My friends are my power: I’m still learning from Kingdom Hearts
By: Madison Butler
Tags: Videogames, Square Enix, Essay, Kingdom Hearts

Despite having a formative influence on my perception of video games, I remember almost nothing about the plot of Kingdom Hearts. What I do remember is a patchwork collection of instances: hopping around the world map in the gummi ship, the familiar notes of “Dearly Beloved,” the pained noise Sora makes when he falls in battle.

It wasn’t until I was watching a Kingdom Hearts recap video (shortly after deciding to start Kingdom Hearts 2) that I realized my memories of the game ended somewhere around Destiny Islands, the first world in the first game. Rather, what I remember is the people I played the game with. Much like Sora — Kingdom Hearts’ main character — I relied on my friends to fight with me when I played in the early 2000s. My best friend and I spent countless hours following a printed-out walkthrough, scouring each world for Trinities and treasure chests. Another friend with far more gaming experience helped me optimize Sora’s skills. My mom took over boss battles when the going got too tough for my brother and me while we cheered her on from either side of the couch.

Despite making it through Kingdom Hearts’ final fights, I hardly made a dent in Kingdom Hearts 2. My interest waned, especially because players don’t start the game with Sora. It sat untouched on my shelf because I didn’t have the skills or patience to fight endless waves of enemies. With the recent announcement of Kingdom Hearts 3, I decided to give it another go, now having the benefits of adult-sized hands and better thumb coordination.

While I occasionally regret not having the patience to go through Kingdom Hearts 2 as a twelve-year-old, the game impresses me as a twenty-five-year-old. This is partly because it’s just a fun game and partly because I think Kingdom Hearts still has lessons to teach older players. Especially now, the game is a reminder of the values of kindness and friendship. Like its predecessor, Kingdom Hearts 2 contains many of the series’ mainstays: an abundance of enemies, seemingly random Disney properties (hello, Chicken Little), and frequent repetition of the word “darkness.”

What surprised me most about returning to the series was how well Kingdom Hearts 2 aged. It holds up. The characters are more developed than I remember them being; more than anything, Sora, Donald, and Goofy are friends you’d want in your corner. Kingdom Hearts followed Sora as he tried to save his friends and unwittingly becomes the pure-hearted hero in an epic battle of dark versus light. Kingdom Hearts 2 picks up a year after the first game, when Sora is once again thrust into a fight to save the light and his friends.

Like me, Sora is a little older, a little taller, and a little wiser than he is during the events of Kingdom Hearts. Never having made it to his part of the game, I wasn’t quite prepared for how familiar it all felt. This, however, is the brilliance of it: Kingdom Hearts bypasses traditional worldbuilding, allowing familiar properties to do the heavy lifting in establishing settings and characters. The friendships are so well developed they feel familiar, like even the players have a place in them. It allows players to focus on the game’s complex narrative and themes, elevating them to a place of prominence in the game.

Kingdom Hearts is the video game equivalent of fanfiction on the principle that it takes established characters, roles, and even settings and drops them into a new story. Using the known is what allows for exploration of the unknown. It’s what allows Kingdom Hearts to transcend its humble beginnings as a literal elevator pitch and introduce new characters and conflicts with high stakes. It’s what made everything feel so familiar, even after a decade.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy jump from world to world, saving others from Heartless and Nobodies while chasing after members of the mysterious and nefarious Organization XIII. Most of the worlds are based on Disney properties, with characters like Mickey Mouse and Maleficent playing significant roles. In the second game, the only original worlds are Hollow Bastion (a pivotal location in the original Kingdom Hearts), Twilight Town, The World That Never Was, and the Realm of Darkness. The Disney worlds offer scope and familiarity. The Kingdom Hearts universe feels big because it is, encapsulating settings from Port Royal (Pirates of the Caribbean) to Pride Rock (The Lion King).

Familiarity is an important aspect of the game. It’s a narrative shortcut. Landing in a new world — typically recognizable even from the world map — bears a measure of expectation in the characters Sora will meet and in the narrative that will play out while there. By keeping original worlds to a minimum, Kingdom Hearts avoids doing the hard but necessary work of worldbuilding. It’s not a bad thing. A universe full of original worlds would require ten times the work and required play time to establish settings unique and compelling enough to save. The Disney worlds provide varied settings that are instantly recognizable by generations that grew up under its weighty cultural influence.

