Nas reviews: Kingdom Hearts (Original)

I'll say straight off that I'm playing through Kingdom Hearts again on Expert difficulty, trying to accomplish 100% completion - at this time, I have done it. This was a very hard review to do, because there is so much to talk about, that as soon as I finish writing something, another thing pops up. Some of my thoughts may be tinted with how many times I've gotten frustrated at how difficult it's become, but, here it is.

Kingdom Hearts is an amazing, amazing game.

...

Wait, you want me to go on?

*sigh* Fine.

For those not in the know - Kingdom Hearts was an idea of Square and Disney, to combine some of the aspects of Final Fantasy and Disney characters and movies together. The result? You play Sora, who has his island/world destroyed by the Heartless - creatures and the forces of Darkness. Heartless are born from the darkness in peoples hearts, and people who lose their heart become Heartless - they, in turn, try to take the hearts of others. Soras friends, Riku and Kairi (main love interest), are scattered, and Sora searches for them. He is aided by a few things - the weapon he wields, called the Keyblade, which has the ability to defeat the Heartless and set peoples hearts free; and Donald and Goofy - yes, THE Donald Duck and Goofy. Their king, King Mickey, has asked them to help the one with the key, and that is Sora, the Keyblade Master.

Gameplay/Graphics/Flow/Voicework:

Fairly solid. It's intuitive to grasp what to press, and there is a short menu great for in-combat, as well as a more expansive one only accessible out of combat. Only a few times did the graphics lag on me, but it's always the same area, in the same place, and soon after it's solid. It's very fluid, very solid real-time gaming, but there was an issue of customization - there is very little opportunity or chance to change default commands, and very little wiggle room. Every button is set, if you don't like it, tough.
The game has a kind of way you should go through each place, but it does allow you to choose which world you'd like to do, allowing for customization at the beginning to choose your strength and weakness. Certain worlds have special conditions, but it's mostly self-contained.
Voicework for the game is incredible, and authentic. Most voice actors are the same people they were in movies (such as James Woods absolutely making Hades) or in some cases, better - David Boreanaz (Angel to you Buffy fans) as Leon worked. The original characters, with actors such as Haley Joel Osment voicing Sora, Hayden Panettiere as Kairi, and David Gallagher as Riku, sound real, authentic - I can honestly say not once was there a moment I felt any of them were phoning it in (unlike David Borneanaz in the beginning).

The F'ING CAMERA:

I won't deny, I had a LOT of frustrations. Main problem is the CAMERA. The camera angles are hard to adjust to (you need to use L2 and R2 to shift the camera left and right), and even then, it's very restrictive. Default is for you to be centered, and almost immediately, my first change was to go to manual camera, because automatic centering does NOT work. In customization, you'd think you could control which buttons do what. No such luck. While someday I'll do a review of Kingdom Hearts 2, the game is almost immediately helped by having the right analog stick as the camera - in Kingdom Hearts, you can't look up or down, and it sucks when you're stuck or you're looking for something specific. Yes, you could say select puts you in first person perspective, but you can't move around with it, so unless you know you're alone, you're screwed if you're attacked.

From this point on, there will be spoilers - you have been warned.

Story:

Let me put it this way - I came into the game thinking a giant oversized key as the main weapon was THE stupidest thing I've heard since the Gunblade. Halfway into the game, I thought it was the most ingenious. By KH2, I was even warming up to the idea of people cosplaying as Sora - and I HATE cosplay. I'll also let you in on a secret. I'll be a man and own up to it. Kingdom Hearts has almost reduced me to tears multiple times.

The storyline deals with Sora traveling from (Disney) world to world, finding the keyhole to each planet - with the Keyblade, he can lock the heart of worlds and protect them from the Heartless consuming the world, just like Sora's world. As he travels, he tries to find Riku and Kairi - only for Riku to end up working for the dark forces of Maleficient, from Sleeping Beauty. Maleficient wants the 7 Princesses of Heart - 7 female characters from Disney whose heart contains no trace of Darkness - and with their combined strength, they can unlock the keyhole to the Promised Land: Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts is where all hearts go, and is believed to be the source of ultimate darkness and power. It's also learned that Kairi has *gasp* lost her heart - yet, she does not become a Heartless, though is akin to a husk of her former self (... Isn't this a Disney game?). Sealing the Keyhole of places like Halloween Town, Atlantica, Agrabah, and a few new places made especially for this game, Sora and company travel to Hollow Bastion, to fight Maleficient.

Sora and Riku have a face-off, in which it's learned RIKU is the real Keyblade Master, not Sora. However, like all heroes, Sora faces Riku, and with a friendship speech in hand (there are a TON of them), wins back the Keyblade. After defeating Maleficient, it's learned that Riku has become one with the Darkness, and has a Dark Keyblade, with the power to unlock people's hearts - allow the Darkness to capture a heart. Through exposition, it's learned that Kairi's heart was with Sora, the whole time. So, Riku wants to save Kairi, even at Sora's expense (leading to one of the better fights in the game). Sora defeats Riku, but sacrifices himself to save Kairi by stabbing himself with the Dark Keyblade, to return Kairi's heart back to her body. As he's falling backwards, she rushes to catch him, and he dissolves into light.

I nearly bawled.

I could go through a very, very long and exhaustive detailing of the story, even moreso than I already have, but there's so much story to go through - however, the end involves King Mickey, all the characters, and Kingdom Hearts. I will leave you with the ending to the game, the other part that choked me up and made me blink rapidly.


Extras:

Chock full of them. You have tournaments, side quests, item creation, finding the 99 dalmations scattered across the worlds, secret trinities that can be unlocked, and even better, optional bosses that are far beyond the normal difficulty level - doubly so for expert. The optional bosses FEEL like real bosses, ruled by easily one of the best villains and character you would fight - Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7 infamy. He is a bad motherclucker who beat me 9 times - and I got frustrated but the fights were just so GOOD I didn't hold it against him, even if he was really, really cheap with Harvest Sin. The other bosses, I beat in the first time - Sephiroth whooped on me solidly and I just barely beat him. I will say that I do wish that there could have been some sort of reward for beating them, but I'll touch on that later.

Music:

If you haven't noticed from the above videos, the music they play is very, very good, and very apt. They used the right music for each level, and at more than one point I hummed along to it. It also really set the mood for the battle with Sephiroth to hear 'One-Winged Angel' playing in the background (it even offset the fact that Sephiroth was voiced by Lance Bass).

Final Mix:

Chances are you either know this or don't - in Japan, they packaged Kingdom Hearts in a rerelease called Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix. Included in it are more cutscenes, more items, more Keyblades to use, more enemies - basically an expansive and more complete version of the game. We in North America never had that option or the release. I beat Sephiroth - people in Japan beat him and got a keyblade called the One-Winged Angel Keyblade. You bet your ass I'm pissed. Kingdom Hearts was made a Greatest Hits game for Playstation 2 - why was there never an initiative to commemorate it with Final Mix? I've played the game 100%, I want more, but I'm in North America and I don't understand or read Japanese, I can't play the full game. I've got 80% of a game that I would pay full new-game price for 100% content. It's infuriating as hell and I'll have more when I review Kingdom Hearts 2 someday.


Conclusion:

Kingdom Hearts is about as good a synthesis that you can make with Disney and Final Fantasy. It is absolutely amazing, investing players in its rich story. If you're looking for violence or realism, this isn't it - it is cartoony, it is cheesy in some cases, but it's also one of the best games I have ever played. I know a lot of people who have played the game and have it hold a special place in their heart, by building on the love for Disney into a game that lives up to the respective brands of both Square and Disney.

I highly, highly recommend this game.