Long. Story spoilers present after a certain section, will be marked.

My most recent playthrough of Kingdom Hearts was on PC using the port released on Epic Games, however I have played every playstation version of the game in the past. I recommend playing the game on 8th or 9th gen consoles (except for Switch) or on PC using their respective 1.5/2.5 remixes. The PC version may need a bit of tinkering, but 1 is generally stable. I used a mod that reverted the color palette of the Heartless enemies to their original color schemes. Keep a guide handy if you ever get stuck, or want to accelerate your time spent.

For a first time playthrough, I don't have a strong recommendation for any difficulty, and honestly, anything goes. I played on Proud mode for all playthroughs on modern systems, but I can't say it is a much better or worse experience than on Beginner or Standard.

Kingdom Hearts (1) is the humble beginnings of a frankly giant franchise, and one that has aged amazingly and poorly in a handful of areas. It's also a game cursed from always falling behind its much more attractive sequel(s) in terms of gameplay. For those unaware, Kingdom Hearts is a simple action RPG that is also a crossover between Final Fantasy and various Disney properties. Expect much of your time on this game to be spent on the backdrops of Disney worlds such as Tarzan's giant jungle, the spooky town from The Nightmare Before Christmas, the grand Olympus Colosseum from Hercules, and more, but there are also a few original worlds that you will step foot in on the bookends of your journey, and throughout.

This game opens up with the player character, Sora in a dream sequence atop a myriad of mosaic towers, in which the game gives you a general tutorial of controls, but also a very important couple of decisions. The game presents you with a sword, a shield, and a magical staff, and asks that you choose one and rid another. I always recommend that you drop the sword, and pick up either the shield or the staff. I personally prefer the staff. As for a following choice, the game doesn't give you much details at all, but each of the choices correspond to EXP gain in early, middle and late game. I recommend just picking the middle option for all of them, or maybe one first option if you're only planning on playing the main story. While the vague nature of the questions and answers are likely intentional, I do not find that the options being concealed will serve much help to the player. Once your decisions are made, the game has officially started, and you will battle against some foes, culminating into your "Darkside", the end of this face-off will wake you up.

Once you wake up, you're introduced to the main character's best friends, Kairi and Riku, on Destiny Islands. This area serves as an extended tutorial as well as presenting our main characters, and for that purpose it does a pretty decent job. It sort of shows how you can use certain strategies to defeat enemies, how you should explore the levels in order to get what you need. Unfortunately, I also find that, whether it is your first time or your eighth time, this section just feels like a drag. Exploration and resource gathering in this game always feels like it slows the game down a little too much, as well as the emphasis on awkward platforming on occasion, and Destiny Islands is a pretty clear warning for things to come.

Finishing the prologue of the game on Destiny Islands will end with your arrival to Traverse Town, a cute little world in which much more of the grand scale of the world is presented in cutscenes, and you get introduced to more of the main cast. From here on out, the game opens up quite a bit, as you eventually pair up with Donald and Goofy and attain the Gummi ship to travel to new worlds. Combat is thus also expanded by gaining access to your abilities, equipment, etc. While this game does have very simple beat-em-up style combat, it gets a lot better as you progress in the game and get a handle on the things that require more than pressing the attack button. Learning to weave magical attacks into your combos will feel infinitely more satisfying than just spamming your attack commands on the bad guys.

Before you are able to touch down on these other worlds though, you must complete their respective gummi-missions. These are very simple on-rail shooting mini games where you must shoot your obstacles, whether they be giant space rocks, or flying enemies. You are free to customize your gummi ship using a multitude of parts that will bump up your capabilities, whether it be speed, damage, health, or more. To be frank, while having the option is nice, I don't really like these missions. They are a good change of pace, but they're just too uninteresting, and I just want to get on with it on subsequent replays.

Every world is played through at least once (Original worlds and Olympus Colosseum are often visited more frequently), and are all fairly straightforward objectives in which you traverse a presented path to progress the story. With the exception of a few, these worlds are easy to progress, and for those few worlds that aren't, I recommend using a guide. I don't think it spoils the fun if you're stagnating on worlds that either have confusing event triggers or other aspects that detract from your entertainment. Those worlds, in my opinion, are Deep Jungle, Atlantica and Monstro. However, if you're struggling elsewhere, there is no harm in using a guide.

