Kingdom Hearts Review

Kingdom Hearts is a great game. Period. Why, though? Why not? Two extraordinary media empires, Disney and Squaresoft (now Square Enix), merge to create a game of epic proportions. To summarize, a teenager named Sora and his friends, Riku and Kairi, dream of seeing other worlds. They plan to build a raft to leave their islands. However, on the night before they had decided to leave, dark creatures called the Heartless invade their islands. Sora discovers a weapon called the Keyblade; a sword in the shape of a large key. He manages to fight off a small number of the Heartless, but all for naught. He and his surroundings are sucked into oblivion. He awakes in a place called Traverse Town, where he meets Donald Duck and Goofy from the old Mickey Mouse cartoons. He learns that they are searching for their king, and the three team up. Throughout their adventures, they travel to various Disney worlds in their Gummi Ship; including Halloween Town from The Nightmare Before Christmas, Agrabah from Aladdin, Monstro from Pinocchio, and more; battling the Heartless at every turn. The plot thickens as Sora discovers what’s become of his friends, and of what dark plans are brewing in the minds of evil…

The gameplay is great. You take the role of Sora, and you go from world to world, sealing the Keyholes and fighting back Heartless of varying shapes and sizes. You even get to fight Disney villains! The transition into battle is flawless, as enemies appear in a poof of twisting black smoke in whatever area you’re at. The battle system is pretty simple. Lock on to your enemies and mash X to smack them with your Keyblade, using whatever strategies you like to dodge their attacks. You can hold L1 and press Circle, Triangle or Square to cast preset spells that you can upgrade by defeating bosses. You can equip abilities to help you in battle, like Dodge Roll (run and press Square to roll in any direction, useful for evading attacks), Combo Plus (allows you to hit the enemy one more time with your Keyblade before pausing), or a special attack like Ars Arcanum. During battle, you have a command menu much like an RPG. You can also summon several Disney characters to aid you in battle, like Mushu or Simba.

You use the D-Pad to scroll through various options, like Attack, Magic, Item, and a blank spot that fills with any special attack you have equipped. Special attacks and magic take up MP, equipped abilities need AP, and your health is HP. You gain levels much like any RPG, but the gameplay is like an action game. Hence Action/RPG. Besides the battle system, there are other things to do in the worlds you visit. Chests to find, puzzles to solve, and countless NPCs to interact with. The plot is masterful, with twists and turns leading you this way and that, especially near the end.

The graphics are breathtaking. The characters are flawlessly crafted, the worlds are beautifully recreated from their Disney movies, and the occasional magical explosion… BOOM, WHEE! =D! Not much to say here, but in Kingdom Hearts’ case, a picture is worth a million words.

The music is great. Catchy tunes, fast paced techno, and more. The theme song, “Simple and Clean” by Utada Hikaru, is remixed several times throughout the game and plays in the game’s intro scene. I have but one gripe in the music area. In the Little Mermaid world Atlantica, you will go insane. Try listening to Under the Sea over and over for about an hour. Your head will implode. Oh sure, it’s orchestrated well, but it will bolt and weld itself into your brain, melting your innards.

The voice acting is brilliant, the characters are voiced by real actors and singers; people who know how to use their voice and how to act. Haley Joel Osment voices Sora, Lance Bass voices Sephiroth, and Mandy Moore voices Aeris.

Between worlds, there is a somewhat annoying mini-game in which you fly your Gummi Ship through hyperspace and shoot enemy ships with laser beams. Whether you enjoy this or not depends heavily on what kind of gamer you are. I personally despise it, but my friend loves it. I thank the lord for the Warp Gummi piece that you gain later on, enabling you to warp to any world you’ve already visited. You can customize your ship with Gummi blocks you find in chests and add guns, armor, more wings, etc. It was fun for me the first few times, but it got old fast. Like runecrafting.

All in all, this is my favorite game. The only people I know that don’t like it are just too prejudiced against Disney and think it’s bad just because it has Disney in it. These idiots have never played it, and if they did they’d love it. I highly suggest buying, not renting this game. It’s totally worth the money. I’m currently looking forward to Kingdom Hearts 2 next month, and you will too if you play this.

Writen by: Ultima Cow
Edited by: bartoron
Coded by: Gamestar