Kingdom Hearts

First of all, let me get this off my chest. I am jaded about this game. I am biased. I do not like Disney at all whatsoever. Its not like I have some sort of reason why, just it seems to me like Disney is for little kids, not for hardcore Final Fantasy gamers. This might be a result from seeing too many fan-drawn disney females, but that's something I keep in the back of my mind to never ever think about again.

We all know that Disney games always suck, period. The company "Disney Interactive" will probably never get higher than 3 stars in any review system, be it a web site or game, be it 5 star max or 10 star max. Translation: They do not know how to make decent, interesting games. Typically, Disney Interactive sat around doing platformers on the Game Boy systems. That was, until Disney signed a contract with Squaresoft and created Kingdom Hearts.



This game follows Sora, a spiky haired Disney-meets-crap-anime style character with a problem: worlds all over the universe are dissapearing because of some enemies called the "Heartless". Apparently, there's many different worlds, each one having its own theme, and worlds are slowly dissapating blah blah etc etc- getting the Final Fantasy feel already? Yes, the story is strange and somewhat complex, but Kingdom Hearts thankfully doesnt rape your mind with concepts like games such as Final Fantasy 8 tended to do. Instead, it gradually lowers you into the themes, and kindly helps you through the story like a big brother holding your hand.

The gameplay is the most original gameplay I've seen from Squaresoft since "Threads of Fate". You are in third person mode with two other helper characters, and you have active battles to fight enemies. Of course, you can switch between fighting, magic, healing items, etc, on the fly, and it never presents things too difficult for the typical gamer. However, that's kind of an issue in and of itself- the game seems a little too easy for your typical gamer, even if you purposely make it as hard as you can. Of course, I suppose you could always make the rule "No Magic", but that's like those dorks who tried playing FF7 with no Materia.

The game spans across a decent amount of worlds, from a water-ish world to a huge castle. The worlds are very linear, but they will usually give you some leeway as to where you go and what you do. The worlds look and react nicely, and never feel forced, but that's not too hard when you just design them to look like they belong in a Disney movie.



The real thing for Final Fantasy gamers here is cameos from FF characters of old. To name, characters like Aeris (They call her Aerith here because of a translation situation), Cloud, Squall ("Leon"), Yuffie, Tidus, Sephiroth, Selphie, Wakka, and essentially no-one else. While this sounds like a decent amount, I will note the only people in the game who have parts beyond saying "Hi" or fighting you are Cloud, Squall, and Aeris. Other than that, they could have spraypainted a fake Tidus on the wall, because that's about the depth of the other characters. I'm confused as to why it seems like Disney is doing jack s*** to design the game, but they have a 90% control over the characters in the game, while only about 10% of the other characters even allude to Final Fantasy. This might just be the Final Fantasy gamer in me, though...

When it all comes down to it, Kingdom Hearts is a decent game. I wouldn't say it contends to be Squaresoft's best work, nor would I say it contends to be worth the hype. It's a good game, but I've seen better, and I'd rather get "Better" when it comes to my hatred for Disney. Three stars.

3 star(s) out of 5

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