With the recent release of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days for the DS (which Shaun reviewed not too long ago), Checkpoint takes a look back at the Square/Disney mashup that came seemingly from nowhere. The idea of Cloud and Donald interacting didn’t make much sense at the time, but now, four titles later (with a fifth on the way), KH is entrenched as a major franchise in video games. The One-Uppers look back at the original and its sequel and decide which is the better game.

Kingdom Hearts 

Shaun: What a ridiculous premise. Take a protagonist that sort of resembles a young Cloud, throw in an antagonist that sort of resembles Sephiroth sans a 30-foot sword, and then throw in…Disney characters? No one thought it would succeed.

Chris: Somebody…I think it was Game Informer, did a long preview of the game where they detailed what was happening, and they seemed in awe of the whole process. Not in a good way, though, just in a “what the hell?” kind of way.

Shaun: They got their Disney in my Final Fantasy, and I didn’t like it.

Lee: I’ll be honest, I was sold on the idea of a whole bunch of Disney characters in an RPG.

Chris: For me, I’m a huge fan of Disney and a decent fan of Final Fantasy, and I really thought the idea could work. I know that sounds like revisionist history, but it’s true. Something about those worlds seemed like it could mesh if the creative teams made each side relevant.

Shaun: Well, you guys knew something that I didn’t know then. Intuition, I guess. But between the fan-fictionesque cross-over idea and the seemingly young demographic, I was just not interested.

Lee: I didn’t play the game for the longest time because I didn’t know what it was about. Once I heard the premise, I really wanted to play it.

Shaun: I’m somewhat surprised now that it is one of my favorite gaming franchises right now. Although it did take me three quarters through the first one to actually sell me on it.

Chris: Admittedly, the game has a lot of childlike innocence to it. Sometimes that seems like it’s playing to a younger age group, but I think it was the perfect setting for new characters to mesh with these Disney worlds. Taking the tone the series had in KH2 (and Birth By Sleep, etc.) would have made this series fail from the start.

Shaun: Oh, I completely agree now. Kingdom Hearts is now home to some of the emotionally charged and tragic scenes in gaming (oh, Xion, why!). On the other hand, the intro with Riku standing on the beach with his hand out while a freaking tidal waves comes to kill everything didn’t impress me.

Chris: Right, and Sora goes through the floor and spins around in circles and probably dropped a line of acid. I don’t want my kids to be encouraged to take drugs.

Lee: I didn’t quite understand the whole heartless thing and the tying into darkness, but visiting the different Disney movies and ruining the bad guys’ days was something I have wanted to do for years.

Chris: And really, the series didn’t exactly get more clear about the Heartless as it went along. Sure, we got to know more about them, but not about how they were created, or why some hearts manifested themselves and others didn’t, or how they changed the shape of the moon. But really, it didn’t matter too much.

Lee: No, not really important to the story. And if it was designed for kids, it is not like they were going to figure it out.

Chris: Because kids are dumb. Like Riku.

Shaun: Yeah, that’s all part of the reason the series got off to a slow start for me. So some shadow things with questionable motives are attacking this beach, and instead of going to save everyone, the hero flies around in a space ship with Donald and Goofy, giddy as can be. Then the first Disney world is Wonderland, which I hated. And you got to it with the Gummi Ship, which I hated.

Lee: Hey, the life of a warrior can be hard. Would you have preferred him covered in black blood for the entire game?

Shaun: Well…maybe, at the time, yes.

Lee: The whole seven Disney princesses thing was hard to believe. Alice? No, she was not a princess. Kairi? Sorry, don’t believe that one. By this time, Belle hadn’t married Beast, so she didn’t count. There was a laundry list of problems with that story arch.

Chris: That’s another problem. We eventually learn that Kairi is from a different world than Riku and Sora, but we don’t have any idea where, or why she would be lumped with a bunch of Disney princesses into Maleficent’s crosshairs. Again, does it matter a ton? No, but it certainly raises some questions.

Shaun: But the story took a great turn for me with the trip to Hollow Bastion. Our spunky little hero finally has some inner conflict, Riku messes him up, and then, in an epic confrontation, Sora turns into a Heartless. Between the story and the music (best in the series), I was an instant fan. Fighting with a stick was a nice touch, as well.

Lee: Not to mention that the entire time leading up to that battle you get to party with Beast.

Shaun: Oh yeah, good point.

