"Well, just as I was working on FFVII, Mario 64 was released. The fully three-dimensional spaces and the freedom you had to run around them had a big impact on me. When I told my colleagues I wanted to make a game like that, they said 'but Mario's already a world-famous character. It would be impossible to start from scratch with an all-new character.' "
-Tetsuya Nomura
(https://web.archive.org/web/20150725233103/http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/11/0)
-----------------------------
Intro
-----------------------------
Kingdom Hearts is one of the main reasons I got into JRPGs, I vividly remember getting into
the series with Chain of Memories on the Game Boy Advance and essentially
most of my childhood was me just playing that and Square Enix JRPGs on the DS (spoiler: Dragon Quest IX was the best one).
Front-loading with nostalgia here because I just want to juxtapose that with
where I am now where I can't help but think about that Tetsuya Nomura quote
about Mario 64 now that I'm sitting here playing through (and finishing) the first game after
all these years (I got Re:Coded when it dropped so I guess technically
I "played" this before lol) even though the only Kingdom Hearts game I've technically finished before
was Terra's route in Birth By Sleep back in 2015 funny enough (if finishing a route in a game even counts as finishing a game).
It's interesting coming back to a game series that is so open with just being a(n overly self indulgent) metaphor for
growing up while also very literally being on that threshold line of "I am young and there's time" and "Wow I'm old oh god".
-----------------------------
Gameplay - "Final Fantasy Limit Breaks with subpar stereotypical-licensed-game-type gameplay"
-----------------------------
Anyways Mario 64, wow they should have played that game more and took some notes on it while developing this one cause it's just so hard for
me to sit down and chill in a game that basically has painted rooms that have puzzle switches and
enemies dumped in to be honest. Kingdom Hearts kind of had to start somewhere and the idea of even making an action-RPG during the early 2000's is a position I could not even imagine being in. That being said,
there are so many moments where the game really does not care to even work on the core
RPG combat because there is so much padding with the level design and gummi ship segments.
Starting off with the world design I'll focus on the progression aspect of it and I'm just gonna be honest with you
there are Lego games that kind of beat this in my opinion. It's one thing to have puzzles/mini-games
when they add variety but it's another to basically make me run around and do chores all day because you just couldn't think of ways
to keep the core appeal of this game going and this becomes apparent towards the end when there's a lot of fighting
(to where it was a bit of a slog honestly). Right from the starting point on Destiny Island it is shown that finding items/people/places
is the main way of progressing the story which feels good in certain instances but to me there were just too many moments where it felt
detached from everything and was just busywork such as Deep Jungle where you are essentially just walking towards whatever area
has a key moment in the story so you can keep.
Going into the combat, one major issue I have with the combat actually is the level design that is used with it, it's at best just a plain arena
to keep fighting Heartless in and at its lowest it is just absolutely unfun and makes the aspect of this still being a bit
in the early full-3D era of gaming a bit obvious. A lot of areas in the game are just filled with obstacles but at times
you might have to deal with traversing levels in an area and the tendancy of the combat to prioritize locking onto a specific
enemy which can throw you frame of positioning in the environment completely off. It's one thing to make it a challenge to climb a tower
but if I can't do any of the sick anime combos without falling all the way back to the base level I'm going to just do my best to
either keep spamming magic or have to wait to get the enemies to be in a better spot. Another really bad aspect
of the level design comes when you have to fight and are either flying/swimming (in this playthrough I skipped the world that The
Little Mermaid takes place in but there's a small swimming level at the end still), from all technical aspects these levels suck out any sort of
fun from the combat. If Kingdom Hearts is a 3D action rpg that has so many abilities that rely on context with just you pressing the X
button, then why would they take away the most interesting input of aerial vs ground combat? It's a baffling decision that
just does not feel fun at all and while it doesn't take up most of the levels here, it was absolutely a slog to go through.
Speaking of padding, the gummi ship segments are neat and add some variety, but I'm really not gonna pretend like it went above "wow that's neat I guess" levels of enjoyment.
Like, I guess someone working on this game thought the segments were fun but they can drag on in my opinion as they are basically plain bread Star Fox 64 with an incredibly
low-poly look that absolutely feels like this was some small side game just to add something to do. I would say that it at least builds on the core action gameplay of
"attack and dodge" but still which could be used to justify the swimming/flying segments for the combat but still I can't say it beats just fighting with
actual variety.
