Kingdom Hearts has come a long way since it’s original release back in 2002.  Not only has it spawned a plethora of spin-off titles with increasingly confusing names, it also has managed to escape the confines of its original launch pad.  Which is good.  Because the original Kingdom Hearts is actually a bit naff. 

They say there are few good adaptations of movies into video games – so far the only games that have broken free from this curse are the Lego games, namely The Lego Movie, The Movie, The Game – but Kingdom Hearts seeks to boldly strut deep into that lagoon and take up the challenge of turning at least 8 Disney films into video games.  On paper it’s already a ludicrous proposition, but the mix is only made all the more volatile with the inclusion of characters from Square-Enix.  I can only imagine the elevator pitch, “So you know your cute adorable mouse character?  We’ve got this guy with fluffy blonde hair, he also has a sword the size of his own body, some people think he’s cute… maybe they could bang?”  and although that’s not what actually happened, one can only imagine that’s the general premise behind what would become Kingdom Hearts. 

All these hundreds of years later Kingdom Hearts is a franchise that still wets enough whistles for it to prominently stand in the games industry, albeit in a way that confuses everyone.  Including its fans.  Kingdom Hearts, the game, has had both a Final Mix as well as an HD remastering that involved having to remake all of the assets, because the originals were probably all lost in some giant fire. 

Kingdom Hearts follows Sora, a young anime child whose lust for friendship sees himself following Riku, his friend, on a quest for seeing if there’s more to life than their own world.  Things go from bad to worse and the reality of Sora’s home is destroyed, and everyone he ever knew or loved dies as they are consumed by the never ending void of darkness.  Sora survives, thankfully, and meets Donald and Goofy and decides to go on a quest to locate Sora’s friends, as you do. 

All through this quest of finding the anime needle in the Disney haystack you’ll find yourself accosted by the Heartless, creatures of pure darkness that are born from when people, and probably animals and cars and pets, lose their heart.  With the power of the Keyblade, a magical sword that is literally a big key, Sora is able to defeat these evil creatures and maybe save the odd Disney film from being consumed by darkness.  The whole thing sort of goes out of control at the end there, but basically you’re running through Disney films killing the literal embodiment of evil and darkness while vaguely talking about your other anime friends. 

Honestly, this is sort of where Kingdom Hearts begins to make its first blundering steps, which is a problem as I’ve only just started.  Kingdom Hearts tries to take 90 minute Disney films, which are notably often lacking in major confrontations, and convert them into a JRPG that includes both a boss as well as an excuse for a small boy to be running around with a sword.  And you know what?  It doesn’t work.  It did work, way back in 2002, but now it just doesn’t.  The levels are all too short and a little hamfisted in their approach to including the Heartless. 

Sometimes it’ll be that a Disney character is inherently evil so is being taken over by the Heartless and you have to stop them, in which you’re almost directly reenacting the film but now there’s Heartless everywhere and only you can see them, or the evil Disney character uses their evil nature to control the heartless to really ruin your day… in a way that means the general story of the film caries out.  The latter are much better as characters actually acknowledge Sora and the Heartless existing.  They become a genuine issue for the Disney characters, often acting as lackies for Jafar or Boogie.  The former are a bit naff as there’ll be Heartless running around while Tarzan makes weird noises and no one seems to notice these Heartless creatures, even though one dude is literally riding on top of one with a gun.  In Alice in Wonderland‘s level you literally fight all Heartless away from any other character seeing you, and then fight a boss.  The two concepts just haven’t integrated. 

That’s not to say that each level is necessarily bad, it’s more that they’re these individual chunks that don’t feel fully integrated into the rest of the game.  Like you’ve gone on a tour to Disneyland, but they’re holding an anime expo there at the same time, but you’re the only attendant.  The story as a whole can swing wildly from having a silly adventure through Halloween Town with your new best friend, Jack Skellington, to suddenly having to face off against an angry looking man with a giant evil spirit shouting about darkness, and other magical nonsense.  The Disney worlds can end up feeling like the fun filler for the interim between the pieces about darkness and hearts.  All this to say that there’s just a weird integration of the two subjects at hand.  The Disney-JRPG emulsion hasn’t quite fully formed and it keeps on separating out, no matter how much you try and mix it together. 

Despite all this, there’s one thing that Kingdom Hearts manages to do through most of the worlds that’s a genuine achievement, which is conveying this sense of friendship among your party and characters.  Not only do Sora, Donald and Goofy get on remarkably well, their goofy antics can be quite endearing and you get a definite sense of the characters getting along and being good chums, even if Donald and Sora shout at each other frequently, but this extends into the individual worlds themselves, as Sora manages to get on surprisingly well with the likes of Aladdin, Ariel and the aforementioned Jack Skellington.  There is a child like merriment that comes from seeing some of your favorite Disney characters, from when you were a child, in your video game talking to Sora and having a bit of fun.  And also combing your efforts to destroy creatures of soul crushing darkness. 

Speaking of destroying the evil, Kingdom Hearts is an action RPG, which basically means you’ll be hitting the attack button a lot, in this case it’s X. Sadly for the original Kingdom Hearts, and even its Final Mix, the combat is a little simple.  For the most part you’ll engage in the same basic three hit combo for the rest of your life, or you’ll be jumping to do a slightly different three hit combo.  You can unlock additional abilities, however a lot of these are in the realms of being these big and flashy moves that don’t really work for a lot of bosses or are only used at the end of a combo when you have a relatively full MP bar.  There’s little change to your average combat scenario throughout most of the game outside of very minor mobility improvements and it’s a bit of an issue. 

Even with the minor improvements to mobility from some skills you’ll still find yourself plagued by mobility issues.  Sora’s jumping is clunky and stompy as he hits the ground hard and aerial enemies will have you jumping for hits like some kind of inverted bobbing for apples as enemies swoop just outside of your reach.  In a game mostly about hitting things with your front door key, it’s a bit annoying that trying to actually hit things proves to be so damned hard.  There’s magic and summons that you can play with as well, but for the most part the only ones you’ll ever use are those that involve healing or applying a passive ability, as otherwise it’s easier to just hit things with your keyblade.  Which is saying something, as we’ve already established how slightly clunky the combat is. 

Kingdom Hearts isn’t outright terrible, it just feels directionless in this endeavor.  At the time it was a novel idea and wonderful, but since then the whole series has moved on from this first installment and well beyond it.  Kingdom Hearts doesn’t really know if it’s trying to be a JRPG or a museum of Disney and in doing so achieves neither.  While it is fun to explore your favorite Disney films, the directionless manner in which you do this can be jarring and upsetting as characters simply state “We need to get some forget-me-not!”  and then just turn to you as if you’ve lived there for 20 years and know where they store the stuff.  No one tells you where they keep their stuff. 

If there’s one thing to be said about how Kingdom Hearts has aged, it’s that now that I’m a fully grown man, who spends most of his time alone in the dark in his pajamas, the messages of friendship are wonderful and warm you up inside.  Even though the JRPG nonsense can get a little out of hand, there’s something so nice about watching a young boy be friends with a giant duck and big dog-thing.  Also the music is wonderful.  It’s both simple and clean.  Yikes.