Long before Infinity War brought together all heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the shared universe mania kicked off, Kingdom Hearts did pretty much the same for Disney. In a bizarre yet briljant move, Disney and Square Enix joined forces to create a game that combined the magic of Disney with the dark anime storytelling of Final Fantasy to create Kingdom Hearts. While many may raise an eyebrow at a game that features Goofy and Donald Duck going toe to toe with Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart, the brilliance lies in the execution.
Kingdom Hearts is known for its dense, indecipherable story. While this is definitely true for later installments, the original game's plot is still fairly comprehensible. Sora, a young boy who is the perfect cross between a Disney and a Square anime character, loses his home world in an attack by dark beings known as the Heartless, and teams up with Donald Duck and Goofy to save various Disney worlds from said beasties, with the help of a band of Disney and Final Fantasy characters and a strange weapon called the Keyblade (which literally looks what it sounds like). Looking for Sora's friends and King Mickey Mouse respectively (the latter of whom, despite being Disney's best-known player, is mostly an unseen and enigmatic presence over the course of the story), Sora, Donald and Goofy go up against a conspiracy of Disney villains led by Sleeping Beauty's Maleficent, who have kidnapped seven Princesses of Hearts (most of which are actual Disney Princesses) that apparently have the power to open the door to the heart of all worlds.
KH's gameplay is fairly straightforward hack and slash, but includes a lot of RPG elements (customizeable weapons, items, equipment and magic spells) and, depending on the boss, some strategy elements. Although most battles do come down to mashing X, there is still strategy required - the three-headed hell hound Cereberus (from Disney's Hercules), for instance, has various attacks which all require a different response. One attack is best avoided by staying behind him, another by jumping on his back, and yet another by simply avoiding those all-consuming jaws. Whereas Sephiroth has a devastating attack that will surely kill you unless you use a very well-timed item. Still, the quick pace of the fights and the different powers and weaknesses of the many Heartless and Disney villains you encounter make for a thrilling spectacle. The boss battles especially - when you're fighting Jafar, Hades or Ursula, they really live up to the menace they are portrayed as in their source movies. The one drawback gameplay-wise is the much maligned Gummi Ship sections, which are required to reach each world. How the hell does a game with gorgeously rendered Disney worlds and action-packed battles also include on-rails space battles that look like rubber StarFox missions where you shoot at random polygonal objects? It's amazing that, even after ten games, Nomura still hasn't realized people actually really hate these segments. Fortunately, you eventually acquire a warp that allows you to jump to places you've been before. Frankly, I've never flown a Gummi Ship mission other than those required for the story. Apparently there's a ship editor feature, but I've never bothered to even look at it.
Chances are you'll enjoy watching Kingdom Hearts as much as playing it. There's hours of voiced cutscenes, and even after 16 years the graphics - since gorgeously re-rendered in HD for the ReMixes - still hold up, perfectly emulating the look and feel of every Disney movie covered in the game. No small feat, considering how good Disney's animators are. Even the stop-motion Tim Burton film The Nightmare Before Christmas (not released under the Walt Disney banner, but owned by Touchstone which is a sudsidiary of Disney) is included, with graphics that are appropriately darker and more realistic in appearance, to accomodate the stop-motion look of the film. Also, Disney and Square went out of their way to find the original voice actors for all the Disney characters in the game. In addition to Donald, Goofy, Mickey and more, characters such as Hades, Jafar, Ursula, Tarzan and Jack Skellington are voiced by the same actors as the original film. When the original character is not used, the official voice actor from the DTV sequels or adjacent TV series is used, as is the case for Genie, Philoctetes and others. Two actors deserve special mention: Kathryn Beaumont, who reprised her roles as Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Wendy from Peter Pan half a century after the original films premiered (you can sorta tell it's an old lady pretending to be a young girl, but who cares), and Corey Burton, the verbal chameleon who effortlessly mimics the original voice actors of Captain Hook, Flotsam & Jetsam, the White Rabbit and more, and who would go on to do the same in future games for characters such as Shan-Yu and Commander Sark. Characters original to the game, or Final Fantasy characters that lacked voices in their original games, are played by A-listers such as Hayden Panettiere, Mandy Moore and David Boreanaz (you know, Angel from Buffy). Special mention goes to Billy Zane, who plays the evil Ansem and, despite having only a dozen lines or so, steals the show whenever he pops up. Hayley 'I see dead people' Joel Osment is perfect as Sora, the main playable protagonist who is a perfect stand-in for the audience as he traverses one Disney world after another with wide-eyed wonder.