Nowadays the Kingdom Hearts series is known for being an action-RPG series
that streamlines combat for a great anime/Final Fantasy-esc presentation and that was definitely the foundation set here. Besides
having "techs" - a sort of parry that you do when an enemy is attacking by hitting them at them at the right time -
you are essentially just running around and putting as much damage as you can into the enemy as possible when the opening shows up.
It's not bad, it's not insanely good (besides a certain second-to-last final boss that was fun), but hey it's alright.
It's not really too surprising that some of my favorite fights in this game are you just fighting some regular guy
(whether they be a Final Fantasy character, literally Sora, or someone with grey hair) when you take
all these elements together. If you boil down what you do in this game, it's pressing down one button but the
context of the enemies/levels in this game can add some variety to where you can utilize the movement or magic/items.
I'm not gonna pretend like I've played as many action games as I have JRPGs, but I think just based off of my experience with
Devil May Cry 1+3, No More Heroes, a bit of Yakuza 0, Metal Gear Rising, and Resident Evil 4 I think my standard for 3D
action games really is set by the question of "can I have a fun time by fighting guys in an empty room with some vague sort of progression" and this game
to me feels like it is on the lower end of that spectrum, especially with how the ending gauntlet leads into being
something like a Bloody Palace in DMC3.
This is really the kind of video game that would be ABSOLUTELY adored by people who
have nostalgia for it (or are here to poke fun at the premise in general really) in my opinion,
as there are some different gameplay flavors but none of them
really outshine the core action-RPG combat and just feel like small things to do in a game
to pass the time.
-----------------------------
Story - "A childhood rival anime battle between The Heart and Darkness (with a milligram of Star Wars), and whatever we found in the Disney vault clearance bin at Target"
-----------------------------
A lot is put into the presentation and I think the main rule here with the story is "coolness over logic". There's a very evident
rival story going on here with Sora and Riku but if you even remotely think about 1 or 3 details in the story it absolutely
makes no sense but also, this is literally a Disney game (but then again Kingdom Hearts means something completely different now
than it did back in 2002) so who cares that much really. I really don't think it's the worst thing ever to just have a silly dumb anime story though, but I will say
so far I just absolutely prefer games like KH: Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days when it comes to having a story that I actually enjoy
with each step along the way because those games actually bother to have intrigue/characterization over "SOMETHING IS HAPPENING" or "this is how the world works"
every time a character opens their mouth or just following the basic hero's journey guideline you'd see in a high school english class.
I think what really adds to the awkwardness here are the cutscenes and voice acting which can be awkward at times but is charming in its own Kingdom Hearts way (I'm certain if you are
on this website I don't need to show an example of what I'm talking about) which, none of the handheld games I grew up with really had voice acting
so that might just say something a bit but I do have a bit of fondness for how overdramatic the acting can get at times.
Square has kind of always had a deep love for Star Wars (or the tropes it uses) whether it was Golbez in FFIV, Biggs and Wedge, Empires, etc.
and Kingdom Hearts absolutely follows down that pathway in my opinion with "light" and "darkness" essentially being something like "The Force" but
a lot more in your face and constant throughout the world and less uh, interesting. I would also say the game goes on over and over about
"light" and "darkness" a lot but if you really think about how (most of) the Disney properties featured here have villains who are just evil
for the sake of being selfish or evil it really isn't that bad just you know, very simple and too straightforward.
Concerning the Disney worlds, I just do not care for any of the Disney worlds here
and I have always felt like they don't add too much to the story really. I like how in this game there are small moments of building on
the dynamic of the main cast like in the Tarzan world you have Sora and Donald still not getting along, Sora being put in his place
a bit and understanding he still has a lot of room to grow while also proving himself in the Colosseum world thing, and heck
Alice in Wonderland is about as perfect of a starting option of a world as you can get as Sora loses his home and faces a bizarre reality.
