Entry #8: A Simple and Clean Intro to Kingdom Hearts

     It's rare for a game series to be considered part of my top favorites. It is always reserved for the games that impacted me in some way, emotionally or gameplay wise. Kingdom Hearts used to be a series that I have not touched in a while until recently of this year, and after playing through ALL of the games, I have made this one of my favorite game series of all time alongside Halo and Silent Hill. Its story was very intriguing, the gameplay was really satisfying, and the music was masterful. Before that, I remember buying Kingdom Hearts 2 for my PlayStation 2, and playing up until the midgame, in which I stopped playing, not because it was hard, but because I had no idea what to do next. Eventually I got the first Kingdom Hearts game, and played even less than KH2 because I couldn't defeat a boss that was hard for me at the time. After that, I hadn't touched the games until I bought the entire series on Xbox, and let's just say that I went on a journey, an emotional journey of friendship, loss, and the battle between light and darkness. 

    With that out of the way, let me introduce you to what the games are about. Kingdom Hearts, in concept, is the idea of "What if Disney characters interacted with Final Fantasy characters?" Pretty weird idea (Fun fact, the whole idea of Kingdom Hearts was conceived in an elevator ride with Disney and Square Enix employees, since they shared they were located in the same building)but it did work out, so much that it has become one of the most iconic game series of all time. As of this time, there are thirteen games. They consist of the main story and side stories that take place during or even before the main storyline. Even though the side games don't seem like they matter, they actually do, so you actually need to play them in order to understand what is going on (thankfully, the series is more accessible with the existence of the collections on current platforms). 

    

    The first Kingdom Hearts game was released all the way back in 2002 on the PlayStation 2. In the debut game of the franchise, we follow the story of Sora, a boy who lives on the Destiny Islands with his best friends Riku and Kairi. They are in the middle of building a raft to sail off to new worlds together, but then one night the islands are coated in darkness, and Sora goes to investigate. He then sees these dark creatures known as Heartless, and as he is about to get attacked, a Keyblade appears in his hand and he is able to kill them. He also sees that Kairi gets kidnapped and Riku is acting strange in an evil way. After the confrontation between Riku and Sora, Sora is then swept away by a vortex, where he ends up in a new world, a place called Traverse Town. Its at this point where he meets Donald and Goofy, and together they set off to find Sora's friends in different Disney worlds while fighting off the Heartless. It's a pretty simple story but it was a good start for a new franchise. It helped introduce concepts like the Heartless, Keyblades, and other things that would be relevant in the future.  

    Even though this game is called Kingdom Hearts 2, its technically not. The actual second game would be Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (Yeah, I know it must be confusing, and this is a trend for most of this series), but anyways, more on that later. Kingdom Hearts 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. It introduces many new characters, new Disney worlds, and a great plot that kept me at the edge of my seat. The soundtrack is amazing, so much so that from time to time, I listen to some of my favorite songs from the soundtrack. The combat is also perfected in this entry, with its very fast paced combos, along with the introduction of forms like Valor and Wisdom forms, which create variety in the way you play. Even though I really love this game, it does have its faults, because everything has to have a negative. I didn't explain any plot for this game just because if you guys want to try it out.

    One of the things that keeps people from playing the game is the storyline and the way Square Enix handled it. As I mentioned before, the way Square Enix orders the games is confusing. For example, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories is the actual sequel to the original, not Kingdom Hearts 2, and like I said before, this affects the rest of the series. This is why some people would get confused with things like when a character from a side game was introduced into the main storyline. Along with that, before the collections were a thing, in order to get the whole story, you would have to own six systems, which was ridiculous. The solution to this problem were the collections released for current platforms that had all of the past games. This makes getting into the franchise much better for newcomers, and it was especially helpful for me to understand what is going on. In my humble opinion, the Kingdom Hearts storyline is not confusing, its pretty straightforward. Some parts lore wise to the Kingdom Hearts universe might be confusing, like certain concepts, but other than that, it's pretty understandable. 

   To conclude this very in-depth but understandable intro (I hope), the Kingdom Hearts series is a game series that I was never expecting to play again, and when I did, I told myself "Why didn't I play these games earlier?!" Because of that, I consider this one of my favorite game franchises and I will remember these games for a long while. I hope you enjoyed my long but detailed blog about a Disney game with anime characters sprinkled in.