One small gripe in the graphics - not all cutscenes use fully animated character models. While important scenes have full facial animation, others use in-game animations which is just the mouth and eyes opening and closing. In the latter case, the movements don't match up with the English dialogue (the game is originally from Japan).
Musically, Kingdom Hearts is another standout. While each world has a standard looped field and battle theme (which can be a bit generalistic, but pretty good nonetheless), the boss battle themes are truly epic, giving a sense of dread and urgency when you're fighting the enraged Clayton or the terrifying Dragon Maleficent (one of the hardest Disney bosses in the series). Also, various emotional themes made specifically for the cutscenes showcase the extent of composer Yoko Shimomura's talent, especially Kairi's poignant theme and the orchestral version of the theme song, Simple and Clean. Ah, Simple and Clean. While I've tried getting into J-pop singer Utada Hikaru's other work and found it boring (I'm more of a metal guy anyway), her Kingdom Hearts songs are among my absolute favorite musical pieces. To this day, after finishing the game dozens of times, the ending cinematic where the song kicks in still sends chills down my spine.
Although it is now part of a franchise with its own ever-extending lore, Kingdom Hearts still works on its own as well. While very different from any other Disney or Square game, it finds its own voice - quite a feat for a game relying mainly on characters not original to its story - and manages to emulate the magic of a Disney film all on its own, and allowing us to hop from one childhood favorite to the next. While many scenes echoe famous Disney moments (such as Jafar becoming a genie, Clayton going after the gorillas, the Crocodile chasing after Captain Hook), every Disney world still feels part of a bigger whole story-wise, and the game deftly balances a dozen worlds and over a hundred characters into a grand narrative on a scale that wasn't seen again until the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicked off six years later.
Kingdom Hearts is known for its dense, indecipherable story. While this is definitely true for later installments, the original game's plot is still fairly comprehensible. Sora, a young boy who is the perfect cross between a Disney and a Square anime character, loses his home world in an attack by dark beings known as the Heartless, and teams up with Donald Duck and Goofy to save various Disney worlds from said beasties, with the help of a band of Disney and Final Fantasy characters and a strange weapon called the Keyblade (which literally looks what it sounds like). Looking for Sora's friends and King Mickey Mouse respectively (the latter of whom, despite being Disney's best-known player, is mostly an unseen and enigmatic presence over the course of the story), Sora, Donald and Goofy go up against a conspiracy of Disney villains led by Sleeping Beauty's Maleficent, who have kidnapped seven Princesses of Hearts (most of which are actual Disney Princesses) that apparently have the power to open the door to the heart of all worlds.
KH's gameplay is fairly straightforward hack and slash, but includes a lot of RPG elements (customizeable weapons, items, equipment and magic spells) and, depending on the boss, some strategy elements. Although most battles do come down to mashing X, there is still strategy required - the three-headed hell hound Cereberus (from Disney's Hercules), for instance, has various attacks which all require a different response. One attack is best avoided by staying behind him, another by jumping on his back, and yet another by simply avoiding those all-consuming jaws. Whereas Sephiroth has a devastating attack that will surely kill you unless you use a very well-timed item. Still, the quick pace of the fights and the different powers and weaknesses of the many Heartless and Disney villains you encounter make for a thrilling spectacle. The boss battles especially - when you're fighting Jafar, Hades or Ursula, they really live up to the menace they are portrayed as in their source movies. The one drawback gameplay-wise is the much maligned Gummi Ship sections, which are required to reach each world. How the hell does a game with gorgeously rendered Disney worlds and action-packed battles also include on-rails space battles that look like rubber StarFox missions where you shoot at random polygonal objects? It's amazing that, even after ten games, Nomura still hasn't realized people actually really hate these segments. Fortunately, you eventually acquire a warp that allows you to jump to places you've been before. Frankly, I've never flown a Gummi Ship mission other than those required for the story. Apparently there's a ship editor feature, but I've never bothered to even look at it.
