A GAME I REGRET MISSING OUT ON
KINGDOM HEARTS
It's November 2002, I'm 13 years old. I have a PS2 since Christmas 2001. I have a handful bad-ass games such as Metal Gear Solid 2, Grand Theft Auto 3, Dynasty Warriors 2, and I have recently gotten GTA: Vice City.
I've grown out of all those kiddie games such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Crash Bandicoot. I want to play some grown-up games now. I hate Final Fantasy and all games like it, I hate RPGs because they're so far-fetched. I love my mature, action packed "Man Games".
I'm also new to collecting magazines to see what games are out. In one of those magazines, I see an article about Kingdom Hearts for the PS2. Instantaneously I said "pfft, Disney games are for kids, I'm in high school now, I don't play these kind of games"
Wow, such a narrow mind I had as a young lad...
Fast-forward to 2017 and I have established myself as a fairly open-minded gamer. I have completed Final Fantasy 9, I have gotten as far as Sephiroth's final form in Final Fantasy 7 (And that save file has been sitting in my PSP since 2011 and I don't think I'll ever finish it.... but I have started a new game recently and I have gotten as far as.....that tragic scene, but I digress). Essentially, I now love J-RPGs - of all kinds, I might add - and as I write this, it's the 9th of April 2017 and I have recently finished Kingdom Hearts I.5 Final Mix on PS4....
.....which is:
.....which is:
The remaster of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Final Mix that was released on PS3;
Which was the remaster of the unreleased Japanese extended edition of the original Kingdom Hearts that was never released to Western audiences on PS2..... which I never cared for growing up because I didn't enjoy platformers, RPGs or Disney games.
BUT I digress.
As I was saying. I bought Kingdom Hearts I.5 & II.5 ReMix for the PS4 which was released about a week ago as of this blog. I bought it because I thought it was time I actually tried these games.
While I said I have opened my mind to more games and genres, I still didn't bother to try Kingdom Hearts but this time it was for a new reason: the story was supposed to be very complex and each instalment of the series looked all over the place chronologically, and it gave me such a headache that I just didn't intend on trying it.
Hell - I didn't even know Kingdom Hearts I.5 ReMix was a remaster of the original Kingdom Hearts. I thought it was another ridiculous name for a new instalment, but this is the world of the internet so I was gobsmacked when I found out that I missed this on PS3 when I had one.
Anyway - without going too much off track again - I bought this pack simply because it was time - time to break the proverbial brick wall that has prevented me from trying these games out.
So a little synopsis - Kingdom Hearts was released in 2002 and is a cross-over action-RPG that merges the world of Disney with that of another world filled with characters from Final Fantasy (moreso that of Final Fantasy VII, VIII and X) and you play as a character who is out of the loop of both of these worlds, essentially playing from an outside perspective, and something messed up has happens which causes both worlds to be brought together but with a cost - there are evil dark creatures and enemies lurking around the place so you have to find a way to end it.
It's as vague a description as I'm going to put out to avoid any spoilers of any kind.
So I bought it on its Friday release (because the UK and Ireland have the best release days - the beginning of a weekend) and fast forward to Saturday night-Sunday morning and my first impressions have set in - "I am not sure I enjoy this game at all"
Here's what I did like at first:
- The soundtrack
- The discovery of various Disney and Final Fantasy characters interacting with each other
...that was it
Here's what I did not like;
- The combat
- The camera (this was more of an enemy in and of itself - very awkward to work with)
- The gummi-ship sequences (those things were boring, uninspiring, dull looking machines that had one gun and no texture to its appearance, they looked tacked on - so annoying. And they were unskippable, these were necessary to travel between worlds - no fast travel!!)
- The convoluted narrative (I kept asking "why" at almost everything)
- The enemies (thought they were dull and too easy)
- The micromanaging of your inventory (you can't stop to rearrange your items/equipment during battle, you have to wait until all enemies on screen are defeated)
- The fact that you can't tell if an enemy is nearly dead - NO HEALTH BAR
- Your weapon is a f*cking key (I know there's this thing where you have to suspend your disbelief but come the f*ck on - enemies are charging at me with staffs, swords and all sorts of deadly weapons and here's me - holding something you open your car with. Come at me!)
- The boring and sometimes dreadful level design (You're so boxed in it's almost claustrophobic. Made worse by that awful inconsistent camera)
- No map. I had to pull up a guide to find out where to go, I never usually do that - there's always an "it's obvious" mechanic to direction in games these days - even without a map it can work (look at Final Fantasy 7 - most times you just.. get it.) this game, doesn't follow that simple design. I was scratching my head a lot at not figuring out where to go. There are platforms you just can't see unless you wrestle with that camera to see it.
