Beyond the Magic Kingdom
Exploring the history of Kingdom Hearts
The Kingdom Hearts series has always been a bizarre concept from the moment of its inception — the infamous Disney-Final Fantasy hybrid franchise is a byproduct of a happenstance meeting in an elevator between executives of the Square game development company and Disney. As we approach the 20-year mark since the first game in the series’ release, Kingdom Hearts continues to draw attention both positive and negative. It’s not often that a series has such an odd reputation as this one — whether it’s the surreal juxtaposition of Disney icons next to Final Fantasy-style characters to the insanely multithreaded narrative in a series designed primarily for children, Kingdom Hearts exists in a realm of its own.
Until recently, another irritating element of the series was the sheer amount of game consoles required to experience all its entries — to have played every game in the series on release, you’d need a PlayStation 2, a GameBoy Advance, a PSP, a Nintendo DS, a Nintendo 3DS, a PlayStation 3, a PlayStation 4, and best of all, a compatible NTT Docomo mobile phone. Thankfully, the whole series can be experienced via the recent remaster collections on PS4, PS5, as well as soon-to-be PC in the coming weeks.
With the series’ recent closure of its first grand story arc (the “Xehanort Saga”), there has never been a better time to take a look back through the series. Luckily for those who don’t have an unhealthy attachment to the series like me, I’ve done you all the favor of replaying all the 100+ hours of the rereleased titles over the past few months for the sake of a retrospective such as this one. I’ll also note that I won’t discuss Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ in this article — I’ve got lots of free time, but unfortunately not “mobile gacha game” free time.
Kingdom Hearts (2002)
From humble beginnings — the series’ debut title on the PlayStation 2 introduced the world to Sora as he teamed up with royal court mage Donald Duck and captain of the guard Goofy in a quest to find Sora’s lost friends, Donald and Goofy’s lost king, and save the worlds from darkness. These worlds in question that Sora visits are ripped straight out of classic films of the Disney canon, in addition to a few series-original locales. During his journeys, Sora encounters iconic characters not only from Disney films but also from Final Fantasy.
There’s definitely a unique nostalgic charm about the originality and simplicity of the first entry in the series. One of the amazing aspects of the Kingdom Hearts series is the amount of pure voice talent they pull in — a large portion of the Disney characters are played by their original voice talents, the most extraordinary example being Kathryn Beaumont returning to play Alice (the one in Wonderland) fifty-one years after the original film was released. Gameplay-wise, compared to later entries in the series, Sora’s combat options are more restrained (he’s limited to attacking with his Keyblade, casting spells, summoning allies, using items, and a small array of situational special attacks). The story is correspondingly straightforward and self-contained compared to further entries in the series, telling a complete story from start to finish — Sora saves the worlds by defeating the evil Ansem and his legions of Heartless, and in doing so protects the power of Kingdom Hearts, the “heart of all worlds” that contains immense power and knowledge. As a result of their efforts, Sora, Donald, and Goofy end up stranded in an unknown world, but they continue their adventure with their spirits high.
Then there’s that sweet soundtrack. The soundtrack to many a childhood, Yoko Shimomura’s track almost feels too good for such an off-the-wall, high-concept series such as this one. Yet, as is often the case with Kingdom Hearts, it may not work on paper but it sure does work in practice. From the haunting choruses that sing “Destati” to the bouncy and playful Destiny Islands theme, the game’s original soundtrack is diverse and remains fresh throughout. Of course, I can’t discuss this game’s soundtrack without mentioning Hikaru Utada’s Simple and Clean (known as Hikari in the original Japanese), that eternally catchy J-Pop tune that punctuates the opening cinematic. All the numbered games in the series would go on to receive their own original Utada songs. It’s one of those idiosyncrasies the series has that makes each game feel special, particularly the major numbered installments.
That said, it’s apparent that Kingdom Hearts had plenty of room left to improve. Combat is clunky when compared to later entries thanks to a fiddly targeting system and relatively sluggish combos. The game’s level design is oftentimes obtuse (looking at you, Deep Jungle) and a lack of in-game maps or any indication of the current objective means that players may be wandering the game’s world looking for where to go until they finally stumble into the next cutscene. As a fairly early PS2 title, some jank is to be expected.
