As a kid who, 1. was obsessed with a little Goofy doll as a small child, and 2. became rapidly enamoured with the Final Fantasy series after I got my hands on FF7 as a 6 year old, the hotly anticipated release of Kingdom Hearts felt as if God had looked inside my mind and decided to grant me a wish for being so epic. To this day I love the feeling of bashing people with a big key (in Kingdom Hearts). The combat still feels fluid and extremely satisfying even with the retroactive comparison to more polished later games, which is really nice. The collecting and unlocking (heh) is perfect (I love reuniting an endless sequence of puppies and being given gummies for doing so). Also I love that Clayton from Tarzan is absolutely ready to shoot a young boy at any moment. Other people might have magical or fantasy-infused weapons, but Clayton has shotgun. Good for him.

I never really thought that the plot of this game was all that weird growing up, but to be honest, hearing Donald Duck go "BWTWTUIWTUIWTYWTYTAUHagJAGH" during emotionally heavier scenes is deeply funny, and Mickey Mouse showing up for one second at the end to go "yeah idk close this door on me I guess, see ya" is undeniably a shocking moment. Too much for my little heart.

Anyway this game is iconic and perfect. Thank you.