Kingdom Hearts
PlayStation 2
Nostalgia Factor:
I won’t lie to you and tell you that nostalgia won’t play a factor in this review. I first bought and played through Kingdom Hearts during a very memorable time of my life. I’d say this was around 2003. The game had already been out for a year or so. I had heard about the game, but not being a giant Disney fan, I never gave it much of a second thought. Then I saw the game on sale for only ten or twenty dollars at Best Buy. I was a Final Fantasy and a Square fan, plus the game was pretty cheap, so I decided on a whim to buy it.
I had just started dating a girl named Jessica, and she also had a PlayStation 2. One of the most memorable things about the early weeks of our relationship was playing Kingdom Hearts together and uncovering its secrets. To say that we were both completely engrossed by the game would be an understatement. We LIVED Kingdom Hearts. This was before the days of prevalent internet access, so when we’d get lost or stuck playing the game, we would only have each other to turn to for help. It was a bonding experience, to be sure. To this date, the first Kingdom Hearts game still evokes memories of this time of my life.
I’ve returned to Kingdom Hearts off and on throughout the years. I’d say I’ve played through the first game from beginning to end about 5 or 6 times total now. My most recent playthrough was around 2010 or 2011. The reason I returned to the series once again is because of the recent release of Kingdom Hearts 3. I know that the story of the games can be quite confusing at times, so I didn’t want to jump into the new game blind. I decided to go back and play through the entire Kingdom Hearts series as a refresher. This includes all the side “filler” games like Chain of Memories, among others. I have only played the numbered entries, and I know those don’t explain the story fully. If I was going to jump back into Kingdom Hearts, might as well do it right.
What better place to start than the first game?
Story:
I don’t claim to be any kind of Kingdom Hearts expert, so I am just going to give you a very brief recap of things the way I see them. The game starts out on a tropical island. You take control of a boy named Sora. His best friends are named Riku and Kairi. If you are a Final Fantasy fan, you will quickly notice that Sora and his friends share the island with several Final Fantasy characters, most notably Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie. Sora and his friends dream of leaving the island and visiting all the other “worlds” that are out there. One night, the island is attacked by a group of black, shadow-like figures known as the Heartless. A mysterious sword that looks like a key appears in Sora’s hand, and he is tasked with trying to fight these creatures off.
The island ends up getting consumed by the darkness. Sora, Kairi, and Riku are separated as they all end up on separate worlds after theirs is destroyed. Sora winds up in Traverse Town, which kind of acts as the game’s central hub. Traverse Town is populated by people that were dispersed when their worlds were destroyed. Some notable characters you will come across here are Cid, Yuffie, and Aeris from Final Fantasy 7, and Squall (or Leon, as he now prefers) from FF8. It is in Traverse Town that Sora encounters Donald and Goofy, of Disney fame. This duo had been tasked by Mickey Mouse to find the Keyblade master and to help him in his quest to defeat the Heartless. Well, guess what? You are the Keyblade master, and you are now stuck with these bumbling fools the rest of the game. Nah, they aren’t that bad... or are they? I guess it is debatable.
After teaming up with these two, you set out on a journey to visit all the worlds that have been affected by the Heartless, and to use your Keyblade to seal each world’s keyhole, cutting off the Heartless’ point of entry into those worlds. Almost all of the worlds you visit are inspired by classic Disney movies. Alice in Wonderland, Hercules, The Little Mermaid, Pinocchio, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Aladdin, Tarzan, Peter Pan, and Winnie the Pooh are all represented in this game.
Pulling the strings are Maleficent and several other original villain characters, who have been kidnapping Disney princesses in order to use their hearts to open “Kingdom Hearts”, some kind of mystical realm that is never really explained very well. Or maybe it was explained, and I just missed it. I don’t know. After sealing all the Keyholes, you head to Hollow Bastion to take these villains out and to save Kairi and the princesses.
The first game is fairly straightforward with its storyline. It’s in the sequels where things start to become confusing. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
Gameplay:
This game’s control scheme is a very mixed bag. Kingdom Hearts takes place from a behind-the-back 3D perspective. Controlling Sora, you run, you jump, you slash, you use items, and you cast magical spells. On the surface, things work pretty well. It isn’t until you really dive into the game that you start to notice its deficiencies. Jumping is very “floaty.” Judging the time and distances of your jumps can be a frustrating affair. This makes the game’s platforming segments one of my least favorite things about it. I’ve played through this game at least four or five times now, and I still have yet to beat Riku in the obstacle race at the beginning of the game. Towards the end of the game in Hollow Bastion, you have to fight enemies on high platforms. If you slip up you could fall all the way back down to the beginning of the stage. Very annoying.
