“Thinking of you, wherever you are. We pray for our sorrows to end, and hope that our hearts will blend. Now I will step forward to realize this wish. And who knows: starting a new journey may not be so hard, or maybe it has already begun. There are many worlds, and they share the same sky – one sky, one destiny.” – Kairi, Kingdom Hearts II
The @rcade are the first to admit their mistakes and when we were first handed a copy of Kingdom Hearts way back in 2002 we scoffed at the idea, actually, we were offended that Disney could come in and think they could ruin our Final Fantasy. We put the game on our shelf and it stayed their gathering dust and it was almost forgotten about until one very boring weekend in our desperation we took the plastic off and loaded it into the PlayStation 2… disappointed that our boredom had driven us to play with Donald Duck and Goofy…
Six hours later and everything else seemed to have just drifted into the background and we were engrossed with the adventure of Sora and his battle against the Heartless and Darkness. So began our love for the Kingdom Heart series, which over the last eight years has grown and developed a huge following.
Allow yourself to get over your pompous gamer snobbery and stop chuckling at the Disney characters, these games take themselves very seriously and while everything might look like it escaped from a storage room in Disney Land, there has been some serious work and money invested into this franchise.
Developed and published by Square Enix and Disney Interactive, Kingdom Hearts is directed by one of Square’s most well-known staff, Tetsuya Nomura.
The first game revolves around a group of characters, the protagonist, a young boy named Sora who is accompanied by his friends Kairi and Riku and his allies Donald and Goofy. When the Heartless attack his world Sora goes in search of his missing friends, somehow now wielding a powerful weapon known as a Key Blade. Together alongside Donald and Goofy, they must stop the Heartless from destroying the light and restore order to the worlds that they have already crushed.
Kingdom Hearts II adds a whole new depth to the series, taking on the role of a boy named Roxas, you travel throughout the Kingdoms once more as a new threat rises but who is Roxas? Why does he have Soras memories? Who are Organisation XIII?
In between Kingdom Hearts I and II games have been released for the Game Boy Advance, the DS and even mobile phones and this week Birth by Sleep has been released for the PSP. Chronologically, all these games are meant to portray the events that happened between I and II and explain more about the lore behind the games and help unravel the mystery of Kingdom Hearts. The exception to the timeline is of course Birth By Sleep which is set ten years prior to the events of Kingdom Hearts.
Like any good RPG, Kingdom Hearts comes with a levelling system, equipment, magic, summons as well as the convoluted plotline. Control either Sora or Roxas you are aided by Donald, a magic user and Goofy, a brawler/defender and you are able to wield a mix of both physical attacks and magic. Travelling across the fractured worlds Sora and Roxas encounter characters from Disney and Final Fantasy universes including, Aladdin, Mulan, Cloud, Squall and many more. Characters will even give you special Keyblades and equipment and some even join you on your journey as special summons to be used in battle – including the Genie, Bambi and even Dumbo. As you progress through both games, enemies will increase in number and difficulty forcing you to do what any good RPGer would do and grind for hours. Both games also feature various side quests and missions, our favourite is still the tournaments in the coliseum in Kingdom Hearts, facing Yuffie, Cloud and even Sephiroth and finally pounding that One Winged Angel into a pulp was a definite highlight.
Kingdom Hearts is also known for it’s soundtrack with the title music for the first game ‘Simple and Clean’ or ‘Hikari’ reaching number one in the charts in Japan and the title track for KH II reaching number four. Both tracks were written and performed by Utada Hikaru and they managed to catapult the Japanese pop star onto the music scene in America and Europe.
If you haven’t played any of the Kingdom Hearts games it is not too late to pick up the series now. If you are looking for a game that inspires an emotional rollercoaster, combines the depth of a Final Fantasy game with the colour and magic of a Disney animation or you are looking for an all round epic role-playing game then you will not go wrong with this series.
Check back very soon for a review of the new Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep.
