KINGDOM HEARTS CHARACTERS ARE BLAND SERIES

But their home island is invaded by the Heartless, creatures whose sole objective is to steal characters’ hearts (or souls, if you’d like). The trio yearn for adventure and to explore new worlds. The story concerns Sora (voiced by Haley Joel Osment, of Sixth Sense fame) and his friends Riku and Kairi, voiced by David Gallagher and Hayden Panatierre respectively. It is an action RPG, allowing fast, free-flowing and flashy combat, with enough complexity to offer a stiff challenge.

And therein lies the formula for success for Kingdom Hearts. I was not a big fan of these Japanese role-playing games when I started, particularly because of their complex stories and gameplay, because most are turn-based. I was 3 years of age at the time of its release.įast forward 17 years. The Disney exec obviously loved the idea and work began, with the game being released in North America on November 17th, 2002. Later, Nomura bumped into a Disney executive in an elevator (as both Disney and Square Enix worked in the same building in Japan at the time) and pitched the idea. Tetsuyo Nomura, the series’ director since its inception and previously the art director for the Final Fantasy series, overheard this and asked if he could direct the game. They lamented that only Disney characters could approach Mario’s popularity. The story goes that two Square Enix employees were talking about making a game similar to Mario 64, with all of that title’s freedom of movement. Kingdom Hearts is perhaps the best example of the ultimate elevator pitch. Was it worth the inevitable confusion about the plot to get invested? Let’s find out! But I was curious, following my visit to Disney. I knew, or thought I knew, about all of the spin offs and wanted to avoid them. At first glance, I thought the plot to be too convoluted and the story too overbearing.

Like any good playthrough of a series, it exemplified everything I love about video games. Going through it for the first time was a super charming, enriching and fun experience.

KINGDOM HEARTS CHARACTERS ARE BLAND SERIES

The third game came out in January of 2019 and I wanted to play through the series in order to experience it. On the heels of this visit, I thought it would be the perfect time to purchase Kingdom Hearts, the Disney and Final Fantasy crossover Role playing game series on the PS2, various handheld consoles and PS4. I couldn’t go on many of the rides but I still enjoyed the charm and the level of detail that went into each of the attractions and various little stalls and buildings and the like. At the beginning of 2019 I went to Disneyland with my family.

Kingdom hearts characters are bland