The camera angle is also a point of contention for me. Normally I am not the type to complain about the camera in games. Mario 64 and the classic Tomb Raider games get bashed for their camera schemes, and I didn’t have a problem with any of those games. But in this game, I feel the criticism is justified, particularly when you are fighting. Kingdom Hearts utilizes a lock on system when you are in battle, similar to what you see in the Zelda games. The problem with this is the inconsistency in which the camera follows the enemy you have locked onto. Sometimes there isn’t a problem at all, and the system works exactly as it should. Other times, particularly when you are fighting near a wall or in close quarters, the enemy won’t be on the screen at all, and you will just be looking at Sora from some crazy camera angle. This makes fighting very difficult, and often resulted in my just jumping and hitting the attack button and hoping I’d get lucky. This happens far too often in this game. It is really annoying when you are up on a high ledge and because you can’t see where you are going, the camera causes you to fall off the ledge.
Aside from these glaring flaws, the game is really fun. It is an absolute blast traveling from world to world and seeing what kind of Disney creations you are going to run across. Obviously, having played this game multiple times, there weren’t any surprises for me when I played this game. But back in the day when I played this for the first time, it had me completely in awe.
Graphics:
Despite being 16 or 17 years old (wow, do I feel ancient!), the game looks really good. Of course, it doesn’t look nearly as impressive as anything being made today, but it still has its charms. The original characters are detailed, well animated, brightly colored and very expressive. All of the Disney characters look like they could have been pulled directly from their respective movies. The Final Fantasy characters look 1,000 times better than their PS1 counterparts. The Heartless look good, as do all the boss villains. Some of the bosses had me very impressed with their size and scale.
Level design is more of a mixed bag. At first glance, your surroundings look pretty impressive. Traverse Town has its own charming and welcoming look and feel. All the Disney worlds are instantly recognizable. On the surface, you could glance at Kingdom Hearts and say hey this is a good looking game. Just like with its gameplay, however, the more you play, the more flaws you notice. All the stages feel so barren, empty, and lifeless. Agrabah is supposed to be this bustling market town, but the only humans in sight are Jafar, Aladdin, and Jasmine. Really? Even after you clear out the Heartless, the place remains a ghost town. Wall and floor textures are recycled everywhere you go. While a level may look impressive when you start playing it, you’re going to quickly get tired of looking at the same textures over and over again.
Sound:
No buts as far as this category goes. The game sounds awesome. Each Disney stage has a remixed Disney song playing in the background. You’ll be grooving along to the music as you are playing through Halloween Town, Agrabah, and Atlantica, among other stages. Even the original stages, like Traverse Town, have catchy theme songs attached to them.
The voice acting is great too. The main characters all sound good. Many of the Disney characters have their roles reprised by their original actors. There are a few notable exceptions, like the Genie from Aladdin being voiced by Dan Castellaneta rather than Robin Williams. But hey, everything still sounds awesome
Okay, I guess there is a but coming. I don’t like Sora’s constant grunting and groaning each time he swings the Keyblade. A lot of his little sayings become annoying after a while too. A pet peeve of mine is how he says “thunder!” when casting his lightning spell. A small but, but I guess it is still a but.
Overall:
I may not have had as fun a time with Kingdom Hearts as I did back in 2003, but I still really enjoyed it. Right from the get-go, this game draws you in with its mythology. I wanted to know all about Destiny Island and the mysterious cave and the other worlds and the Heartless.
If you can look past the flaws in its gameplay, Kingdom Hearts is a ton of fun to play. I loved taking on swarms of Heartless at a time, and watching all the chaos that would ensue. When the camera isn’t screwing up, combat can be really fun, even if it does feel like repetitive button mashing at times. I wish your companions would have been more helpful, and I wish they didn’t waste all their magic right at the beginning of each battle, but that is something I knew about coming in, so it didn’t bother me as much this time around.
Things can feel a little repetitive, especially towards the end of the game. While I did enjoy the game’s story, things started to drag after a while. I was just like, come on – get on with it. Admittedly, I did get a little bored with the game around the time I was finishing up with Hollow Bastion. Luckily, the game ended just as it was beginning to wear out its welcome.
As far as total packages go, this game this game excels in almost every category. It looks really good, it sounds fantastic. The battles are fun. The storyline is interesting. I loved the mix of Final Fantasy and Disney. Yeah it has a lot of flaws, which I nitpicked to death in this review, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy my time with the game. Quite the opposite actually. I had fun!
If you’d asked me to grade this game back in 2003, I would not have hesitated to give it an A+. That is not the case in present day. I loved the game, but admittedly it has a lot of flaws. If it weren’t for the whole nostalgia factor that this game carries with it, I probably would have given it a B or a B+. But I have to factor in how this game blew me away when I was younger, and I have to factor in all the amazing memories I had with this game. An A- seems pretty darn fair to me. So here ya go:
Final Score:
A-
Now, I move on to Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories. I just started this a few days ago, and oh boy am I not a fan. At all. Hopefully the farther I get in the game, the better it gets. I am not holding my breath, however.
No comments:
Post a Comment