These were all of my first impressions after getting to the 2nd or 3rd world in the game - it started to feel a bit repetitive;
*Go to this world*
|
*Kill enemies*
|
*Kill boss*
|
*Use key to lock world*
|
*rinse and repeat*
|
*Oh, and try following this story of "I'm trying to find someone you lost at the beginning of the plot"*
By this point, my urge to finish the game was diminishing, I just decided to mindlessly grind out of boredom, and every now and then play another game to keep me occupied, because Kingdom Hearts wasn't doing it for me - I thought to myself "I have just bought a pack of 6 games and I can't even be bothered to continue the 1st game in the series"
I even went and bought the Atari Flashbacks collection on PS4 to just give me something to do (I didn't want to turn on another AAA title because that's a nasty habit I need to kick - dropping one big game to play something else and never returning to finish it) and I had a good bit of fun on it - played some retro belters like Asteroids, Centipede and Black Widow - got a few Trophies as well (a good few silver ones, too) and I was fairly happy.
I decided to give Kingdom Hearts another run. I know I sound like I'm hating on the game at this point but believe me I was trying, I played it every day during the week for at least an hour, so I didn't outright abandon it. But moving on;
After around 20 hours into the game I finally found it - the part of the game where I just said "I get it, now. This is what I missed".
This game started getting brilliant.
I learned that I could equip a "scan" item that allows me to see enemy health bars. This helped, a lot, because it helps to know how much damage I'm doing with what abilities I'm using against said enemies.
I learned how to build and upgrade my gummi ship. I turned my ship into a beast with about 6 machine turrets and a rocket dispenser, and 2 laser guns and it was fast as sh*t! It really made those sequences much more fun to do.
With that, I also learned that I could install a warp drive to fast travel between worlds I already visited. This was amazing! It made travelling much more consistent and I didn't have to wait around.
I learned that I could upgrade my Key blade - and my abilities such as combos and other special moves. Melee combat ended up being extremely satisfying.
As someone who doesn't favour using magic in RPGs (I'm the conventional, physical type) I am thankful that using spells in this game is almost a must. Because it turned into one of my favourite things to do in this game - casting Aeroga and using "charge" turned me into a god in most occasions.
I had the rose-petal keyblade that Belle handed me, it's almost the most OP weapon in the game. I was unstoppable. I was destroying bosses left, right and center.
And that's another thing I started to really love - the boss encounters. They were not too easy but not overly difficult, either. There was only ever one or two instances where I said "right, I am just not ready to fight this boss, I'll come back later" one of them was the devil guy from Fantasia (I forget his name) and another secret boss that I accidentally encountered - who annihilated me within seconds, I should add.
In order to defeat the devil character, I had to upgrade my Aero ability to it's best form (basically allowing me to take a lot of damage without losing too much health) and to do this I had to do a bit of a collect-a-thon, by finding chests containing 99 lost dalmation puppies (not as long and large as it sounds, because they came in groups of three for each chest, and the game would tell you how many were in each world. All I had to do was find the chest-locations. When I made the effort to go and get all of them, I already had about 50 of them, so it took me no more than 30 mins to find the rest)
As for the secret boss character. I haven't bothered to go back and fight him yet. Not sure if I will since it isn't story-related and I want to see what happens next.
And that's another thing I want to add - The Story.
*Spoilers Ahead*
It starts off with you, the main character, Sora. And your two friends, Riku and Kairi, want to build a raft and see other worlds away from their home island. In the midst of all this, the island is invaded by creatures known as the Heartless. You find out that your two friends have disappeared and your original task is to find them.
Parallel to this, we find out that in the realm of the Disney universe, King Mickey has also disappeared and his two friends, Donald and Goofy depart the kingdom to go find him.
You eventually meet these two and they agree to join you in your quest to find Riku and Kairi, while finding out you're the holder of the keyblade, you have the power to close all the keyholes around the world and end the reign of the heartless. At first I thought this was a fairly cute, simple plot to follow. But it only gets darker and better as the story goes on. And I won't spoil the rest of it but I will say by the latter 1/2 of the game, I was hooked. The story started getting darker and it just reminded me of a Final Fantasy game by that stage. And that's what makes this game amazing.
You start off helping various beloved Disney characters with their own troubles, and once that's all done, you end up fighting a greater evil that culminates in one of the best stories I've ever seen in a game.
I absolutely loved the hell out of this game by the end of it. I have officially fallen in love with Kingdom Hearts and I cannot wait to play more of them.
I regret not playing these games when I was younger. I now understand why they're still fairly pricey to buy on its original format. It is one of the most complex, deep and original stories of any RPG I have ever played.
And I will say this - the end of the game gets very, very, very J-RPG-esque. Talk about final forms. This was incredible..
Kingdom Hearts is a classic. And even though I have only played the first one, I am already excited to know that there will hopefully be a Kingdom Hearts 3. I say "hopefully" because even though it's in development and the first trailer was shown, cancellations can happen - but I hope with this, that it doesn't.
Great Game
Great Story
Great Experience.