Sometimes it works with small moments, but in the long run it drags because you can tell part of each world is just summarizing what their specific movie/show/whatever
has going on to catch up people who haven't seen them and already we're working with a plot that really is kind of just basic. I will say
that it's just so obvious A Nightmare Before Christmas has the best world just for the mere fact that it actually pokes a bit of fun
at the main premise of the game, lovingly puts detail into the world, etc. Overall though, this playthrough didn't entirely change my
stance on the Disney worlds really, they just aren't that good and I think show a lack of creativity in the crossover aspect by being
literal stories crossing into the main story rather than taking risks like with Mickey/Donald/Goofy where they are entirely different
characters that have a base in their original incarnations when it comes to their personality. A good example of this also is with some Final Fantasy characters,
I think it's really cool having Squall/Leon be a sort of older brother figure for Sora (sort of almost like he's Laguna a bit but still the same old Squall)
and there are details of his character that REALLY reflect how he was in FFVIII but also he's still different that the character he was in that game
because this is a different series.
To me the worst part of the story is the last section around/after the climax, it's awkwardly put together and feels
like it was sort of an attempt to at least give the players the chance to do endgame content and maybe flesh some characters out a
tiny bit more but also it's just weird to sit around the same spot when we already know what we need to do to stop the main threat.
I did enjoy the ending and thought it was great, but it was just very obvious that towards the end the idea of having any sort
of pacing for a story was thrown out the window for just enemies showing up and more things to fight.
Overall, Sora's journey is fairly simple (lol) but I think it was at least pretty neat, he's just a kid facing literal
Disney villains (and one anime nihilist) and obviously they set up something for a sequel if this did well, but I really don't think "light" and "darkness"
are too complex here besides very much being literal symbolic devices that just show up a bunch.
-----------------------------
Conclusion
-----------------------------
If the PS1 FF games were an investment on 3D tech to make battles flashy (even with the continued FFIV ATB system), cutscenes that hit harder, and music to be more involved with the scenario then Kingdom Hearts
builds on that lineage with fun button mashing anime action, voice acted scenes with big dramatic moments with rivals/villains, and music that weaves
in and out of the state of the game to where battles blend with traversal. I will be honest I started writing this review with the Nomura quote about Mario 64 to show how Kingdom Hearts
was absolutely the complete opposite of that with almost no sort of exploration in a 3D space besides basic set pieces, but I'd say honestly while that's a criticism I have
with this game there's at least a bit of freedom in expression in combat that works with the 3D space. Instead of Square's RPG mechanics and action being limited to separate states in a game system,
they blend in as one in a space with the player having options to express said action and that's at least an obvious goal this game had that I think it accomplished pretty well even if it is hidden
behind boxes of lazy/mediocre game design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqTd7YZ8cu4
-Tetsuya Nomura
(https://web.archive.org/web/20150725233103/http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/11/0)
-----------------------------
Intro
-----------------------------
Kingdom Hearts is one of the main reasons I got into JRPGs, I vividly remember getting into
the series with Chain of Memories on the Game Boy Advance and essentially
most of my childhood was me just playing that and Square Enix JRPGs on the DS (spoiler: Dragon Quest IX was the best one).
Front-loading with nostalgia here because I just want to juxtapose that with
where I am now where I can't help but think about that Tetsuya Nomura quote
about Mario 64 now that I'm sitting here playing through (and finishing) the first game after
all these years (I got Re:Coded when it dropped so I guess technically
I "played" this before lol) even though the only Kingdom Hearts game I've technically finished before
was Terra's route in Birth By Sleep back in 2015 funny enough (if finishing a route in a game even counts as finishing a game).
It's interesting coming back to a game series that is so open with just being a(n overly self indulgent) metaphor for
growing up while also very literally being on that threshold line of "I am young and there's time" and "Wow I'm old oh god".
-----------------------------
Gameplay - "Final Fantasy Limit Breaks with subpar stereotypical-licensed-game-type gameplay"
-----------------------------
Anyways Mario 64, wow they should have played that game more and took some notes on it while developing this one cause it's just so hard for
me to sit down and chill in a game that basically has painted rooms that have puzzle switches and
enemies dumped in to be honest. Kingdom Hearts kind of had to start somewhere and the idea of even making an action-RPG during the early 2000's is a position I could not even imagine being in. That being said,
there are so many moments where the game really does not care to even work on the core
RPG combat because there is so much padding with the level design and gummi ship segments.
Starting off with the world design I'll focus on the progression aspect of it and I'm just gonna be honest with you
there are Lego games that kind of beat this in my opinion. It's one thing to have puzzles/mini-games
when they add variety but it's another to basically make me run around and do chores all day because you just couldn't think of ways
to keep the core appeal of this game going and this becomes apparent towards the end when there's a lot of fighting
(to where it was a bit of a slog honestly). Right from the starting point on Destiny Island it is shown that finding items/people/places
is the main way of progressing the story which feels good in certain instances but to me there were just too many moments where it felt
detached from everything and was just busywork such as Deep Jungle where you are essentially just walking towards whatever area
has a key moment in the story so you can keep.