It might be obvious from the not-so-nostalgic way I talk about this game that Kingdom Hearts is not the game that got me into the series (that would be the next one in this retrospective). Still, the series’ magic was apparent right from the outset — fans were hooked by the game’s strengths and that the concept worked. The fact that Square mashed Disney and Final Fantasy together into an action-RPG beat-’em-up that was fun and engaging astounded people. The creation of Kingdom Hearts feels like one of the biggest “out there” decisions in gaming, and it would be just as astounding if it were announced here in 2021. If you’ve got a tolerance for the clunkiness of older games, it’s well worth revisiting.
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (2004) and Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories (2007)
A direct chronological sequel to the first game that follows the continued adventures of Sora, Donald, and Goofy, Chain of Memories was originally released on the GameBoy Advance, beginning a long-running trend of Kingdom Hearts games seldom releasing on the same platform twice in a row. Picking up from where the first game left off, Chain of Memories follows Sora and company as they journey into the mysterious Castle Oblivion. There, he is challenged by a mysterious black-robed organization as well as the gradual loss of his own memory.
Gameplay-wise, Chain of Memories was a sizable departure from the first game. This game is all about cards — instead of handcrafted levels, each of the game’s worlds (recreated from one Sora had been to in the first Kingdom Hearts) is a semi-randomly generated dungeon, where the rooms are dictated by “room cards.” Enemies are also fought using cards, where each card represents an action Sora can take (i.e. attacking with the Keyblade or casting a magic spell, to name a couple). Cards can be combined in sets of three called “sleights” in order to produce powerful special attacks. Both the original GameBoy game and the Re:Chain of Memories remake on PS2 follow the same game structure and combat, the difference being the graphical presentation in the rerelease being more in line with other home console installments in the franchise.
Frankly, I can’t believe this game was designed with a young audience in mind. I was barely 10 years old when I first tried my hand at Chain of Memories and was not able to wrap my adolescent brain around how the combat or map systems worked. Young me found the amount of numbers involved in building a strong deck to be overwhelming. I fumbled my way through the game before getting stuck on the final boss, at which point young me was gifted a DS and left Chain of Memories behind. I returned to the PS2 remake recently where I found it much more digestible. Turns out, it’s an incredibly easy game to exploit and burn your way through with the right card combinations, to the point of trivializing combat completely.
Chain of Memories is an experimental game for sure, but it does have its pros — as far as non-numbered KH titles go, it has a strong narrative and introduces memorable side characters like Axel and Naminé. Plus, once you beat the game as Sora you can do it all over again as Riku, who has a different fighting style with a deck that the game automatically builds for you (no deck management, yay!). The power fantasy of breaking the game open with broken card combos is fun, but until you get to that level of power the game never really gets its hooks in. Unfortunately, another Kingdom Hearts tradition that this game kicked off is the reuse of assets, worlds, and storylines from the first Kingdom Hearts game, so it’s neither the first nor last time the player will be exploring Agrabah, Olympus Coliseum, Wonderland, and the rest of the KHI world lineup.
In spite of its flaws, Chain of Memories is one of the stronger entries in the franchise thanks to its solid narrative and cohesive gameplay systems. It’s the first example of how Kingdom Hearts has no “side games” — each entry in the series has lore that’s critical to understanding the story as a whole while also serving as a testing ground for new and unusual gameplay mechanics.
Kingdom Hearts II (2005)
This is the one. The one that gets all the love. The one that hordes of fans mark as the peak of the series. The one that fans always wistfully look back on. The one that, for many, is the reason they still hold onto the series to this day. It’s Kingdom Hearts II, and it’s probably the most personally important game that I’ve ever played. My full bias fuels the following statement: KHII is a masterpiece, a game that I can play any day of the week, and if I can give any reason for playing this series, this game is it. The continued adventure of Sora as he does battle with the sinister Organization XIII achieves everything that it sets out to do as a video game with the utmost panache.
Kingdom Hearts II is the first Kingdom Hearts game, but better. The story is scaled up and the stakes are higher, but it never goes off the rails and always feels focused. The major characters have all grown and matured in a way that feels natural. The new characters KHII introduces are all skillfully developed and have distinct and memorable personalities that are established within the span of this one game. The world design is less prone to getting lost in and has clearer indications of where to go at any given moment. The set pieces are grander — I haven’t played many games with sequences that blow me away more than the final boss sequence in Kingdom Hearts II. KHII is everything a sequel should be — it builds on the strengths of its predecessor while maintaining the core of what drew fans to the series in the first place.
