Video Game Review: Kingdom Hearts (thoughts on my replay of the game, and a review & recommendation)

[juushika]

I just finished replaying the first Kingdom Hearts game, and am currently deciding between continuing with (ported) Chain of Memories or a replay of Kingdom Hearts II. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the pleasant glow that comes with completing a really good video game. And true to my over-analytical form, I come with some thoughts on the game, and how it was to replay it.

Kingdom Hearts was the second console game and RPG that I ever played (the first was Final Fantasy X, which I've also loved and replayed). I played it for the first time some years ago (just after it came out, I believe), never played Chain of Memories (as I don't own a GBA), and played KHII as soon as it was released. I loved both games, but I noticed a gap in information—years had passed since playing the first game, and since I'd never played the sequel, I was missing a lot of information coming into the first game. Granted, KHII is playable under those circumstances, but they aren't ideal. So it made sense to come back to the first game—and, well, it's a great game in its own right, and warrants replay.

For those that don't know, Kingdom Hearts is about a young boy named Sora. He begins on Destiny Island, and has two close friends, Riku, an older male who has always been his competition, and Kairi, a female that often becomes the source of contention for his friendly battles with Riku. The three of them dream about leaving Destiny Island for the greater worlds beyond, but their dreams become reality when their island disappears into the darkness, scattering them on the worlds beyond. Sora awakens in a world-between-worlds called Traverse Town and soon teams up with Goofy and Donald, who have been sent by their King Mickey to track to find the Key: a magical weapon that holds the power to fight the darkness, and to save and seal the worlds threatened by the darkness. Sora is the Keyblade Master, and together the three go off to discover and seal new worlds, and to try to find Riku and Kairi. It's an RPG with real-time "slash and hack" action battles, and a combined effort of Square (who contribute a plot worthy of Final Fantasy and many FF cameos) and Disney (who contribute many character designs and the worlds that Sora and his friends visit).

The two things that stuck out to me on this replay was how much they changed and improved in making KHII and how much more fulfilling the replay was, both in terms of the game and the plot. KHII is full of funny little bugs—selecting worlds on the map is a pain, and you sometimes have to trick the controller into going to the last two worlds; summons are clunky, difficult, and particularly useless; with a few exceptions, battles are won by button mashing, and there aren't many smart tricks to use or weaknesses to exploit; the Gummi ship system is at once brilliant and painfully difficult to use; the camera controls are horrible, as the cam is controlled by the wing buttons and the cam gets stuck on solid objects. So while the game is brilliant—and it is—it can be frustrating to play, especially when you can't get your ship wormed down to the final worlds or when you're trying to retrieve items and the finicky camera makes it difficult to see them. The creators did an astounding job finding and resolving many of these gameplay issues with the sequel, smoothing out the controls and creating a more intelligent gameplay. It very much makes me appreciate the effort that it takes to get things right, and makes the sequel all the more valuable to me as a player.

That said, despite the frustrations, I had a blast replaying the game. It's been a few years, and so while the plot wasn't new to me, it was both a wonderful nostalgic trip and a lot of information that I had forgotten. But what really made this playthrough unique for me is that I spent more time with the minigames and side quests, which made for a much more complete and entertaining game. I collected all of the dalmatian puppies (the 99 puppies from 101 Dalmations get scattered through the worlds, and you release them from locked chests), I synthesized items, I even fought through the awful controls and built myself a custom Gummi ship.

In fact, I had so much fun with the Gummi ship that it became one of my big quests. I even finished collecting the dalmations for my Gummi (find all 99, and you get the complete Gummi block collection). I had so much fun with it that I have pictures. See?


The Redgrave (because I named my ship, too) has a basic gun (because having tried them all, it's my favorite with it's simple rapid fire), a deluxe lazer, a full-ship shield, a sensor and a detector, dual low-power compact engines (because I discovered I actually like to fly slow), twin baskets for collecting outlying objects, the best wings and a pair for fine adjustments, a deluxe cockpit for refueling energy and armor, and a healthy three-star shield of the best armor in the game. Oh, and she's custom painted white and gray, the least-offensive colors in the spray palette.

Oh yeah. She's that cool.

And the kicker is, of course, that you can play the entire game without making a single upgrade (outside of those dictated by plot) to your ship, and have no problem driving it. You don't even need to drive it that much. But if you want to build your Gummi ship, well then you can, and it's quite fun. Little sidequests and minigames and similar touches have worked well in Final Fantasy games, and they work equally well here. Some of them (like synthesized items, Coliseum cups, and stat-increasing items) make battles easier and more enjoyable. Some of them just lead you on a lot of jump, climb, and glide missions through the maps. And despite indulging in quite a few of them (enough to win the special secret "Another Side, Another Story" ending this time, as well), my total gameplay was only 40 hours. I consider that to be at the low end of the RPG game length—they usually range between 40-60 hours to completion.

There were definitely some annoyances, but I was incredibly pleased with this replay of Kindgom Hearts. The story, plot, and characters speak for themselves: they are all at once idealistic and realistic, with sights set on concepts such as the Heart of Hearts, Light, and Darkness while struggling through the personal issues of identity, belief, choice, and fidelity. The combination of Square and Disney is remarkable and unexpected—it's a bit foolish and exaggerated, but the plot and the characters still bring it back to the realm of delicate and nuanced. The gameplay is fun, and a friendly mesh of RPG and action, which means that it works well for players that rarely stray beyond RPGs and/or are somewhat lacking in manual dexterity (myself included).

It was a fun game to play the first time, and even more enjoyable this second time. I'm glad I came back to it, and let me tell you, the bittersweet glow at the end of the game is truly enjoyable—and it glows all the brighter knowing that I have the sequels sitting there just waiting for me.