I played this game on a whim last year, i was kinda getting fed up of the 'Backloggdian Media Critic' mindset ive been getting into since it was making me not enjoy stuff i'd otherwise really like without a random critique getting in the way and i wanted a game to detox myself of that, something that was good but wasn't necessarily praised as being the top 1 media of all time, and thought to just play kingdom hearts
i was familiar with kh before, my siblings would play it and talk about it in a way that i couldn't tell if they enjoyed it or were shitting on it, and i'd boot up kh2 from time to time and try to get into anti-form in land of dragons cuz i thought it looked cool, but this was pretty much the first time i had a real playthrough
I started the game on proud cuz i heard the series was best played on the hardest difficulty, and i hated it, the combat was shit, the story progression was unclear, and i kept fucking dying to guard armor and clayton/stealth sneak.
i was just playing it so i could get to kh2 which looked way better !!
but i kept playing, and the game was still not very good but i was having more fun with it, then i kept playing, and playing.. and i was just hooked, getting more experienced with the combat and getting access to more and more tools really opened the game up and with the help of a guide i was having so much fun and found the game so charming and the game completely won me over, by the time i made it to hollow bastion i was hyped as fuck and shit.
the music, the atmosphere, the story revelations and twists, having your keyblade stolen by riku and being abandoned by donald and goofy then having to pick yoruself back up and start fighting with beast as you hold a wooden sword that deals no damage and can only cast magic. i was so enamored by the game at that point, and the riku-ansem fight was the cherry on top because, what a fucking fight. i was playing the game on the dream rod route so i barely had any physical abilities and had to rely on guarding, parrying, using leaf bracer to dodge, and learning his attack patterns, when i finally beat him i was jumping for hella joy, and the story takes a turn,
sora realizes that kairi had her heart inside him the whole game, and to release it from his body he stabs himself with the keyblade of heart, as he smiles as a callback to the first time he meets donald and goofy
and then you play as a fucking heartless sora making your way backwards through hollow bastion, the game was just not stopping the gas ! !
as i went to the end of the world (that's the name of the final world in the game) i started feeling a bit fatigued, the game started to reuse some bosses and the final enemy gauntlet was extremely tough, but i still loved this game, and when i finally finished it, seeing that final cutscene of sora and kairi transition to simple and clean playing as they let go of their hands
i finally knew, without a doubt, that Kingdom Hearts was light.