Speaking of using a guide, I also recommend using one for post-game content, especially farming for synthesis materials. You are able to use some enemy drops in this game to synthesize items that may help you on your journey. This is a very well done mechanic, only further improved in future installments, but I also feel that many of the late-game synthesis items can have materials that are very difficult to attain naturally. One such example is a special heartless that has a low chance to spawn, and requires that you cast stop and hit it up to 100 times before the timer goes out. This requires very specific strategies and little exploits to be able to pull off consistently. Most examples are not this egregious, but they're not as simple as killing a random enemy either.

Post-game content as a whole is brimming with things to do. Not only do you have special heartless as listed above, you also have multiple visits to Olympus Colosseum to fight in the arena, with 2 super-bosses at the end. Outside of that, you also have 3 more super-bosses, one with very significant importance to the sequel. All of them are great challenges, and force you to play on their rules, and not your own.

Overall, I think all of the little things in Kingdom Hearts adds up to a pretty sweet experience, I recommend this game if only to eventually play Kingdom Hearts 2, but that means that this game by default gets a high recommendation as well.

Spoilers past this point!
Many people online like to say that Kingdom Hearts is a convoluted, complex story. While the extended lore is up for debate, I personally just find that it just has a lot of information, this game is relatively simple and straightforward, especially since it is the first title in a franchise. I like the story of Kingdom Hearts (1), it blends the rule-of-cool and fantastical aspects of Final Fantasy with the wholesome touch of Disney storytelling. A core criticism for each game in the series is that the plot doesn't move much during the disney worlds, but it REALLY picks up towards the end once you reach, one of my favorite worlds in the franchise, Hollow Bastion. The reveal that Riku has officially turned against you in Monstro/Neverland culminates in you losing your keyblade, and conversely Donald and Goofy since they did not wish to disobey the king. Teaming up with Beast and helplessly finding your way back to your friends through an assortment of strange puzzles and transportation means is a great way to take control away from the player, as well as giving the player more of a chance to get a good look at their surroundings. Once you fight back for control of the Keyblade, the world opens up again, and the sheer size of this evil castle can be fully contextualized with its sprawling, almost maze-like qualities. This is the peak of Kingdom Hearts (1) in my opinion, its such a brilliant location filled with powerful enemies and a a frantic soundtrack playing in the background. The first visit of Hollow Bastion ends with an epic duel between Sora and Riku, and while the fight isn't that challenging, it has brilliant spectacle and an immediately memorable music track to go along with it. This boss is followed up by the reveal that Kairi's heart was residing within Sora, in which he frees it by turning the keyblade on himself, a moment I could only describe as incredibly surprising on my first playthrough, as by doing so he sacrifices himself and turns into a heartless, just for Kairi. This event also sets in motion many moving parts in future installments, so I think it's fair to say that not only is this one of the most important events to happen to Sora, but the extended lore as a whole.

At this climax, one would expect the game to really slow down, but it doesn't! After Kairi rescues Sora with her own powers, they get forced out of the castle and have to regroup in Traverse Town. Once they develop a plan and muster up the courage to make it back, they discover that their greatest foe, Ansem, the Seeker of Darkness, has relocated to the "End of the World", a place where all of the worlds that are falling or have fallen into darkness end up.

Unsurprisingly, this place has the most dangerous basic enemies in the game, and while some parts of this area feel kind of lame (spheres coming down for battle arenas instead of natural spawns), I love how climactic this whole area feels. You revisit parts of all of the worlds you've been to, the music really signifies this grand scale of Ansem's doing, its all just so well done, and it all culminates into the final boss, a 4 phase boss fight where you finally tackle Ansem after he discusses his affinity with darkness. These fights are super dope, and all serves to cap off the game perfectly.

All of this to say, Kingdom Hearts 1 can really be split down in a way, the parts where its generally alright, and the parts where it is brilliant every step of the way. The last two worlds are unmistakeably in the latter camp. The end-game of Kingdom Hearts is by far its greatest strength.