And the combat. Oh baby, the combat. Remember when I said the first game was clunky? Worry not, Kingdom Hearts II is butter. It’s tight, responsive, fluid, and gratifying. Sora’s attack animations are flashy, yet snappy, and are a joy to watch and never get old. The addition of Drive Forms (special modes that Sora can transform into) as well as several new movement options, make Sora feel much more powerful than he ever has. Combine these mechanics with an abundance of challenging and replayable superbosses (included in the enhanced Final Mix rerelease) and you have a game that is easy to learn and oh-so-rewarding to master. From a gameplay perspective, it’s one of the finest and most mechanically sound action games I’ve ever played.
I could talk about this game forever — about the genius mystery of opening the game playing as the newly introduced Roxas, about the perfect story pacing, about the gorgeous soundtrack that is every bit as strong as the first game’s, and much more. The simplest endorsement I can give is to tell you to play this game. Kingdom Hearts II is the one that proves that the love for the series is built on more than blind nostalgia.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (2009)
Pronounced “three five eight days over two,” if you were wondering. The game that spawned Kingdom Hearts’ reputation for weirdly numbered titles is a DS exclusive that focused on Roxas’ life in the Organization during the year between Chain of Memories and KHII. It dives into his friendships with fellow Organization members Axel and the newly introduced Xion as they perform their duties as a part of the Organization, and as they struggle to understand the connections that grow between them.
As far as stories go, Days has my personal favorite of the side games. The story beats are emotionally resonant and the burgeoning friendship between Roxas, Axel, and Xion is believably written and easy to get attached to. The story structure is actually split up into the three hundred and fifty-eight days referenced in the title, making the game’s narrative truly feel like spending a year with friends. Xion is a remarkably well-developed character — her arc and motivations are clearly defined and despite being a new piece to the KH puzzle, she fits in well.
Gameplay-wise, Days adheres more closely to the standard third-person action model of the mainline games than Chain of Memories did, with this game’s gimmick being the “panel system,” where items and abilities are equipped to the player character using a Tetris-like grid system. I’m still impressed that the developers were able to get a game like this to run on the DS hardware — there are plenty of technical compromises but it’s otherwise a decent attempt at recreating the classic KH combat on a portable device. It even includes a multiplayer mode for 1–4 players that allows you to play as every member of Organization XIII, but good luck playing it solo (the mode is always balanced assuming that there are 4 players, no matter how many you bring into the mode).
Days was a pleasant surprise for the time it came out. I can’t say it has aged well, but learning more about the story of Roxas was a welcome addition to the series. The narrative is its strong point, so it’s a good thing that the easiest way to experience this game nowadays is by watching the cutscenes included in the 1.5 HD Remix compilation.
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep (2010)
As a fan of the series since childhood, I distinctly remember that the hype for Birth by Sleep far exceeded that of any of the other non-numbered titles in the series. The excitement for this game was fueled by the spectacularly cinematic secret ending of KHII/KHII Final Mix, as well as KHII Final Mix’s mysterious and infamously difficult secret superboss. A prequel set ten years before the events of the first Kingdom Hearts game, Birth by Sleep inspired tons of speculation amongst the fanbase. It advertised itself as a game with a darker tone and more adult themes, led by protagonists with more subdued personalities than the insane optimism of Sora as they fought a darker and more determined evil than Sora had ever faced. It largely succeeds in its narrative ventures, but there’s more to a game than its story.
The game itself is structured into three separate campaigns, where the player takes the role of newly introduced Keyblade wielders Terra, Ventus, and Aqua. Each protagonist visits the same worlds during their travels but may visit different areas in those worlds as well as fight different foes, so each story mode isn’t just a repeat of the previous one with different characters. The stories generally fit together nicely and each offers a different tone, although they can get repetitive when they intersect and you’re forced to play the same sequence three times as three different characters. That said, not all three stories are of equal quality — Terra’s in particular is a bit of a slog. Between Terra’s brooding personality, lack of agency in his own story, and his sluggish speed in combat, his story is always the one I least look forward to playing. The high point of the game is its ending, with all three storylines converging in an exciting climax that ends on a noticeably darker note than the series has had up until this point.
