Blog:Danetheheroofworlds' thoughts on Kingdom Hearts

Introduction
I love the Kingdom Hearts series. Kingdom Hearts 2 is my favorite PS2 game AND my favorite game ever. Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep is my favorite PSP/PS3 game. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is my favorite Nintendo DS game. The upcoming Kingdom Hearts 3 will most likely be my favorite PS4 game. However, said game doesn't come out until January, so I decided to kill time by sharing my reasons why I love every game in this franchise to the death. But...First things first, so let's start with the first game in the series.

Main game
Originally conceived as Square's take on Super Mario 64, the game is an Action RPG crossover game between Square's Final Fantasy series and many iconic Disney movies and franchises. The game features a Final Fantasy-styled plot centered around the clash between the forces of Light and Darkness, with Disney-styled locations (called "Worlds" by the game). Some people disliked this, stating that these two things do not blend in well, while many others (including me) think that they do blend in well and the Disney locations serve as excellent backgrounds and their charm manages to set up this game's generally lighthearted tone pretty well. Even though the story becomes darker near the end of the game, the two things still blend in well.

Gameplay
Like I said before, the game is an Action Role-Playing game that combines traditional RPG elements with hack'n slash elements. You can start a combo by repeatedly attacking enemies on the ground or in midair, where the first hits do little damage, but they can stunlock the enemy in place, while the final hit of the combo (generally the 3rd one) does more damage, but also pushes back the enemy, giving them time to recover, so that you need to plan whether you need to pull off a complete combo or run away and time your attacks well (mostly against bosses). You can also cast magic spells (taken from the Final Fantasy series), and you can start a combo with them, too, until your Magic Points (or MP) reduce to zero. MP are represented by a gauge next to the health bar divided in several sections crossed by a yellow bar. Whenever you hit an enemy, the bar increases and, when it covers an entire section, you get an extra section.

Like I said though, the game is a role-playing game, so there's experience points and levels. Leveling up grants you extra MP, extra health, stat bonuses and extra Abilities, which can be activated from the main menu and give you special bonuses such as being able to pull off longer combos, recover MP in certain locations or extend your moveset. Abilities however cost Ability Points (or AP for short), and, if your AP reach 0, you can't install new abilities, meaning that the player must choose his abilities carefully.

Despite how much I talked about the combat, the game never sacrifices exploration for fighting, and often stimulates you to revisit older worlds to find collectibles, treasure chests or Trinity Marks (marks on the ground that give you special bonuses such as revealing hidden chests, health and magic pickups or powerful items). Many of these are hidden in rather tricky positions, so, if you want to find every one of them, expect a lot of backtracking.

Unlike the Final Fantasy series, where you have an overworld from which you reach all the locations, Kingdom Hearts is set in many different worlds separated from each other. You can travel from one world to the other by using Gummi Ships in third person space shooter segments that are reminiscent of Star Fox 64. While the original release of the game gave little importance to these segments, the Final Mix version added special Gummi Ship Missions that you can play from the world map and give the Gummi Ship stages a good replay value.

Apart from searching collectibles, there are indeed some sidequests, such as partaking in the matches at the Olympus Coliseum, hunting for the special Heartless (this game's enemies) or fighting the many secret bosses. Some are original, some are taken from Final Fantasy, others are taken from Disney movies and franchises. Regardless, I found these bosses to be a good challenge and, while hard, they were never frustrating (except for two). As long as you have the right abilities, avoid their attacks and time your attacks well, it shouldn't be a problem.

Audio and Visuals
To be honest, I think that the graphics and the sound are not that important in games, as long as the game is fun. In fact, I find these two things to be just the icing on the cake, to quote another game in the series. Still, I loved this game's graphics because they manage to blend in Disney's charm and Final Fantasy's unrealistic setting (before Final Fantasy VII and VIII). About the soundtrack... to put it into words, it's easily one of the best soundtracks that I ever heard, surpassed only by the sequel's soundtrack. Every piece of music manages to set up the atmosphere for the context of the situation you are in and convey the right feelings to the player. The graphics themselves are amazing, especially when you think that this game came out in 2001, thus very early in the PS2's lifespan. The remasters of this game on PS3 and PS4, despite updating the graphics, still manage to capture the original game's mix of Disney charm and Final Fantasy unrealism.

Flaws
I had to make an entire category for this game's flaws. While the game is great and all, it shows that the formula is pretty rough and needed to be polished a bit (something that the game's sequels and rereleased managed) First of all, the camera control is mapped to the face buttons, while both the D-Pad and the right analog stick are used to switch commands in the command bar, which was already pretty dated back then. Also, the camera is hard to manage in narrow spaces and it's zoomed too close to the player in these situations, making it hard to clearly see your surroundings.

In combat, there is too much time between one hit of a combo and the other, which, if you're not careful, may give your enemy enough time to recover and attack you. The fact that later in the game your combos deal too little damage doesn't help. However, you can fix this issue by equipping abilities that enhance your combo length to be able to hit your enemy one more time.

Another problem is that you can't skip cutscenes in the original release. This problem is particularly serious, since there are many story bosses that may kill you more than once, and every time you die, you need to watch the cutscene again before attempting to take on that boss again.

Final Verdict
While the game is really good, there are still some flaws, many of which may be game-changing and just show that the game hasn't aged that well. If you want to play this game, I'd say to play the PS3 and PS4 remasters, since they fix most of the flaws that I mentioned before.