Chris: For me, having to hide behind the Beast (STAND ASIDE) for the first part of that stage really hammered home the whole desperation of that moment. Sora had lost sight of his goals, and now he was reduced to just about nothing. Luckily, the Beast was a pimp.

Shaun: This moment was not only key for the character arches in the game, but it also set up everything for future Kingdom Hearts titles. Definitely the most pivotal scene in the series.

Chris: Again, I’m not exactly sure what happens there. Supposedly Maleficent finds out how to change the Keyblade from belonging to its true owner to Riku, who’s about 3/4 evil at that time. Even if Sora had taken it for granted, it’s not like his intentions became bad suddenly. This could be attributed to Maleficent being the mistress of all evil, but even then I’m not sure I buy it.

Lee: Out of all the Disney villains, she made the most sense as the head honchess. Other than Jafar, the others really didn’t have what it took.

Chris: Jafar’s a pimp too.

Lee: I didn’t like the resolution of the game. You finally catch up with everyone, Riku is good again, but you have to seal his ass in the realm of darkness (along with the rest of him). Then you stare at Kairi telling her you will find her, when all you have to do is jump two damn feet across a gap.

Chris: And instead of jumping two feet, you get J-pop music.

Shaun: I think I see a trend here; I don’t mind stories that end with promise of epic things that will happen. You guys are not so forgiving.

Chris: My problem with it is that there was really no guarantee of a sequel (or 19 sequels and 300,000 prequels) at that point. This was a pretty big risk by both studios, and they happened to come out of it golden. But does KH1 stand on its own if KH:CoM and 2 don’t happen? I’m not sure.

Shaun: Although I had a question. Was Kingdom Hearts “Light” because Sora believed in it at that moment, or was it always light, thus nullifying every single event that occurred in the game?

Chris: Kingdom Hearts was DARKNESS. Darkness is the heart’s true form. I know now, more than ever, even though I had no idea what Kingdom Hearts was until about five minutes ago, that Kingdom Hearts is Light! I think.

Shaun: Okay, good. That’s about the same answer I got from the game.

Keys to the Game

Shaun: Though not as strong, Kingdom Hearts is certainly a good game by itself due to its gameplay.

Lee: Kingdom Hearts could stand on its own. However, the later games take the series from kind-of-good to now-there-is-a-reason-to-get-all-of-the-story.

Chris: I wasn’t really sold on the whole menu-in-the-corner system until I tried it out. It seemed like it would be a distraction, but for the most part it works.

Shaun: Yeah. It’s a little unintuitive for rapidly using magic or items, but overall it worked nicely, and it allowed for other things, like great camera control.

Lee: I used the shortcuts more than I used the menu. It can be a real pain in the heat of battle.

Shaun: I didn’t realize how solid the fighting mechanic and smart ability equipping could be until I fought Sephiroth, though. Him and his 15 health bars.

Chris: I like how Sephiroth had so many health bars that you didn’t even start to do noticeable damage until halfway through the fight. Like somehow they forgot to include that many colors for health bars.

Shaun: Yeah, that was disheartening.

Chris: I also liked how Sora (and Goofy)’s health could circle around his picture and head about halfway across the bottom of the screen. I’m always a big HP fan, and that was a bonus for me.

Shaun: But what a great battle. It almost made me forget the travesty of the Little Mermaid level. Almost….

Chris: And to think, that would only get worse in the second game. But that’s for later.

Shaun: The best Disney world level in the game was Halloween Town, followed closely by the Coliseum.

Lee: I think we can all agree Wonderland was the worst.

Shaun: I second that. What a horrible way to start the game. It’s like putting the Water Temple as the first temple in Zelda. Let’s turn everyone away before they even start!

Chris: Yeah, at the very least I don’t think you can start with that. Too trippy, not mainstream enough, and having to collect clues for the trial was really annoying.

Shaun: Not to mention the little-big dynamic was frustrating, and highlighted the game’s poor platforming aspect.

Chris: Really, that whole first circle of levels (excluding the Coliseum) was inferior to the second one — certainly when you look at them as groups.

Lee: And did they even have a Snow White level? That could have worked out.

Shaun: Nope. Birth by Sleep will, apparently, but its absence in the first two, along with Sleeping Beauty, seems like a huge oversight. So Aurora is a Princess of Heart, Maleficent is the main antagonist, and yet there is no level of Sleeping Beauty? What the hell!?

