these situations. This makes platforming and fighting in closed areas harder.
- The Wonderland world in the Final Mix version is really confusing! Monstro and even Traverse Town are also very confusing too (mainly the former).
- Atlantica is considered to be the worst world of the entire game due to being very confusing especially since its a water level.
- The story is pretty complicated.
- The Clayton boss fight can be annoying to deal with.
- Heck, Ursula's boss fight during the scene where she becomes giant isnt any better as it can be painful to deal with if you dont know what you're doing
- The infamous scene where Sora makes a funny face during that moment when Donald said the ship only runs on happy faces which can be uncanny for some.
- Monstro doesnt always appear if you want to go back to find what you're looking for that you may have missed like chests. However, this is fixed in Final Mix.
- Sometimes trying to open up a treasure chest can be frustrating as heartless would still show up and once they do so, you can't open them during battle until they are gone.
Reception
During the first two months of its release, Kingdom Hearts was among the top three best-selling games in North America.
Tips
- The choice between the sword, shield or scepter at the beginning of the game influences both your statistics and when you'll gain abilities. For example, choosing the sword will make you learn combat abilities faster, but you'll learn utility abilities more slowly.
- The answers given to Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie at the beginning of the game influence how fast you'll level up, depending on the answer:
- The 1st answer will make you level up faster at the beginning of the game, and slower near the end;
- The 2nd answer will make you level up at the same rate at the beginning and at the end;
- The 3rd answer will make you level up slower at the beginning and faster near the end.
Trivia
- Bahamut from the Final Fantasy series was intended to be a summon in this game but was scrapped. If you attempt to summon Bahamut with a cheat code, the game will crash.
- Long before Kingdom Hearts 3, there is concept art of a potential level based on Toy Story. It was scrapped due to licensing issues at the time.
- Before Sora was chosen as the main character, either Mickey or Donald were inteded to be the main character.
- A world based on The Lion King was also another world intended to be in the game but was scrapped due to the game's engine not being able to make Sora as a lion playable. However, it was later used in Kingdom Hearts 2.
- Concept art originally depicted Sora as a human/lion hybrid with a chainsaw-like weapon.
- The story was originally going to be simpler but was given a more depth plot due to the belief of games with more simpler stories not selling well.
- The voices actors for Alice and Piglet in the game were the only actors who had worked with Walt Disney himself.
- Aya from Parasite Eve was intended to be in the game but was replaced by Aerith.
- Similarly enough Rikku from Final Fantasy X was also considered to show up but was replaced by Yuffie due to her name sounding too similar to Riku. However, her outfit she intended to wear was given to Yuffie instead.
- Irvine from Final Fantasy VIII was intended to appear too but was replaced by Wakka.
- Tifa from Final Fantasy VII was intended to show up but was scrapped dut to time constraints.
- At one point a world based on Gargoyles was pitched but it was eventually scrapped.
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