When you walk away, you don’t hear me say,
Pleeeeease, oh baby, don’t go.
Simple and clean is the way that you’re making me feel, tonight
It’s hard to let it go…
(Wait for it…. WAIT FOR IT…..)
HOOOOLLLD me,
Whatever lies beyond this mooorning
Is a little later on,
Regardless of warnings the future doesn’t scare me at all
Nothing’s like before…
And, indeed, everything did change after Kingdom Hearts. These posts are not only for talking about why these games fantastic, why they’re great. They’re also about reminiscing about the games, about when we first encountered them and how much we enjoyed them. One of my favorite things about these posts is seeing people post about their own experiences and feelings about the game.
I certainly remember when I first encountered Kingdom Hearts. I was a listless 18 year-old about to graduate from high school when I decided to pick it up from a Blockbuster (who remembers those?!) to entertain myself for a weekend. It looked kind of cool but a bit kiddy for me. However, be able to play as some of my favorite Disney characters sounded like it could keep me hooked for a few days….
A few days later I had played through the entire thing, and knew I HAD to own it. I did. In fact, I just pulled it out of a drawer to marvel at the fact that I’ve kept track of my copy all these years.
What made Kingdom Hearts so goddamned fantastic? Where was the magic that made it irresistibly addictive?
Even after all this time, it’s hard to say. Yes, the story and gameplay was strong enough that, even apart from the Disney aspect the game would still stand solidly on its own. Yes, being able to traverse the Disney worlds with my childhood pals Donald and Goofy, made into complete badass RPG warriors, was AWESOME. Sure, getting to hang out with Aladdin and Beast and flying with Peter Pan was incredible. And the soundtrack… Don’t. Get. Me. Started.
Ultimately though, the magic might have been in us the whole time, in our imaginations. A seed that had been planted when we were small, finally growing up and being packaged into a nice, neat bundle. You see, part of the genius of Kingdom Hearts (besides the obvious commercial genius of bundling a ton of characters that several generations of people recognized as familiar and essential to their childhood), was that we already knew the characters. You needed a frickin’ DEGREE in Disney to be able to appreciate and follow the story and characters. Hours upon hours (tens, likely hundreds) of movies and television are prerequisite before you can truly appreciate the game.
The gameplay, of course, was simple but solid. They didn’t overcomplicate it, but kept it action-oriented with strong RPG elements. You had to make choices, and those choices mattered in the development of your character and the difficulties of certain levels, bosses, and enemies. You had to choose who to ally with in each world, and this was a pretty important decision, too.
Kingdom Hearts is one of those perfect storms in gaming that happens only every once in a blue moon. I played the sequel, as well as Chain of Memories (and I’m keeping my eye on the third game, which is supposed to come out soon I think), but although they were all good, none of them quite matched that magic of the first game. It’s a masterpiece that has earned its way onto the list of best games ever made.
For those of you who haven't seen it (or for those who want to see it again) here it is:
