Considered by many to be one of the most legendary PS2 titles and giving birth to a fanbase that cosplays it to numerous horrors and writes Yaoi fanatics because only one of the main characters is a female (and to be fair, one of the villains), Kingdom Hearts seems like another Square-Enix classic... and someone on GameFAQS had the balls to compare this game to the Gamecube's game line-up at the time of it's release.
Well, I replayed it, and I fail to see what makes this game legendary. The battle system is boring, the worlds are lifeless (which makes it suck more because they are based on DISNETY WORLDS, and they bastardized Alice In Wonderland), but god forbid it has to be popular because Tetsuya Nomura developed and it's a Final Fantasy/Square-Enix cross-over.
Only positive thing I can find is that it's better then Cinderella II. I can't believe I made that comparison.
Its legendary because it was a rather unexpected project between two industry giants. True, crossover games had existed before (Marvel Vs. Capcom, Smash Bros.) but this was perhaps the first time a deep and meaningful story was built around it. Combine this with the timeless appeal of Disney with the modern gameplay of Final Fantasy and you had something that fans couldn't ignore even if they wanted to.
When I played the first game I absolutely ADORED it. I became a hardcore fan of it to the point that I replayed it several times.
But it wasn't perfect. The worlds could have been better designed and felt like cheap sets rather than living breathing Disney worlds, the camera suck and of course it was a love/hate hack and slash.
Still I give it merit for what they tried to do.
Funny how people talk about the angst. Sora is one of my all time favorite game characters because he goes against the typical Square Enix rules of angsty pretty boy. He's silly, he's funny, he's willing to help, he's loyal and is clearly having fun throughout his adventure. In other words even if he was forced to go with Donald and Goofy and fight the heartless he is having a blast meeting all sort of crazy characters.
Which is why I was annoyed at how they focused on Roxas and Riku on the second game and GBA game respectively. Now those play by the angst ridden protagonist rule. Roxas is the pretty boy that has no idea who he is and questions the world around him while Riku is the pretty boy that is better than the main hero and struggles to find the line between good and bad. Its no surprise fangirls wet themselves.
The GBA game was good, but the card based mechanics were annoying, messy and at times too complicated. Its even worse that they integrated it into every aspect of the game, including worlds and doors. It also did very little to explain the myths of Kingdom Hearts.
The sequel was good, but its clear they wanted to cram a lot more of everything. Yes, the gameplay was a lot more polished and had a lot more options regarding battle, but many of the worlds had little significance in the story, and on top of that the plot was ridiculously complicated.
Again, it was really good, but more time should have been focused on creating a more organized story than cramming everything into one DVD.
Finally, Square is milking it a bit too much. The first Kingdom Hearts game was special because it was the first of its kind, an event so to speak. Now, the series isn't so special when you have three or more sequels coming out, and likely won't help out the cause.
Of course I still want to play them and I still enjoy the series but I understand why people don't like it, that the fandom greatly exaggerates its love for it and that milking it could potentially ruin it, the same way FFVII was ruined by all the hype and constant sequels and spin offs.
Topic: Personal thoughts on the Kingdom Hearts series? (Read 3825 times)