My biggest gripe with this game is that it should have been a full home console release, as opposed to being a PSP game. The gameplay is a step backward from previous games in the series in terms of feeling smooth and having a feeling of control, and on top of that, the combat feels less weighty in general. There are random level spikes during certain points in the game where enemies will suddenly take far too long to destroy and the game slows down to a crawl as a result. Boss design is also noticeably worse — unlike previous games, bosses can randomly break out of your combos and attacks with no warning, an often frustrating experience. The hardware being more of a limiting factor means that certain battles don’t get the scale they deserve, especially since this game is the introduction to the true main antagonist of the series.
The game also introduced the Command Deck system, where players can equip a certain number of special attacks and use them in combat. This system would reappear a few more times in the series, and is personally not my cup of tea due to how easy it is to exploit and break the combat system when you have the right commands, especially since once you have the right commands you barely need to use the standard combos anymore. The Command Deck system makes the player feel less like they’re in control of the action and instead makes the player feel like they’re just waiting for their overpowered commands to come off cooldown.
Birth by Sleep is among the most plot-significant of the side games in terms of setting up new characters and concepts for the series going forward, and though it misses the mark on the gameplay front, the narrative sequences that it succeeds in telling do leave me with an overall positive impression of the game. Aqua, in particular, is one of the stronger characters in the series, and her narrative has the most interesting conclusion out of all three playable stories. As a Kingdom Hearts game, Birth by Sleep succeeds, but evaluating it as a video game in a vacuum, it’s less than stellar.
Kingdom Hearts coded (2008) and Kingdom Hearts Re:coded (2010)
Blegh. Time to talk about the series’ red-headed stepchild, and I’ll keep this section briefer since there’s less to talk about. The first game in the series to take place chronologically after Kingdom Hearts II is largely seen as irrelevant and unnecessary in terms of its narrative. The story details King Mickey’s investigation of a mysterious message that appeared in Jiminy Cricket’s journal. To discern the meaning of the message, Mickey digitizes the journal and commissions the data version of Sora within the journal to journey through the datascape and solve the mystery, defeating Heartless and bugs in the program along the way.
The original release of coded was exclusive to Japanese mobile phones, so naturally, not many people got to play it. The remade Re:coded version was released on the DS, and largely took after 358/2 Days in terms of how it played, with a modified Command Deck system replacing the panel system from Days. It’s okay, I guess? It’s hard to go back to DS combat after Birth by Sleep, which at least felt and looked somewhat like a console game. It’s nothing worth going out of your way to play, the most convenient way to experience this game would be to watch the movie version of it that’s packaged with the 2.5 HD Remix collection.
Even still, the story isn’t much to write home about either. Once again, it’s Sora (or at least a data version of him) traipsing through the same Disney worlds from the first Kingdom Hearts, fighting the same villains with the same allies. We’ve seen it. The most (and I’d argue only) significant portion of the story comes at the end. Without explicit spoilers, the game culminates in Mickey sending a letter to the real Sora (the same letter from the KHII epilogue) with a new mission that ends up being the segue into the next game in this retrospective.
So yeah, this one isn’t really worth the time, whether you play this game on DS or just watch the cutscenes. The best way to experience this is to find a video on YouTube with all the cutscenes, fast-forwarding to the last half hour-ish, and watching from there.
Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance (2012)
While coded is the game that has the reputation of being the low point of the series, Dream Drop Distance is the one that has been commonly cited by fans as the one where Kingdom Hearts truly jumped the shark. The series’ debut on the Nintendo 3DS was definitely an anticipated one going into its release — its status as the first game (that wasn’t coded) to take place after the events of Kingdom Hearts II was enough to get people on board. Take that fact and couple it with a few other sprinkles of hype such as being able to play as both Sora and Riku, the addition of the parkour-like Flowmotion system, and the inclusion of characters from the cult hit RPG The World Ends With You and you have a game that has plenty of reasons to succeed. Even the game’s central conceit, where Sora and Riku undergo the Mark of Mastery exam to become true Keyblade Masters, inspires excitement — the concept of seeing characters we grew up with grow stronger and reach that next level is always an attractive one.
This game does a lot of neat things that make it one of my favorites in the series to actually play. Dream Drop Distance contains a streamlined version of the familiar Command Deck system, and although it’s just as easy to break as it was in Birth by Sleep the core combat in DDD is far more fluid and responsive. I prefer the way this game narratively handles having multiple playable characters — while in BBS each character’s story was played in a separate save file, in DDD the player experiences Sora and Riku’s stories in parallel. This is handled with the game’s Drop system, where the playable character will switch after the in-game Drop gauge runs out. Though the Drop system can definitely be an irritant (if, for example, you’re forced to switch characters mid-boss) it never detracted from my experience as a whole.
