Kingdom Hearts

The gameplay is non-existent, you mash buttons and occasionally dodge beating up mindless enemies. The levels are small and to compensate the game will make you go back and forth between the same "rooms" looking for a cutscene that will allow you to advance, over and over with enemies constantly respawning.
Pretty much every boss is free, except the final one, not because of good design, but because the game decides to throw you alone, without your team against a boss with 7 phases. It's still manageable with a bit of thinking, it's just so damn long and boring. The story is embarassing and I understand I'm not the target here, but it's seriously worse than any low expectation I had before playing.

The only explanation for the generally positive opinion on this is that people are nostalgic about it and disney movies, I refuse to believe that any adult person could play this nowadays and rate it anything above a 2.

Really a strong start to Square's take on a Disney franchise.

The combat is rough around the edges and definitely not as snappy as, say, Kingdom Hearts II, but it remains thoroughly enjoyable and provides the player with a lot of options at most points of the games with variable ability loadouts, alongside your Magic and Summon options.

The elements of exploration in KH1 are also very strong and fun to play with. There are a ton of interactions with the environments and just hidden chest and things like that that wouldn't really come back into the series very much at all. There's a bit of the flavor in Birth by Sleep and Kingdom Hearts III, but all of them pale in comparison to how much fun it really is to just explore the worlds in KH1.

The story is straightforward compared to where it would end up just a game or two later. Sora, Riku, and Kairi seek to escape their island home and to see what's beyond the horizon and antics ensue as a result. As would become tradition, Kairi isn't really allowed to do much, but she functions well enough as a plot device and always being in Sora's heart.

The main focus of the story, the conflict between Sora and Riku, is really interesting and compelling to me though. Sora's childlike wonder at the world around him even in spite of his situation stands in stark contrast to Riku's obsession with becoming stronger and, in his mind, more of an "adult". His interactions with Maleficent and the Seeker of Darkness being wonderful metaphors for kids who find themselves in abusive situations that force them to grow up before they're ready. The Seeker of Darkness in particular being a groomer in a fairly literal way. It's all great stuff and Riku's struggle throughout the story is extremely relatable from my perspective, being a young person pulled in too many directions and letting the irrational fear of losing people you care about cause you to lash out and just make the situation even worse. Riku's great and Sora is a great foil to him. In the series in general, but especially in this first outing.

Kingdom Hearts was Square's much-hyped collaboration with Disney. This application of menu-based combat and Final Fantasy spells into hack and slash relied mostly on the lush graphics and crossovers to provide its charm. Repetitive combat was made worse by its stubborn camera, alongside an awkward targeting system turning boss battles and small corridor fights into total headaches. Its greatest merit turns out to be the level and dungeon design, where the Disney attribute shines best. Aside from the wide variety of gameplay scenarios on display, the slightly open-ended nature benefits from light metroidvania elements and a hefty amount of major unlockables. In terms of story, the Square/Disney collab doesn't leave too much room for meaningful plot beyond all the fanservice, but its delivery upped the ante for ridiculous JRPG melodrama (especially near the end). Overall, its broad palette of genre stereotypes paired with unique gameplay moments provided a balance between experimental and accessible.

Although Kingdom Hearts [キングダムハーツ] was a very fond childhood memory for me, it unfortunately didn't live up to my memory during my recent revisit. The combat is boringly repetitive and dull, the platforming is straight up AWFUL, the puzzles are obtuse and usually require a lot of annoying backtracking until you just happen across the solution, usually something randomly hidden about that you have to press triangle on, and the simplistic story is really not worth going back to and can probably be summarized in a paragraph or two instead. It's a wash, and it makes me wonder if this game should have just stayed in the elevator it was created in.

One can still have fun with this, sure, but I can't really argue as for why anyone should bother when there are much better games---even better Kingdom Hearts games---on the market.

I remember playing this game not long after it first came out, I saw commercials for it all the time on TV with my dad and he said he heard of that game from someone at his work. Well my birthday that year he ended up getting it for me, its funny because I never even really was interested in playing it, but I guess he thought I'd enjoy it. Well I'm glad he did because I played the hell out of it that Winter break and the entire year, it was one of my favorite games, and I probably replayed it a good number of times too. I got a few characters to level 99 and beat all the optional bosses and created the most powerful keyblade. Its basically a simple action RPG where Final Fantasy meets Disney and you visit different Disney Worlds and fight the main villains of each of those movie franchises while killing cartoony looking enemies. The story is pretty simple good vs evil, although I can see why some people think its complicated, it throws a lot at you and expects you to assume a lot.

I really think the combat system is decent its basic hack n slash, you hit things they die, you can get abilities to block or chain combos together and you have spells. You get 2 partners with you at all times, and they help you out. Between Worlds there are flying missions that you go through to get to the next World. Looking back and after playing the remaster a few years back its a mixed bag. The good is that there are a good variety of Disney worlds, its cool reliving these movies and fighting the bosses, the combat system is fun, even if its a bit simple, and the soundtrack is great, plus the game manages to have a unique sense of humor and style that I liked. On the other hand the space missions are some of the most boring and repetitive time waster I've played in games, they drag on and have little variety and are just slow and boring, some Worlds are just really poorly designed and feel rushed Alice in Wonderland and Little Mermaid come to mind where both those Worlds are based around silly gimmicks and are just really awkwardly designed and look ugly. Plus the Final Fantasy characters are sometimes a bit silly in this, some of them feel a tad out of place. There isn't much to do once you beat a World too, you can go back and collect all the chests and items, but that gets pretty boring. And that's the thing, the game is fun to play once, but then there isn't much to do once you beat each World, the story is mostly what keeps the game going along, the gameplay is alright, but its a bit basic and gets repetitive. The bosses in this game are fun for the most part, and are one of the better parts of the game. The magic system in this game is pretty worthless too, your spells don't hit half the time and the magic just doesn't feel very powerful compared to combat. And your party members sometimes are worthless, Donald dies so fast and he'll heal you when you either don't need it or already healed.

But this game still is fun to play, it just hasn't aged super well and the sequel improved so much. This game had many annoying and awkwardly designed parts where the sequel fixed most of those issues. But I can forgive those because it was cool going to these Disney worlds from movies I grew up on and seeing many original voice actors return to play their roles, and it has many memorable moments. This game just brings back so much nostalgia from when I was in 6th and 7th grade. Plus there are a number of extras like difficult optional bosses and the challenge arenas. Plus lets be honest Donald and Goofy are just the perfect mix of bad ass and complete morons in this game.

About what I expected coming back to an experimental meeting between Square and Disney ten years after the fact. Kingdom Hearts 1 is perhaps the only title in the series to find any sort of common ground between the two companies, marrying the melodramatic monologues of Square with the fairytale affectations of Disney pretty well, using all properties therein to decent enough effect and simply making a good nostalgia trip to anyone who grew up with either. The gameplay is also a nice mix of RPG and brawler than leans hard enough into the former to make it stand out, but as a result also makes it kind of clunky (the Dodge Roll, an "optional" move, is basically your only defensive option throughout). Proud Mode actually becomes a challenge, brutally so in some boss fights near the end.

The locale variety is present as you would expect, but between a rather dreary soundtrack, broad level design, failure to properly signpost objectives and general snags along the way, there are many moments that outstay their welcome. They're worth sitting through for the overall package, however, and I commend the team for making this madcap premise work somehow, containing an artistic and kinaesthetic clarity that would never really be achieved again.