Lee: Maleficent ate the level. But they could have done a lot with Sleeping Beauty’s world. There is a lot of action in that movie that could have been replicated.

Shaun: Of course. The three fairies. The castle. The owl that wears that Prince’s clothing. It was a goldmine. I have a list of levels that need to be in the next Kingdom Hearts. Don’t get me started. (cough-Pixar-cough. I wonder if there is a licensing issue there…)

Chris: At the very least, Hook’s ship, Aladdin and Nightmare Before Christmas were all pretty solid, so with the exception of Monstro (what on earth is Riku doing there? And why do I have to suffer?), there’s some really good lead-ins to Hollow Bastion, the best level in the game.

Shaun: Possibly the best level in the series, actually. Top three, no doubt.

Lee: I was a fan of fighting the giant devil guy. Not because it was a fun fight, but that was an obscure choice from Fantasia, and I always liked that movie.

Chris: And they had the music in the background, too.

Lee: I am still not a fan of the Keyblade. Sure, for opening locks it is second to none, but in battle Sora used the blunt side for attacking. That doesn’t work for me.

Shaun: It’s just really dense, so it causes a lot of blunt trauma.

Lee: At least you got some pretty sweet-looking Keyblades throughout the game.

Chris: Man, it was Oblivion all the way for me. The hell with Ultima Weapon.

Shaun: I guess they had to punish you for using the most powerful sword by making it look awful.

Chris: I just don’t know what the hell kind of lock that thing would open. There’s like nine million little pieces.

Lee: You open up padlocks with that.

Chris: Yeah, if you’re MacGyver.

Kingdom Hearts II

Shaun: The first installment was solid, and garnered a large fanbase, but it really only set up the sequel, which improves upon the first in pretty much every conceivable way.

Chris: Well, I don’t know about that. It definitely had some things it tweaked and made better, though.

Shaun: Well, we’ll go by one by one. The story was better. Although some people thought the intro was slow, I really liked it. I thought the payoff was great, and it established the most tragic figure in the series, Roxas.

Lee: Soroxas.

Shaun: If you’re playing the game to rush through it, you’re playing for the wrong reasons.

Lee: The beginning didn’t keep in line with the rest of it. You get a little backstory, but then it is all erased because the characters didn’t actually exist. Oh wait, they did exist.

Shaun: Yeah, it was a replica town…okay, some things are more complicated than they need to be (how many Ansems are there again now? 50?), but I still liked the developments.

Chris: The story was definitely a plus. They took a basic framework and added a lot of depth to it. Not just with the whole Heartless/Nobody dimension, but with the trio of original characters (Sora/Kairi/Riku).

Shaun: Yeah, the fact the Organization’s names are the people’s real names, but switched around and with an X confuses me. Like…Vexen. What was that fool’s real name? Even? Neve Campbell? It’s just strange.

Chris: Someone will have to explain what Demyx was. Medy?

Lee: Xemnas was Ansem X. But wait, he was Xehanort’s Nobody. Gosh, this is confusing.

Shaun: If you were able to digest the card-based gameplay and beat Chain of Memories, it actually ties in very nicely.

Lee: Yeah, card-based games. Got it.

Chris: Admittedly, the twist in Hollow Bastion after you finish Tron’s world is…interesting. I like how Sora and Co. and pretty much as baffled as the player is at that point. “So…Ansem wasn’t Ansem, but he was, but he had a Heartless, who had a Nobody who’s the main boss, but the Heartless was the main boss, and now I think that first Heartless has his own Heartless, and have you had an aneurysm yet?”

Lee: Well, all I know is that boss was a pain in every ass on the planet.

Shaun: If it wasn’t incomprehensible, it wouldn’t be SquareEnix.

Chris: I’m also not sure why the original Ansem is Ansem the Wise when all he does is screw up experiments and nearly suck the world into darkness.

Lee: Maybe Ansem the Wise had really good relationship advice. How else do you think Donald suckered somebody into dating him?

Chris: I think Donald used drugs. It’s about the only way. That voice could kill a deaf man. I mean, if Ansem is wise because he’s voiced by Christopher Lee, fine, but otherwise…

Shaun: Better than Billy Zane.

Chris: Yeah, but Billy Zane was way better than whoever the hell did the voice for Ansem’s Heartless in the sequel.