Going into the combat, one major issue I have with the combat actually is the level design that is used with it, it's at best just a plain arena
to keep fighting Heartless in and at its lowest it is just absolutely unfun and makes the aspect of this still being a bit
in the early full-3D era of gaming a bit obvious. A lot of areas in the game are just filled with obstacles but at times
you might have to deal with traversing levels in an area and the tendancy of the combat to prioritize locking onto a specific
enemy which can throw you frame of positioning in the environment completely off. It's one thing to make it a challenge to climb a tower
but if I can't do any of the sick anime combos without falling all the way back to the base level I'm going to just do my best to
either keep spamming magic or have to wait to get the enemies to be in a better spot. Another really bad aspect
of the level design comes when you have to fight and are either flying/swimming (in this playthrough I skipped the world that The
Little Mermaid takes place in but there's a small swimming level at the end still), from all technical aspects these levels suck out any sort of
fun from the combat. If Kingdom Hearts is a 3D action rpg that has so many abilities that rely on context with just you pressing the X
button, then why would they take away the most interesting input of aerial vs ground combat? It's a baffling decision that
just does not feel fun at all and while it doesn't take up most of the levels here, it was absolutely a slog to go through.
Speaking of padding, the gummi ship segments are neat and add some variety, but I'm really not gonna pretend like it went above "wow that's neat I guess" levels of enjoyment.
Like, I guess someone working on this game thought the segments were fun but they can drag on in my opinion as they are basically plain bread Star Fox 64 with an incredibly
low-poly look that absolutely feels like this was some small side game just to add something to do. I would say that it at least builds on the core action gameplay of
"attack and dodge" but still which could be used to justify the swimming/flying segments for the combat but still I can't say it beats just fighting with
actual variety.
Nowadays the Kingdom Hearts series is known for being an action-RPG series
that streamlines combat for a great anime/Final Fantasy-esc presentation and that was definitely the foundation set here. Besides
having "techs" - a sort of parry that you do when an enemy is attacking by hitting them at them at the right time -
you are essentially just running around and putting as much damage as you can into the enemy as possible when the opening shows up.
It's not bad, it's not insanely good (besides a certain second-to-last final boss that was fun), but hey it's alright.
It's not really too surprising that some of my favorite fights in this game are you just fighting some regular guy
(whether they be a Final Fantasy character, literally Sora, or someone with grey hair) when you take
all these elements together. If you boil down what you do in this game, it's pressing down one button but the
context of the enemies/levels in this game can add some variety to where you can utilize the movement or magic/items.
I'm not gonna pretend like I've played as many action games as I have JRPGs, but I think just based off of my experience with
Devil May Cry 1+3, No More Heroes, a bit of Yakuza 0, Metal Gear Rising, and Resident Evil 4 I think my standard for 3D
action games really is set by the question of "can I have a fun time by fighting guys in an empty room with some vague sort of progression" and this game
to me feels like it is on the lower end of that spectrum, especially with how the ending gauntlet leads into being
something like a Bloody Palace in DMC3.
This is really the kind of video game that would be ABSOLUTELY adored by people who
have nostalgia for it (or are here to poke fun at the premise in general really) in my opinion,
as there are some different gameplay flavors but none of them
really outshine the core action-RPG combat and just feel like small things to do in a game
to pass the time.
-----------------------------
Story - "A childhood rival anime battle between The Heart and Darkness (with a milligram of Star Wars), and whatever we found in the Disney vault clearance bin at Target"
-----------------------------
A lot is put into the presentation and I think the main rule here with the story is "coolness over logic". There's a very evident
rival story going on here with Sora and Riku but if you even remotely think about 1 or 3 details in the story it absolutely
makes no sense but also, this is literally a Disney game (but then again Kingdom Hearts means something completely different now
than it did back in 2002) so who cares that much really. I really don't think it's the worst thing ever to just have a silly dumb anime story though, but I will say
so far I just absolutely prefer games like KH: Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days when it comes to having a story that I actually enjoy
with each step along the way because those games actually bother to have intrigue/characterization over "SOMETHING IS HAPPENING" or "this is how the world works"
every time a character opens their mouth or just following the basic hero's journey guideline you'd see in a high school english class.
