Kingdom Hearts is a franchise developed by Square Enix and Disney, started by Squaresoft (Yes it's the same company) and Disney and featured on the PS2 in March of 2002. The Disney side of it is a lot of characters that you would be familiar with over times past like Donald and Daisy Duck, Goofy, Pluto, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Pete, and villains like Maleficent, Ursula, and Captain Hook. It also features heroes like Ariel, Hercules, Alice, and Peter Pan. For the Square side, they helped make a lot of this game a reality but they also feature a ton of Final Fantasy characters like Aerith, Yuffie, Cid, Squall (Named Leon, and it's far cooler) and of course Cloud and Sephiroth. What came from this tag team is a game big in depth but also something that still exists to this day. I've played this game several times on the PS2 only, not the Final Mix, so sorry if I miss stuff that doesn't exist from that in the Original. Here's what I thought was positive, negative and what I rate KH1 on the PS2.
Positives:
1. Exploration- Probably to this day, KH1 does and gets the most out of the exploration of the games. From the rooms to the treasure you can find, that's a major part of this game. This is highlighted with the trinity Marks in the game the player can find throughout all of the worlds. It's at times frustrating to find them but a lot of the final prizes you receive are definitely worth the frustration of the challenge.
2. It has to be said, Sora is a terrific protagonist and hero to the game. This scrawny, high pitched, energetic kid is the main character of the game, but oh boy does he grow up rapidly and become a legendary hero by games end. He learns not just to go at it in an all-out style, but also learns to be cerebral and take chances when need be. He isn't afraid of what can happen, but is ferocious in his tenacity to protect his friends, Kairi especially. It's what makes a true hero, and Sora in one game proved how great of a hero he can and is.
3. Riku's part in this cannot be understated as well. He is the perfect anti-hero to Sora's heroism. He allows himself to become darkness and evil, while never letting it overcome him in the end. He finds that path, and in all honesty, the later games show how great that path leads. This was just the beginning for this guy, but it serves a great role in this game.
4. The bosses in this game are a challenge and require you to think and be strategic.. for the most part (more on that in a bit.) In all realness, a majority of these bosses do prove their worth and are a challenge. I appreciate this. It's good gameplay honestly.
5. The worlds are honestly well done. I only disliked a couple (for sake of argument, Deep Jungle could have been better and the last world isn't too user friendly) but the majority are very well done. The folks who developed this should be given credit
6. Obviously the graphics and soundtrack were always going to be positives. Of course Simple and Clean is one of the most recognizable songs in the history of gaming. Looking back though, the soundtrack laps the graphics which brings me to..
Negatives:
1. Thank God this game got remastered because the graphics on the PS2 original version were far too dark for a lot of areas. From the area around Merlin's house, the Island caves to other parts, you had to jack up the brightness to make it work. Luckily, they essentially fixed that for later games.
2. Back to that boss difficulty I mentioned above. As much as most bosses are a great challenge, some are pushovers. It isn't a negative per se to have an easy tutorial boss or first boss or so, but it feels like some of the bosses pacing and difficulty were just far too off.
3. Sora has a fantastic attitude about working with Donald and Goofy, Goofy seems to be cool with working with Sora, but Donald's attitude about working with Sora could resemble that coworker who just is there to collect a check, results be damned and co-working with others be damned. His attitude stinks most of this game and it's a bit of a drag.
4. The rewards for collecting trinities and collecting Dalmations could be less needed, minus some of the major and/or rare trinities. Yes, collecting the rare trinities is worth it, the end with the Dalmations is worth it. The road to get them.. arguably not so. It does tend to get redundant. I think if they had tailored it at any point forward.. it'd be great.
Rating:
There's no doubt that KH1 is a solid starter to the KH family of games. It sets up a legendary story well, though it's not without its flaws. It's a good game overall that at times teeters on greatness. Overall, they set a stage to allow us to chain together memories. It gets a 7.5 out of 10 from me
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