While Dream Drop Distance features Sora and Riku as playable characters in a dual narrative during their Mastery exam, the game really is a reflection of Riku’s character development up until this point in the series and shines because of it. Riku is the best-developed character in the series, in that he actually has character development over multiple games, and the most effective parts of Dream Drop Distance are the ones that show how far he’s come as a character. Dream Drop Distance reinforces how well the Kingdom Hearts narrative can succeed even without Sora as the focal point, to the point where Riku is the one to save the day in this game.
The new Flowmotion system is an interesting one because it’s simultaneously a game-breaking mechanic while also being very entertaining in practice. Simply put, Sora and Riku can enter a “Flowmotion” state of parkour where they can bounce off walls, grind rails, jump extra high, and spin around poles and from those positions use special attacks. It’s good fun to bounce and soar around levels with the greatest of ease, but it does trivialize several of the game’s fights due to how difficult it is to actually take damage in that state and how spammable Flowmotion is.
The elephant in the room is the insanity that this game brought to the series’ narrative. Whether it’s the series’ confusing introduction to the concept of time travel, the upending of previously established concepts in the series (for example, Nobodies not having hearts), to the revelation of Xehanort’s insanely elaborate master plan to create thirteen copies of himself, it’s no wonder why this game receives its fair share of derision.
Hear me out for a second. The narrative that the game is trying to go for is a simple one — Xehanort’s plan and the time travel involved with it are a means to the end of bringing back the prior villains from the series for a big climactic clash. However, although the ends are basic, the means are so hand-wavingly explained that it detracts from the narrative whole. Dream Drop Distance is an example of a growing trend in the Kingdom Hearts series — at its core, it is a simple story in practice, but the means with which it is conveyed are needlessly complex.
Dream Drop Distance can be seen as the most chaotic entry in the series, with its off-the-wall narrative decisions as well as some of the stranger gameplay elements it featured (don’t even let me get into the monster training mechanics involved with the game’s Dream Eaters). In many ways, it’s the inverse of Birth by Sleep, as Dream Drop Distance is a fun experience to play but offers a polarizing experience as a Kingdom Hearts game and narrative.
Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep: A fragmentary passage (2017)
The strangely numbered titles continue! A pack-in title with the 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue collection, 0.2 is a short experience that details Aqua’s time spent in the Realm of Darkness between the events of Birth by Sleep and the first Kingdom Hearts. This game was a pleasant surprise at the time and easily the highlight of the 2.8 package.
0.2 essentially serves as a taste of what’s to come of Kingdom Hearts III in terms of its gameplay mechanics. It’s a return to the less gimmicked combat of the main numbered titles, with some mechanics from Birth by Sleep sprinkled in (Aqua can use Shotlocks, Finish commands, and can Formchange). Like KHIII, it plays smoothly — Aqua feels like a stronger and better-controlling version of her playable version in Birth by Sleep. 0.2 exhibits an evolution of the series’ classic combat while iterating on the combat in all the right ways, taking plenty of the best elements from assorted games in the Kingdom Hearts series. Aqua feels powerful, yes, but enemies require recognizable patterns in order to be effectively dealt with, resulting in a satisfyingly difficult combat loop. Boss battles are well-designed and feel like tough but fair challenges on higher difficulties, which is a welcome return to form for Kingdom Hearts after regression in solid fight design post-KHII.
With its short length, 0.2 does a great job in telling a compact, well-paced, and engaging story. It cements Aqua as the best thing to come out of Birth by Sleep and ties her character arc even more tightly to that of the main Sora-centric plot threads. Seeing how Aqua’s tale exists on the periphery of Sora’s experiences without directly overlapping was some of the most effective storytelling the series has displayed. 0.2 also displays a strong usage of setting and set-piece design — for a story contained in a single location, the spaces that Aqua explores in the Realm of Darkness feel varied and recognizable. Likewise, the game has a few graphical standout sequences, including one sequence of weaving your way through a gauntlet of gigantic Heartless as Aqua, as well as a visually and mechanically striking final boss fight.
As the last console Kingdom Hearts game to come out before KHIII, 0.2 had the task of segueing us directly into the events of the long-awaited “third” game. It definitely succeeded as an appetizer to that next game that Square knew that we were all waiting for.