I think what really adds to the awkwardness here are the cutscenes and voice acting which can be awkward at times but is charming in its own Kingdom Hearts way (I'm certain if you are
on this website I don't need to show an example of what I'm talking about) which, none of the handheld games I grew up with really had voice acting
so that might just say something a bit but I do have a bit of fondness for how overdramatic the acting can get at times.
Square has kind of always had a deep love for Star Wars (or the tropes it uses) whether it was Golbez in FFIV, Biggs and Wedge, Empires, etc.
and Kingdom Hearts absolutely follows down that pathway in my opinion with "light" and "darkness" essentially being something like "The Force" but
a lot more in your face and constant throughout the world and less uh, interesting. I would also say the game goes on over and over about
"light" and "darkness" a lot but if you really think about how (most of) the Disney properties featured here have villains who are just evil
for the sake of being selfish or evil it really isn't that bad just you know, very simple and too straightforward.
Concerning the Disney worlds, I just do not care for any of the Disney worlds here
and I have always felt like they don't add too much to the story really. I like how in this game there are small moments of building on
the dynamic of the main cast like in the Tarzan world you have Sora and Donald still not getting along, Sora being put in his place
a bit and understanding he still has a lot of room to grow while also proving himself in the Colosseum world thing, and heck
Alice in Wonderland is about as perfect of a starting option of a world as you can get as Sora loses his home and faces a bizarre reality.
Sometimes it works with small moments, but in the long run it drags because you can tell part of each world is just summarizing what their specific movie/show/whatever
has going on to catch up people who haven't seen them and already we're working with a plot that really is kind of just basic. I will say
that it's just so obvious A Nightmare Before Christmas has the best world just for the mere fact that it actually pokes a bit of fun
at the main premise of the game, lovingly puts detail into the world, etc. Overall though, this playthrough didn't entirely change my
stance on the Disney worlds really, they just aren't that good and I think show a lack of creativity in the crossover aspect by being
literal stories crossing into the main story rather than taking risks like with Mickey/Donald/Goofy where they are entirely different
characters that have a base in their original incarnations when it comes to their personality. A good example of this also is with some Final Fantasy characters,
I think it's really cool having Squall/Leon be a sort of older brother figure for Sora (sort of almost like he's Laguna a bit but still the same old Squall)
and there are details of his character that REALLY reflect how he was in FFVIII but also he's still different that the character he was in that game
because this is a different series.
To me the worst part of the story is the last section around/after the climax, it's awkwardly put together and feels
like it was sort of an attempt to at least give the players the chance to do endgame content and maybe flesh some characters out a
tiny bit more but also it's just weird to sit around the same spot when we already know what we need to do to stop the main threat.
I did enjoy the ending and thought it was great, but it was just very obvious that towards the end the idea of having any sort
of pacing for a story was thrown out the window for just enemies showing up and more things to fight.
Overall, Sora's journey is fairly simple (lol) but I think it was at least pretty neat, he's just a kid facing literal
Disney villains (and one anime nihilist) and obviously they set up something for a sequel if this did well, but I really don't think "light" and "darkness"
are too complex here besides very much being literal symbolic devices that just show up a bunch.
-----------------------------
Conclusion
-----------------------------
If the PS1 FF games were an investment on 3D tech to make battles flashy (even with the continued FFIV ATB system), cutscenes that hit harder, and music to be more involved with the scenario then Kingdom Hearts
builds on that lineage with fun button mashing anime action, voice acted scenes with big dramatic moments with rivals/villains, and music that weaves
in and out of the state of the game to where battles blend with traversal. I will be honest I started writing this review with the Nomura quote about Mario 64 to show how Kingdom Hearts
was absolutely the complete opposite of that with almost no sort of exploration in a 3D space besides basic set pieces, but I'd say honestly while that's a criticism I have
with this game there's at least a bit of freedom in expression in combat that works with the 3D space. Instead of Square's RPG mechanics and action being limited to separate states in a game system,
they blend in as one in a space with the player having options to express said action and that's at least an obvious goal this game had that I think it accomplished pretty well even if it is hidden
behind boxes of lazy/mediocre game design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqTd7YZ8cu4
2 Comments
@Dalaamclouds thank you!
Dalaamclouds
10 months ago