Chances are you'll enjoy watching Kingdom Hearts as much as playing it. There's hours of voiced cutscenes, and even after 16 years the graphics - since gorgeously re-rendered in HD for the ReMixes - still hold up, perfectly emulating the look and feel of every Disney movie covered in the game. No small feat, considering how good Disney's animators are. Even the stop-motion Tim Burton film The Nightmare Before Christmas (not released under the Walt Disney banner, but owned by Touchstone which is a sudsidiary of Disney) is included, with graphics that are appropriately darker and more realistic in appearance, to accomodate the stop-motion look of the film. Also, Disney and Square went out of their way to find the original voice actors for all the Disney characters in the game. In addition to Donald, Goofy, Mickey and more, characters such as Hades, Jafar, Ursula, Tarzan and Jack Skellington are voiced by the same actors as the original film. When the original character is not used, the official voice actor from the DTV sequels or adjacent TV series is used, as is the case for Genie, Philoctetes and others. Two actors deserve special mention: Kathryn Beaumont, who reprised her roles as Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Wendy from Peter Pan half a century after the original films premiered (you can sorta tell it's an old lady pretending to be a young girl, but who cares), and Corey Burton, the verbal chameleon who effortlessly mimics the original voice actors of Captain Hook, Flotsam & Jetsam, the White Rabbit and more, and who would go on to do the same in future games for characters such as Shan-Yu and Commander Sark. Characters original to the game, or Final Fantasy characters that lacked voices in their original games, are played by A-listers such as Hayden Panettiere, Mandy Moore and David Boreanaz (you know, Angel from Buffy). Special mention goes to Billy Zane, who plays the evil Ansem and, despite having only a dozen lines or so, steals the show whenever he pops up. Hayley 'I see dead people' Joel Osment is perfect as Sora, the main playable protagonist who is a perfect stand-in for the audience as he traverses one Disney world after another with wide-eyed wonder.
One small gripe in the graphics - not all cutscenes use fully animated character models. While important scenes have full facial animation, others use in-game animations which is just the mouth and eyes opening and closing. In the latter case, the movements don't match up with the English dialogue (the game is originally from Japan).
Musically, Kingdom Hearts is another standout. While each world has a standard looped field and battle theme (which can be a bit generalistic, but pretty good nonetheless), the boss battle themes are truly epic, giving a sense of dread and urgency when you're fighting the enraged Clayton or the terrifying Dragon Maleficent (one of the hardest Disney bosses in the series). Also, various emotional themes made specifically for the cutscenes showcase the extent of composer Yoko Shimomura's talent, especially Kairi's poignant theme and the orchestral version of the theme song, Simple and Clean. Ah, Simple and Clean. While I've tried getting into J-pop singer Utada Hikaru's other work and found it boring (I'm more of a metal guy anyway), her Kingdom Hearts songs are among my absolute favorite musical pieces. To this day, after finishing the game dozens of times, the ending cinematic where the song kicks in still sends chills down my spine.
Although it is now part of a franchise with its own ever-extending lore, Kingdom Hearts still works on its own as well. While very different from any other Disney or Square game, it finds its own voice - quite a feat for a game relying mainly on characters not original to its story - and manages to emulate the magic of a Disney film all on its own, and allowing us to hop from one childhood favorite to the next. While many scenes echoe famous Disney moments (such as Jafar becoming a genie, Clayton going after the gorillas, the Crocodile chasing after Captain Hook), every Disney world still feels part of a bigger whole story-wise, and the game deftly balances a dozen worlds and over a hundred characters into a grand narrative on a scale that wasn't seen again until the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicked off six years later.