Though original worlds make up only a small part of the Kingdom Hearts universe, they’re where major story events like cutscenes, boss fights, and exposition take place. Largely populated by characters from the Final Fantasy half of the Square Enix/Disney crossover, the original worlds are more unsettling than anything else. Though city-like in structure, Hollow Bastion, Twilight Town, and The World That Never Was contain none of the bustle or even the trash of a real-world city.

Hollow Bastion is the most populous of these worlds. Once the resplendent Radiant Gardens, it was overrun by darkness, walls and buildings crumbling and warping with the unnatural presence of Heartless. When you explore the world at the end of the game in Kingdom Hearts, the party wanders through a deserted castle, a literal hollow bastion, but even in Kingdom Hearts 2 the name is fitting. Though the small world population was likely determined by technical limitations in the game’s development, there’s another eerie implication: Heartless and Nobodies have absolutely decimated the human population. Only the strong have survived — in this case, Final Fantasy’s fiercest, most recognizable fighters.

The franchise characters are another way the game bypasses traditional worldbuilding. Mickey Mouse has long been synonymous with the Disney name, king in both game and real life. Maleficent and Sephiroth are two of the most recognizable villains from their respective parent companies, and their appearance in the games immediately signals a threat. It’s also a simple way to showcase Sora’s character. As the Keyblade’s chosen wielder, Sora represents the light. His heart is the most obvious reflection of that, which players see in his willingness to help other heroes, stand in defiance against the most evil villains, and sacrifice himself to save his friends.

This also isn’t to say there aren’t any surprises. Sora, Donald, and Goofy get new outfits to match different worlds, and players never know when they’ll be aided (or attacked) by one of the game’s many Final Fantasy characters. The easter eggs and callbacks to moments from films or other games are exciting to discover, even as an adult.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. When I started Kingdom Hearts 2, I was prepared for all of my hazy but positive feelings toward Kingdom Hearts to dissipate, but it never happened. The nostalgia factor is a key part of the game, a vehicle for a much greater story. The Disney plots are trite compared with Kingdom Hearts’s main theme of staying true to one’s heart and one’s friends, which, more often than not, are the same thing. Sora’s faith in himself and in the goodness of his friends never wavers, even when his closest friends turn to the darkness.

There’s a moment at the end of Kingdom Hearts 2 where Sora and Riku are trapped in the Realm of Darkness, which looks like a distorted version of the beach on Destiny Islands. Riku says that world is perfect for him and Sora notes that if they’re stuck there, at least the Realm of Light is safe. It’s antithetical to everything Sora is, as an embodiment of the light, but underscores the game’s theme. He’d rather not be there, but if he is, it’s okay because he’s got Riku.

It’s a touching scene, one that made me tear up when I played the game and again as I watched it on YouTube while writing the previous paragraph. Though players are familiar with the worlds and characters, they’re temporary for Sora, who is just passing through in his quest to return home to Destiny Islands. Each world is a liminal space, sitting somewhere between what is known and what isn’t, a sort of limbo. This is especially true of the original worlds, most notably in Hollow Bastion. But liminal spaces are also places of change and transition. This becomes true in a literal sense when the small population recalls Hollow Bastion’s former name, Radiant Gardens, in the process of restoring it into a livable town.

As a child, I certainly didn’t understand the heaviness of a liminal space, in Kingdom Hearts or otherwise. As an adult, though, I’m all too familiar with the feeling of stepping over a threshold — whether it’s getting older, moving, or starting a new job — only to be met with uncertainty about the future. The game’s genuine approach to its core themes made returning to the series a satisfying and often delightful experience.

In the end, Sora and Riku escape the Realm of Darkness when the light in Sora’s heart opens the door to the light. In doing so, they’re also escaping the liminality, the uncertainty, the transitional nature of the other worlds. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that Sora could only return home at the side of his closest friend.

From the very beginning, Sora is only ever able to move forward with help from others. It’s something that’s never represented as a weakness, but as having faith in others. After all, liminal spaces are unsettling in part because they are empty. Getting out of a liminal space — whether physical or mental — often requires the help of others, a lesson we’re never too old to learn. Only a community has the power to restore Hollow Bastion to its former glory. Only with others can Sora readily approach and embrace his future. And when he does, I’ll be there, too.