Kingdom Hearts III (2019)
It’s only at the moment of my typing this that it sinks in — it was fourteen whole years between the releases of Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts III. Compared to Kingdom Hearts II, which was largely a direct continuation of the two games that preceded it, Kingdom Hearts III released with the responsibility of both uniting and resolving every single loose end from every game prior to it. I don’t envy any writer tasked with the job of neatly connecting all the individual narratives of the Kingdom Hearts series. My feelings about Kingdom Hearts III are complicated, more so than any other entry in the Xehanort Saga. It’s a game that doesn’t quite reach its full potential in many ways. The story of the final showdown between Sora and his Keyblade wielding allies against Master Xehanort and his Organization XIII feels so close to being everything fans waited for, but falls short in some very noticeable ways.
Perhaps the most well-known critique of KHIII is the pacing and structure of its story, and the criticism is certainly valid. While other games in the series tend to involve hopping between Disney worlds, they often balanced this with having the main characters check in on a “hub world” of sorts periodically throughout, in order to take a breather from the constant episodic nature of the Disney world visits and allow a focus on the bigger picture narrative. KHIII simply lacks that — the majority of the game’s middle act is spent bouncing between Disney worlds and getting dense bursts of exposition in between. This leaves the meat of the game’s core narrative to the final act, resulting in an overly stuffed ending.
Instead of letting the series’ myriad separate storylines coalesce in a natural way, they all slam together at once at the game’s climax, with the unfortunate consequence of a lack of breathing room for natural character interactions and development. It’s not a bad story per se — the major plot points are intriguing enough, it’s just ungracefully told and would have greatly benefitted from some restructuring. Furthermore, it often feels like KHIII is doing too much foreshadowing of future storylines to the detriment of cleanly resolving the grand story arc of which it’s supposed to be the conclusion. It introduces several new unanswered mysteries that are clearly hinting towards future narrative developments, but in reality, just feel like plot lines that go nowhere when looking at this game as a standalone.
Likewise, the world design is hit-or-miss. Kingdom Hearts III contains some of the best worlds that have appeared in the series––Toy Box, the level based on Toy Story is absolutely inspired not only in its world design (primarily taking place inside a gigantic multi-story toy mall) but also has the best Disney world storyline to appear in the series. The Toy Box story doesn’t retell the events of the Toy Story film but rather spins an original yarn that feels completely at home with the overarching themes of Kingdom Hearts. Conversely, there are worlds like Frozen’s Arendelle, where the story is an abridged version of the film and the player has little agency in events, as well as Big Hero 6’s San Fransokyo, which simply doesn’t feel large or ambitious enough as a level.
Kingdom Hearts III’s gameplay is also somewhat of a mixed bag. Mechanically, it feels largely very smooth and fluid. With combat mechanics aplenty taken from across the series such as summoning allies, BBS-style Finish commands and Shotlocks, Dream Drop Distance’s Flowmotion, and the new ability to transform one’s Keyblade into other forms, Sora is more powerful and dynamic in battle than ever. In fact, sometimes he feels a bit too powerful — Kingdom Hearts III’s largest gameplay flaw is that it doesn’t present nearly enough worthy foes for Sora and company to fight. Most enemies and bosses go down with ease on the standard difficulty, resulting in gameplay that rarely feels like you’re being tested in the slightest. Of course, the player can always handicap themselves by electing to not use certain mechanics, but there’s always the temptation to use your most powerful options in combat as long as you’re given the possibility. Thankfully, KHIII’s Re Mind DLC addresses this by including a series of 14 superbosses that contain some of the finest boss designs in the series, some of which surpass the high bar set by KHIIFM’s superbosses. When Kingdom Hearts III’s combat is clicking, it’s the best in the series, but unfortunately, that doesn’t occur as often as it should.
Even the music is an up-and-down rollercoaster. The game has some amazingly arranged tracks between the Disney world music and its arrangements of prior tracks in the series, but certain sequences feel like they don’t have the musical backing that they deserve. Certain boss themes, including the final boss theme, have instrumentations that actually border on sounding grating to the ear. The commonly cited reason for this inconsistency in the musical arrangements is Yoko Shimomura’s reduced involvement in KHIII’s original soundtrack, a sentiment that I can get behind. An uneven soundtrack might sound like a minor gripe to some, but for a series like Kingdom Hearts that has such a high bar for original tracks, it feels like yet another missed opportunity that could have helped elevate the game to greatness.