Shaun: True. He was actually good. I just made a joke at the expense of Billy Zane when he did not deserve it.

Chris: He might forgive you, given time. He might kill you.

Shaun: Not if I don’t kill myself first after playing the Little Mermaid level…again. Good news, guys: it’s just a musical mini game this time. What they did is they filtered out the best stuff from that level in the first…wait a minute.

Chris: They filtered out the least awful stuff.

Lee: They also ruined singing for everyone in Atlantica by letting Donald tag along.

Shaun: Yeah, and I don’t need to see Sora like that, either. I had a hard enough time trying to believe he matured from the first one.

Chris: I mean, I used to like Under the Sea. Hearing the instrumental version 300 times in the first game was so-so. Hearing Donald sing lines in the second one killed a kitten somewhere.

Lee: Every time I could switch out a character, Donald was given the axe.

Shaun: I never switched out characters. I have separation anxiety issues.

Lee: The other characters were infinitely better than Donald. It didn’t matter because he got levels anyway. The point was, no annoying voice. You also got some sweet limits in the second game.

Shaun: I did like the Limits, but I liked Mickey coming to save your ass when you died even better.

Chris: I kept Donald in a few times, which is a few more times than in the first game. He was automatically out whenever possible.

Lee: Beast, Tron, Aladdin, Jack Sparrow, Jack the Pumpkin King, Jack the Ripper. You would have to be some kind of a pansy to think your team wasn’t good enough for them.

Chris: Yep. Great party members and pretty good locales.

Lee: Aside from Atlantica, the levels in the second game were alright. A couple of repeats from the first game, some of which sucked, but nothing too bad.

Shaun: Definitely. Levels like Tron and the old-school Mickey Mouse cartoons were stellar.

Return to DARKNESS

Chris: Let’s talk about ways where the second game was inferior, because it wasn’t all peaches and daisies. Or cream. For example, just about any exploration (trinity marks, Dalmatians, etc.) was taken out. So was any platforming, although that’s a mixed bag.

Shaun: I was sad to see the exploration aspects, such as the missing puppies, axed, but the platforming was so frustrating in the first one. The levels were just not built real well for that.

Chris: Neither was the camera. Great for combat, not so much for jumping between platforms in Monstro’s rainbow stomach.

Shaun: Score another improvement for the sequel. The camera with the second joystick was much better. Dual Analog! But I didn’t like the reaction system.

Lee: Well Shaun, I don’t like you. I think the reaction system was a little off. It allowed for some interesting gameplay during battles, but sometimes you would be waiting to press the button, and the symbol flashed on the screen, and you press that damn button, and oh wait you’re dead.

Chris: GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK! GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK! GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK!

Shaun: I am against this “quick time button” movement anyway, so naturally I was not a fan of it in this game. It’s too distracting from the core gameplay, and it made things too easy. Like the Sephiroth fight, for example.

Chris: Look, timed button presses have worked in some games, and can really enrich battle systems. Think Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga or Lost Odyssey. But here, it’s an active system and the reactions were used too much. Not to mention the sequences you get from Reaction commands are significantly less epic when they happen four times in a fight.

Shaun: Or worse, when you have to spam them to survive an enemy attack.

Lee: I didn’t fight Sephiroth in the second game. I was preparing for this review for the entire weekend. I decided to kill the final boss and come back and play more later. Well, after that final boss I decided the latter part of that plan was stupid and I had played enough.

Shaun: Come on! That final fight was good. Once you figured it out, it was great.

Chris: That fight was stupid. “Welp, this fighting two-on-one thing isn’t working, so I’ll have nine million laser bolts fire at them instead! Ha ha ha I’m so crafty!”

Shaun: It might have been better from a story perspective than a gameplay perspective, but it was still awesome.

Chris: The only part of that fight I liked was how Sora and Riku each got ruined at one point. It was an edgier part of the fight that I wasn’t expecting from this mostly kid-friendly franchise.

Shaun: Getting to control as Riku briefly was a nice touch, as well.

Lee: It was like eating something really delicious. You don’t want it to end, but you know it has to or you will wake up a fatty. You get to the last bits of the meal, and it turns out you have to chew them for two hours. And if you try to swallow, it comes back up because you couldn’t digest it correctly, for some reason.

Shaun: Yeah…just like that. Oh wait, no it’s not.

