Kingdom Hearts I & II

I've been spending some time over the past couple weeks enjoying the seminal (meaning industry-advancing or significant, not semen-related) Kingdom Hearts games for the Playstation 2.  While the gameplay is nothing new, and the story bounces from whimsically simple to the Square-Enix induced complexity of a theoretical equation, the real standout of the game is the sheer depth of intellectual property fed into the game from both Disney and Square-Enix.

Kairi (left) and Sora (right) in an FMV.

Kingdom Hearts the first tells the story of Sora, Riku, and Kairi; happy-go-lucky youths who live on a small island and dream of exploring other worlds.  Their dream becomes reality when their world is "connected" to others through a menacing bad mojo known simply as "the darkness."  And this darkness also spawns monstrous concoctions known as Heartless, who errupt from a person whose heart fell to darkness.  Luckily, Sora is a chosen wielder of the Keyblade, a device that can destory Heartless and seal the doors between worlds.




The darkness phenomenon has not gone unnoticed by others: particularly King Mickey who tasks his captain of the guards Goofy and court mage Donald to find the Keyblade holder and assit him in sealing worlds.  Similarly, familiar Final Fantasy characters Squall, Yuffie, Aeris, and Cid are all also aware of the looming threat.  With the goal of continuing to search for his friends, Sora agrees to go with Donald and Goofy and seal worlds.

Flimsy stake-raising aside, the number of worlds available to seal is impressive: Wonderland, the Olympus Collesium, the Jungle (from Tarzan), Agrabah, Monstro, Halloween Town, Atlantica, and Neverland.  There are also events in the 100 Acre Wood, mostly involving mini-games.  Additionally, there's some real character building between Sora, Donald, and Goofy as you progress through the game.

The worlds have a distinct Disney feel.  Heartless that are spawned in the various worlds really seem to fit in to the environment, and never feel too dark or too cartoony for the setting.  To enhance that feel, you can also replace the standard Donald and Goofy team choices with Tarzan, Aladdin, Jack Skellington, Ariel, or Peter Pan - though you are responsible for the majority of combat.


The game uses a Zelda-esque lock-on system.

Speaking of combat - it's pretty much a X-mashing fest.  I want to clarify that that is perfectly fine.  Some games with extensively complicated combat could benefit from some X-mashing.  And there's jumping and magic and other things as well.

As you grow and complete your adventures against classic Disney villians - all of whom have teamed up for darkness-induced world domination - you learn that the true enemy is a man named Ansem (only not really!) who wants to harness the power of darkness that resides in the titutlar Kingdom Hearts.  Ansem (but not really!) possesses your friend Riku to acheive his dark and sinister goals.

Beating not-really-Ansem is the last step of Kingdom Hearts, wherein the worlds have been sealed from one another and Sora remains behind to save Riku, sending Kairi back to their island.  The ending screams: "a sequel is coming," and if you thought that'd be Kingdom Hearts II, you'd be sorely mistaken.

In the interlude between these two main titles, a Gameboy Advance title, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories is released.  This chronicles Sora, Donald, and Goofy's adventure into Castle Oblivion where their memories are wiped (a convenient tool to set you back to Level 1) and they battle a mysterious group called The Organization.  After beating several Organization members, the trio is sealed into pods to retain the memories they lost, while forgetting about Castle Oblivion, setting the stage for Kingdom Hearts II.  Meanwhile, a distressed Riku is fighting his way up from the basement levels of Castle Oblivion until he is finally bested by a mysetrious figure in a black cloak

A member of Organization XIII.

If it sounds like I'm glazing over a lot, I am.  I couldn't embrace the unique card-based battle system of KH:CoM despite being interested in the story's development.  I like card-based games, but juggling the cards in active time on a handheld screen proved too much for my dimished capacity.

Luckily, Kingdom Hearts II donates a substantial amount of time helping console-only players follow what has now transpired to be an extremely convoluted story.  Heartless, as we well established, develop from darkness engulfing a heart; however the process also creates a non-being called a Nobody, and more powerful hearts create Nobodies who think and act like normal people, but have no hearts.

We start the game as Roxas - which is a great template to go over controls (like how to move and jump).  This same tactic is employed in Final Fantasy XII with Reks.  It would have been pretty insipid to have gained control of Sora again and then have a window pop up reminding me that I need to use the controller to do things, after I have already strained my disbelief to accept that Sora has twice now forgotten all his abilities, not to mention how to use the camera.

On camera, let me stop for a second and say that Kingdom Hearts II sails above its predecessor in this category.  The camera is now controlled by the right analog stick and is also not positioned to be extremely unhelpful during critical battle situations.

So you're Roxas, doing your semi-punk rock, I live in a weird city where it's always twilight (called Twilight Town) thing.  And, through a three hour prologue to Sora's story, you learn that you (Roxas) are the Nobody of Sora, when he became a Heartless very briefly in Episode 1.  Roxas' discovery is heartbreaking, as he finally confronts a pod-resting Sora with the intent to destroy him, only to accept his own obliteration.

Back in control of Sora, you learn about the Nobodies and Organization XIII's (previously known as "The Organization") control of them for what have to be dark purposes.  Each member of Organization XIII is a powerful Nobody.  And as Nobodies they can travel through the darkness that connects all worlds, which Sora and friends cannot.  So, you must now travel from world to world oepning connections in a very Sisyphus plot thread that doesn't quite get explained.  Didn't I spend the majority of the first game sealing these very connections?

As you travel searching for Organization XIII, King Kickey, and Riku, various Disney worlds recruit you to help them get their affairs in order.  A couple new locales are added: Disney Castle (and the superbly designed "Timeless River" where you play as early-cartoon versions of yourselves), Port Royal from Pirates of the Carribean, the Pride Lands, Beast's Castle, miscellaneous parts of China (from Mulan), a Tron-based world, and the Underworld for Hercules.

Reaction commands at work in a battle against 1,000 Heartless.

The gameplay is a lot of the same, with a value add of "Reaction Commands" which sometimes are available by selecting Triangle.  The other major add are forms.  Sora's new clothes (since his incredibly awkward knees became visible due to a growth spurt during his pod time) have the power to transform him into a weapon, or magic, or both, powerhouse of damage.  This adds some new strategies to combat, but after unlocking the Final Form, the new strategy is X-mashing and watching as insane things happen.

Each world is a lot deeper, as well.  And your adventures are chronicled in Jimminy's Journal, who helpfully idnetifies when there is a section or world where there is nothing else to do.  Helpful especially because you can 100% complete the game and get a "secret ending," which is kind of like the Platinum Trophy version of a PS2 game.

It's no easy feat though - adding about 15 hours to the post game, some of which is actually pretty numbingly tedious (like leveling up your Summons, Forms, and collecting materials from enemies).  And the "secret ending" isn't all that exciting to watch.  But the 100% completion - which I accomplished for the first time - feels good.

There's some speculation on the games being released for PS3 download, but in the meantime the only way to play is to have a PS2 or a backwards compatible PS3.  Well worth the time put into the games, which I finished both of (100%) in a total of about 80 hours.