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.

I first played this back on the ps3 and I wasn't able to really know where to go due to me being a child which engraved a more of a trial and error approach to how I finished it. The map, ost, characters, fights all repeated in my head in a good way
Replaying this recently on an emulator was like reliving a dream. Might be biased due to nostalgia but because of how long I spent on my first run every area and every minute of replaying it was like uncovering facets of my old experience.
Gameplay is fun and first of its kind back then so i give it that. story is... simple in this segment but overarchingly its long. Its a game with a childlike wonder that makes people who haven't even played it feel nostalgic (maybe due to disney but oh well)

This was a tricky one. At one point I took a step back and questioned whether I was actually enjoying any of this.

I’ll start with some of the things that contributed to this frustration. The platforming is stiff and unreliable. The camera is slow to control and rests so close to the ground that judging distance to enemies is tricky, which you then end up punished for if you miss a hit as a result. Plot progression in some worlds is trial and error, backtracking to every possible room in the hope that something has changed. The gummi ship building is the worst thing I’ve ever attempted to interact with in recent memory, and the world to world travel in the ship is dull. Combat against multiple enemies has you fighting the lock on and camera just as hard. The game can feel like an absolute grind, with worlds just chucking wave after wave of Heartless in each room (the things I endure to open a chest with a measly potion in it) - this wouldn’t bother me as much if the combat loop wasn’t so sluggish.

Ok I know a lot of this jank can be attributed to its era, and it being the first in the series. I’m also aware that the final mix version would’ve sorted at least some of these frustrations. But ultimately this is still a long list of grievances that often times hurt the experience, so why was I happy I held out to the credits? One word - charm.

Having never invested myself in the series before, a franchise where Goofy and Sephiroth can equally exist had never properly registered. And it is bizarre, but you quickly begin to see that it all fits even when it feels like it shouldn’t. The over serious ramblings of the main three newcomers are reigned in when you’re reminded that Donald Duck is there. Some attachment to the assortment of characters from both franchises goes a long way of course, where I found myself looking forward to seeing how the next introduced Disney protagonist will interact with the plot whilst still staying true to the confines of their character. This coupled with a stellar ost really made me get a glimpse of that wonder people would’ve experienced playing during their childhoods. Honestly, The Hundred Acre Wood track has repeated incessantly in my head, and I’m fine with that.

Some of the frustrations started to fade into mild inconveniences the longer I spent time with it. Really the race against Riku on Destiny Islands at the beginning caused more frustration than any platform section that followed. Each section after that simply felt like it was a slightly less irritating trial than the previous, as jump timing and wrestling with the camera started to feel more like something I could work with, rather than sigh about. The gummi ship building is completely irrelevant so I can sleep peacefully knowing I don’t ever need to take a YouTube crash course in how to add a booster. Towards the end I saw a shift in my perspective towards the combat, thanks to some great one vs one boss fights that force you to assess attack patterns, manage items and magic, and consider your space. This doesn’t soften the annoyance of some of those dreadful wave on wave of enemy sections, but it did prove to me that there is both depth and enjoyment that can be found here, and that there is a solid foundation in which future instalments could make something great from. Having heard the second main entry is said to feel more floaty, I’m confident that continuing to see where this series goes should hopefully prove less and less cumbersome, for I’m invested now, even if there were a lot of bumps in the road.

É definitivamente um dos meus jogos favoritos de todos os tempos e jogar ele depois de 22 anos me lembrou o quão revolucionário ele foi em sua época.

No papel, junção de Final Fantasy com Disney não deveria funcionar, mas aqui funciona e MUITO. Com mundos lindos e perfeitamente construídos para sempre apresentar uma mecânica nova, uma exploração diferente ou um inimigo com um padrão que temos que aprender pra poder derrotar, esse jogo marcou um belo início para o que hoje muitos amam em termos de mecânicas em action RPGs.

A história é linda demais, fazendo tu se apegar muito aos personagens ao longo da jornada, sempre apresentando nomes que já são bastante conhecidos por quem jogou FF ou acompanhou a Disney nos anos 90. Além de tudo, é difícil um jogo com um tema tão leve ter uma história tão profunda e séria, porém Kingdom Hearts faz isso com maestria, deixando sempre aquela pulga atrás da orelha.

Além de tudo, mesmo a jogabilidade sendo um pouco travada para os padrões de hoje em dia, não deixa nada a desejar. O combate é sempre empolgante, com mecânicas novas sendo apresentadas a cada passo e deixando a jogatina bem complexa ao longo do jogo.

Acho que no geral, um dos Action RPG com mais conteúdo que já joguei, tendo muita coisa pra se fazer no endgame, muitos segredos pra descobrir e tudo sempre acrescentando algo na história.

Além do mais, Simple and Clean é uma obra de arte.