Kingdom Hearts III contains some of the highest highs in the series. Fighting the main antagonists of Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts II, and Dream Drop Distance at the same time while a mashup of their three boss themes plays in the background is one of the most memorable moments in gaming I’ve had. In terms of how it feels to play, KHIII is top two in the series along with KHII thanks to its fluidity and diversity of options in combat. It’s a pretty good game overall, but unfortunately, “pretty good” is not the way you want to end your blockbuster game series. Kingdom Hearts III is agonizingly close to being the perfect capstone to the Xehanort Saga, but its lofty expectations make all of its shortcomings sting that much more.
Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory (2020)
After Kingdom Hearts III closed out Kingdom Hearts’ Xehanort Saga and opened up a whole slew of new plot avenues, the series needed a bit of fresh air and breathing room. Enter Melody of Memory, a musical rhythm game and the series’ largest diversion from its traditional action-RPG gameplay loop. While the announcement came somewhat out of left field, the decision seemed like a no-brainer, given the breadth of high-quality music that the Kingdom Hearts series has to offer. Not only that, but fans of the series finally got a game story centered around Kairi, who has spent the majority of the series up to this point lacking agency and often playing the role of the damsel in distress.
For what it is, Melody of Memory is an enjoyable romp. The gameplay was a surprise to me —it’s a rhythm game at its core, but with just enough Kingdom Hearts sprinkled in to keep it engaging for series fans. Pressing buttons in time to the beat is visualized as Sora, Donald, and Goofy (or alternatively some other playable trios) running along a track and fighting their way through recognizable enemies from the series’ history. The game’s button presses are well-mapped to the beat of the music, making Melody of Memory a solid overall rhythm game.
The real star is the music itself—Melody of Memory’s greatest quality is that it serves as a compilation of the sublime tracks that Yoko Shimomura, Takeharu Ishimoto, and various other talented composers created for Kingdom Hearts. Befitting its title and its narrative, the game is a trip down memory lane that allows players to immerse themselves in the music of the series. Though there are some songs that are noticeably absent (notably some of KHIII’s best tracks), the majority of the series staples are included. Dare I say that the game is best played on the hardest difficulty (Proud Mode)— although it’s the most demanding of the player, Proud Mode is nevertheless the most engaging way to play the game.
It wouldn’t be a Kingdom Hearts side game if it didn’t have series-critical lore, and that holds true for Melody of Memory. The majority of the game’s narrative is told from Kairi’s perspective as she traverses through Sora’s memory. Though the bulk of Melody of Memory is essentially a story recap, its ending directly leads into the next game in the franchise, whatever it ends up being. Speaking as a fan, it’s easy to get frustrated with the series’ storytelling at times between all its complex concepts and occasionally meandering narrative, but I found the story direction that Melody of Memory hints at to have lots of potential. It’s unfortunate that for a game centered on Kairi, she ends up getting the short end of the stick yet again — it feels like she’s the one being rescued for the umpteenth time.
All in all, Melody of Memory is the dessert to the full-course meal that is Kingdom Hearts’ Xehanort Saga. It’s a pleasant palate cleanser while also serving as the amuse-bouche for the future of the series.
So, nearly twenty years later here we are, one major story arc down and the series finally looking to make its playable debut on PC. You may have noticed a lot of criticism of the games in this writeup — know that it comes from a place of true appreciation for the series and what it brings to the table in the modern gaming landscape. In today’s gaming culture that has no shortage of pessimistic and morally gray storytelling, Kingdom Hearts acts as a comfort food of sorts. At the end of the day, it tells an optimistic story with a clearly delineated conflict between good and evil. Some might consider its writing to be juvenile or cliché, but it’s earnest and always (literally) brimming with heart.
Kingdom Hearts is a video game series that revels in wacky ideas and insane plot contrivances, yet it takes itself just seriously enough where it gets its players to buy-in. In many respects, it’s a living relic of the PlayStation 2 era of gaming, when offbeat new IPs were plentiful and weren’t limited by the modern trends of microtransactions and live service games. If Kingdom Hearts has always been that weird game series to you that people nerd out about on the internet and you’d like to know more, I’d suggest dipping a toe or two in just to see what all the fuss has been about these past couple of decades.
