where to start? kingdom hearts has always kind of fascinated me as this absolutely insane idea to blend disney cinema with final fantasy characters and storytelling, an utterly bizarre clashing of styles that doesn't really work in the traditional sense, but in the kind of hot-topic mallgoth edgy snow white way that was very prevalent in the early 2000s. it's clearly chasing more of a teen demographic rather than a child demographic, with it's slightly more complex systems and labyrinthine narrative, but there's never really a point where it can transcend the strangeness of having goofy in the same frame as cloud, or donald saying stuff like "the keyblade" in that bizarre raspy voice.

but there's a charm to it all, especially in the segments that aren't just replaying a disney movie (although there is still a certain disney charm there too), where there's this earnest naivety, seeing the world through the eyes of a child and trying to break free from what you know into a wider expanse of questions and adventure, and trying to pick up the pieces of what is lost and turn it into something new. a game with so many twists and turns and yet it remains as simple as just being a story of trying to right by your friends, and forgiving those who've wronged you when they try their best to make it up to you. while not as impactful as something like final fantasy x (almost done that one too lmao) in it's coming of age narrative, there's still an ultimate sweetness here that i can't help but let carry me on to the ending, even through the variety of frustrations.

and by god are there frustrations. i'll start with some of the most obvious ones, the top of which being the horrible platforming which is relied upon far too heavily. while never really punishing the player too much for missing jumps (with the exception of hollow bastion my god), the platforming remains imprecise throughout the entire journey, and can just add to so much tedium in sections like deep jungle or monstro where the player constantly has to retry sections due to missing a single jump. there's also the ever presence of backtracking throughout the entire game, which in levels like monstro, deep jungle, or hollow bastion which also suffer from confusing layouts, can become hideously time consuming and grossly aggravating. there's also heavy difficulty spikes throughout the game, which i will say could just be me being terrible at the game, but especially in the ending section there were bosses that took me upwards of two full hours to beat. the gummi ship adds absolutely nothing to the game and just extends travel sections with mind-numbing shmup levels. the combat is fun, but lock-ons can be clunky at the best of times and i could never get the handle of healing animation times especially when facing multiple enemies that just shred your health leading to a simply overwhelming amount of times where it felt like the game simply killed me for no reason. there's a gem of something really interesting in the combat system, with it's mix of real time battling and turn-based style menus, but it never fully comes together leading to a system which turns more cumbersome than engaging when dealing with the more difficult enemies.

there's also the elephant in the room of what this project looks like in the modern day. as we've extended further into the multiverse industrial complex, i think it's really easy to look at this as a precursor to some of the most diabolical machinations of the current-day cultural machine. combining all of these marketable properties for brand synergy, hitting both the disney fan and final fantasy fan at once, throwing all of these things together to make a boatload of money. but because this is so early on in the obsession with multiverses, and because it does feel like it has a really distinct and idiosyncratic voice behind all of the madness, this never really feels like a spider-man: no way home (had to look up what that one was called) or the flash type of debacle where they're constantly pointing at things you recognize for a cheap dopamine rush. in the end, it really is that charm that pushes through it all and keeps me interested in where this all goes, no matter how utterly stupid it can all be.

I love this game. It honestly aged better than many people believed. The mechanics are fun. The world design for the levels are good and fun. Love the interactions that Sora, Donald, and Goofy had with other Disney characters and worlds and some of the Final Fantasy characters. A lot of abilities are fun and useful.

Though my biggest issue with the game is that the Gummi Ship sections are BORING and dull. It feels like a drag when going through it. I kept asking many times, when can this be over?

Overall, go ahead and play this. I recommend it for anyone who wants to get into the series. Try it out and have fun.

Perhaps a controversial take, but this is one of the better KH games. At this point, it was still a weird experiment by Disney and Square, and so hadn't yet become a victim of its own success - the plot was still comprehensible without needing to both play dozens of games across multiple systems and then read wikis for hours. The gameplay is mechanically much simpler than later iterations, but the core action combat is already here. The bosses are interesting since you get to fight a mix of Heartless, Final Fantasy characters and Disney villains, and the OG soundtrack is iconic.

Planted my flag in this series for the first time so while I don't have the nostalgia for the game or that PS2 gen particularly this is a good game. The story is not all that interesting nor is it nonsensical acting similarly to Final Fantasy 7 in the lead up to all the story revelations, we're not chasing Sephiroth but we are closing doors to protect worlds and the real plot is rumbling behind the scenes. Although it pulls you in for the final 3-5 hours Simple and Clean HITS when it happens. Some boss fights are great others are questionable the movement and camera especially damage the experience they clearly hadn't figured everything out here. Chernabog feels better to play and experience than Ursula while being functionally the same type of boss. Aerial combos feel wrong but somehow better than the modern iterations of this kind of gameplay like FF7 Remake (Rebirth fixes this hopefully KH2 does too.) I felt this keenly in the first Jafar boss. I didn't go for all of the super bosses or the real challenges, I'm here for the story and the experience more than anything. But the ones I fought were good to great feeling better and larger in scale like Weapons from FF7. While other Final Fantasy games exist in Kingdom Hearts for this one at least 7 is the most relevant to my mind in both story and gameplay. The trinities are such a good base idea and they're charming but the back and forth between zones was a little much like a metroidvania secret hunt at times, will be cool to see them applied in combat. Sora, Kairi, and Riku are all fine characters but they don't shine as much as any Disney character/s interacting between one another. I think as far as a kids game goes it expects too much of a player to understand what happens with Kairi in the opening and how that all spills out and is "resolved" in the final acts of the game especially things relating to family. I was hanging onto hearing Sora's mother (?) trying to call him for dinner for a while before I realised we're not playing that type of game. This games universe exists outside of that reality up until whenever these kids conflicts and hearts I guess are resolved. Until then I look forward to playing more action romps with Donald and Goofy.

wtf is this fucking rope section in the jungle it's been like 1 hour I'm not trying that for the 50th time. Platforming is so clunky it's horrible and combat is completely mid. The story seems interesting enough but the game just won't let me see it so fuck off. I'm not usually this salty but I was actually starting to enjoy it before this very specific moment, I found it frustrating but manageable for 3 hours but then it throws out this kind of shit ? yeah no maybe I'll watch a video abt the story on yt yhen move on to the 2nd game bc I hear great things about it. Eh I'm frustrated it seemed really fun

Dante Alighieri is actually a rotten liar because there's actually a secret circle of hell reserved for anybody over the age of minority who makes KH their whole personality. I'm a day one hater, and I hate fans more than I hate Disney adults. Yes there's overlap.


I just think it's badly written badly acted and entirely nonsensical and I think it diminishes the artform for existing. Like yeah if you're under 10 and want to watch Cloud and Goofy be in the same game that's cool I'm not unreasonable, but put down the ao3 the rest a yalls it's unbecoming of you