Chris: I’m sorry, I fell asleep at “like.”

Lee: I fell asleep at “was.”

Chris: Always gotta one-up me.

Where The Heart Is

Shaun: While I did like the ending, I just hope the next major installment doesn’t have Sora, Riku and Kairi as the three main characters in the party, each with a Keyblade. So much for the chosen one, by the way. Everyone has a Keyblade now!

Chris: It’s gotta be Donald and Goofy still. They’re too invested. Maybe at some point those two can join the party as well, but not the whole game.

Shaun: It can move past Disney characters, but I don’t want it to, or it loses its defining characteristic. It just becomes Action Final Fantasy.

Lee: I thought the next installment was supposed to go back in time to the beginning of some kind of Keyblade war or whatever.

Shaun: That’s Birth by Sleep on the PSP. A prequel. Which looks really good, by the way.

Chris: BBS is the days when everyone had a Keyblade, before they all disappeared in the war and later everyone got a Keyblade. So…uh…yeah.

Shaun: I’m just confused because they seem to be breaking the rules of the universe they established, but hey, whatever. I guess they think as long as Genie has some funny lines, everything is okay.

Chris: Look, even though we’re critical about some aspects of the games, I think we can all agree this is a pretty damn good series. I’ve definitely enjoyed the entries up to this point.

Shaun: Well, it’s definitely one of my favorite gaming series, even though I admit it is more heavily based on its presentation — story, characters, music — than the gameplay itself.

Lee: If they came out with a third game, I would definitely play it. Even if they phased out the Disney aspect, that would mean they could get a little more adult with the game.

Chris: The gameplay oscillates between awesome and repetitive at times, but the greatness of the Disney worlds and the soundtrack shine through.

Shaun: Speaking of the soundtrack, it is one of the most solid out there. I am amazed at the quality, and it’s not just one or two great songs, it’s pretty much all of them.

Lee: The sound was a shining example of how music can set the emotion of a scene.

Chris: There’s at least 10 really good tracks from both games. The vast majority are good, but some really resonate and stick as out as being memorable. Hollow Bastion, Forze del Male, Guardando nel Buio, Tension Rising, The Encounter, etc. Great stuff.

Shaun: I only recognize the tunes and not the names, but I agree. Whatever they do, we don’t need any more recycled levels. Just because Aladdin is one of Disney’s most popular characters doesn’t mean I need to Sora and Co. to reintroduce themselves to him another 300 times.

Lee: I would love to fight alongside Wall-E or Eve. That would be some epic fight.

Shaun: How about Robin Hood, or the Rescuers, or the Black Cauldron, or the Incredibles. There is so much good material that they don’t need to make filler ones by recycling old worlds. I know they are probably planning for another dozen entries, but come on.

Chris: I can also see Pocahontas and Hunchback working, especially the latter. That was maybe the darkest animated film Disney did, and if we’re taking a more serious route through KH3, it’s a perfect fit.

Shaun: Oh man, I wasn’t even thinking recent Disney films. I’m surprised they haven’t used those yet. Point is, stop being lazy.

Shaun: SquareEnix, not you Chris.

Chris: Oh, good. I was about to cry blood.

Shaun: Ouch.

Lee: You know, tears work well.

Shaun: So comparing the two, you know where I stand. KH2 is an improvement in almost every way.

Lee: Says the guy who hates the reaction system, which was a big part of the game.

Shaun: Some of the stuff introduced (like reaction commands) fall flat, but you can’t fault them for trying new things. At least it’s not like Dynasty Warriors.

Chris: And where I stand, which is a better place than Shaun with soft pillows and birds chirping, the original had more charm, more relevant Disney worlds and a more cohesive, innocent experience. But really, there’s a lot to like in both and we don’t have to fight about it. We’ll save that for when somebody says Mario 2 is the best in the series.

Shaun: Ha, that won’t happen. Not even me. I think we can come to a consensus that, whichever one we like better, the series as the whole has substantial room to improve with future iterations.

Lee: I don’t know where they are going to go with the next game. They already got Heartless and Nobodies. What comes next? The Nothing from The Neverending Story?

Chris: SE and Disney have a vast amount of potential for the rest of this series, whether it stops at KH3 or continues with creatures that come from Nobodies, and creatures that come from creatures that come from Nobodies. Point being, this is sure to be a best-seller whenever the next installment comes out, and I’m looking forward to it.