Back in the days of Final Fantasy in its prime, I wasn't too interested in Final Fantasy. Partial interest in the form of intrigue, perhaps. That interest has grown over the years, but not by much, even with the surprises this 1001 list has given me.
When the PlayStation 2 was going strong, and Square was on top of the RPG world, merging its universe with that of Disney in the form of Kingdom Hearts turned heads. An action RPG with Square characters interacting with Disney characters... it should work, right?
Final Fantasy isn't the only universe I've never had masses of interest in. To name another one that I don't really care about, I think I'll go with Disney.
I wonder how this will go.
Fun Times
After an unusual introduction where we fall, get up, fall, get up, fall some more, Kingdom Hearts kicks off with a tutorial atop stained-glass princesses.
I think I can, yes. The left stick allows us to walk and run through the environment, but manipulating the camera isn't attached to the right stick, rather the left and right shoulder buttons. We're not still in that weird time where games hadn't figured out how to use two analogue sticks, are we?
This is an action RPG that is firmly situated in the action camp. Real-time battles have you lock onto enemies and press X to swing your sword until they disappear. It's a bit of a faff to see where things are, especially black shadow creatures on a black background, but if you're locked onto something and are in range for an attack, a single button press will launch you into combat.
Frustrations
This tutorial has been silent. I don't know what this area is, or whether it is meant to come across as grand and important. Is it a dream? Is it just a weirdly worded tutorial? As I was asking myself this, lots more colour came to the screen.
Do I recognise these people?
You, I recognise, Mr Final Fantasy X's protagonist whose name isn't coming to me right no- Tidus? Gonna go with Tidus. Name's not important, what are you doing here? Why do you care about my fears?
I am quickly losing interest in this game. It wants to sound so profound, but it is aimed at (or needs to account for) younger audiences, so it instead sounds... off. It's just waffle. Why should I care about a door? What have you done to lead me to believe that a door is important? Was that glowing door the door I will open? The one that opened in front of my eyes?
Holy moly! Voice acting! I wasn't expecting that at all! Could you not cast anyone as 'disembodied tutorial prophet' or something? Maybe we'll get a bit of a clue as to what's going on.
We are Sora, a spikey-haired, clown-footed dreamer about to become so much more than a kid.
Whatever has been going on has taken place in our head, and whoever this is isn't having any of it. I've already forgotten her name, owing to the fact that I just don't caaaaaaare.
I am really bored. I'm bored writing this. These guys ever so briefly have an out of place chat about where she comes from and whether she wants to go back, and then we say that we want to explore everywhere, in the same way that Anakin Skywalker wanted to be the first person to see all the star systems in the Star Wars galaxy. It was weird, and then this dude came strolling in.
So we're building a raft to get off the hideous paradise. Ok then. Let's get to it.
A fetch quest at this point is to be expected. We've been told how we can talk to people, we've been told where the jump button is, and if the worst should happen, we know how to attack. Let's just get some resources.
I was surprised to see Sora able to hang off ledges and shimmy up trees, which would make moving around in Kingdom Hearts fun, were it not for the camera controls. There wasn't anything up here to grab, though, so I just ran around the island looking for anything that could be turned into a raft - logs, rope, cloth...
Aaaaand I'm out.
Final Word
Good Lord am I bored. Bored, bored, bored. Now, that may be a factor of my circumstances outside of this blog, sure, but if video games allow us to get swept up into another world that allows us to forget about the real one for a while, Kingdom Hearts most definitely didn't do it for me.
Did I give it a chance to impress? Probably not, no. I didn't even get hold of the iconic Keyblade, nor meet anyone from Disney that wasn't made of stained glass. I got through one fetch quest for a grand total of four items before calling it quits.
I have no time for this, or its sequel, or the upcoming(?) sequel, or the tens of spin-off titles across multiple systems, and that's fine by me. I've no idea what I'm missing out on, though I'm quite confident that I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
I don't know what the plot is, I don't know how the characters will develop, I don't know how the action or the RPG of this action RPG stacks up against the competition, and I just don't care, because I'm just not interested.
But if you are a fan of Square, or Disney, or both, go... go look at this, I suppose. What do I know?
Fun Facts
A literal chance meeting in an elevator would open up the doors to Disney, and the rest is history. History and vast amounts of sales. I'm clearly out of touch.
Kingdom Hearts, developed by Square, first released in 2002.
Version played: PlayStation 2, 2002, via emulation.