Review Statistics

Times Read

1,977

Comments

37

Reviews

Game

Plot Synopsis

Released by Disney and Square Enix in 2002 "The closer you get to the light, the larger your shadow becomes" When stars start disappearing and 14-year-old Sora's home, Destiny Islands, is engulfed in a freak storm, he must journey across worlds to find his friends, Riku and Kairi. As master of the mysterious Keyblade, Sora (voiced by the Sixth Sense's Haley Joel Osmet) must battle the soul-eating Heartless and discover where true strength lies. Kingdom Hearts is the first collaboration between powerhouses of animation and gaming, Disney and Square. A fun, light-entertainment role-playing game featuring cameos by a plethora of familiar characters, from Cloud Strife and Sephiroth to Hades, Tinkerbell, Jack Skellington and Maleficent.

Story & Playability

Kingdom Hearts is actually a really cute game. There isnâ??t any kind of blood involved and is more of a family game. The violence is really on the down low, in my opinion the only really violent or gruesome thing in it is Cerberus and how he spits up all this drool onto the Olympus Stadium. The objective of the game is to seal all the keyholes in each world along side Donald And Goofy and to seal the one door that all of this evil/darkness is coming from. The worlds being places such as Halloween Town that represents The Nightmare Before Christmas.

The story is about the usual Light (good) versus Dark (evil) and how the main character, Sora, is fighting to keep the door to darkness closed. The door is letting loose all kinds of rampant monsters called heartless that feed off the pure/good in a person heart. Main villain in the story is a man named Ansem, once the king of the world Hollow Bastion who committed genocide and literally sold his soul to the darkness. The storyline is very complicated once you are in the middle of the game and doesnâ??t get anymore easier to understand. The monsters in the game are called heartless and are actually kind of cute, some at least.

Most of the characters are Disney characters and how you have to play each of their worlds. It also included many of the Disney villains and heroes such as Hades, Captain Hook, and Oggie Boogie, Mickey Mouse, Donald and Goofy. Final Fantasy characters such as Sephiroth, Cloud Strife, Leon and Yuffie also made an appearance. You play as the character, Sora, a young boy who lives in a place called Destiny Islands, which is a bunch of small islands like Hawaii. He is a very carefree boy until his home is completely destroyed by a storm, or so it seems, and he is separated from his home and friends, Riku and Kairi. Riku is about a year older then Sora and they are both very competitive boys. Kairi does not remember her past, which ties into the story. She is later found out to be one of the seven princesses to open the door to darkness. The ending is really cute and sad, it literally brought a tear to almost everyone eye who got really involved in the game.

Rating

9 (very good)

Graphics

The graphics were semi-realistic. Much Better Then Anything like StarOcean or Okage. It was 3D and did look awfully cute. The fighting styles and combo moves were well choreographed, Goofy was as clumsy as he is in all his Disney works and Donald is as annoying and a pain in the rear as usual. The magic effects were pretty basic; fira/firaga/etc. was just like a fire bolt that seemed to get stronger but the effect never really changed. Healing was pretty neat of an effect. They had something like four-leaf clovers appear above you and later on they had bells added with the green clovers. They had the motion blur effect, especially after you defeated a boss. I thought, and I think many others did to, that they main characters had big feet or over-sized shoes. ((Kairi, Sora, Riku)) They made the Disney worlds look almost exactly like the movies, which makes it even more realistic and adds to how good the storyline is. They have stuck to the plots and settings to most of the Disney worlds and made very interesting looking original worlds such as Hollow Bastion. The rising falls are very beautiful and the castle, even though it is very confusing, the inside is very unique with how youâ??ll be in a cozy hallway filled with heartless, to a hallway with static electricity running across the walls also filled with heartless.

Rating

8 (good)

Sound

The voice actors made majority of the Disney characters sound almost the same as the movies. Genie and some of the Winnie the Pooh characters didn't sound to realistic to their shows. The music was by Utada Hikari, and the song was Simple and Clean. There are many versions of this song and they used the Planet-b Remix and the original English version. The song was very catchy, I could hear myself humming without even knowing what i was doing. The music for the fight scenes really went into your head and made it more realistic and seemed to help drag you into the game. Also the more important scenes such as the very beginning tutorial had this kind of " awe " like music/sound that made it all eerie and serious. I do believe that they have a soundtrack but the only songs of interest would have to be Simple and Clean and the fighting song you hear when " dying " by Sephiroths hand (( I say that because he is the hardest boss and he's not even involoved in Kingdom Hearts )) i believe the song is called One-Winged Angel or somethign around that.

Rating

8 (good)

Fun

The fighting and game play was very fun and did have its difficulties, so I can not say it was a very easy game, but it was short. The heartless did give you trouble since it seemed every one had its own personality and style to fighting unlike other games where they just have attacks, these have strategies. The bosses were difficult in their own ways. You could hack and slash and sometimes it would be over quick. Other times you will have to summon and use your magic and just get annoyed untill you somehow find a way to kill the derned thing. The way that they unfolded the storyline was very unique. There was not exactly an outburst that made the storyline just burst open but they kept everything kind of hidden and you had to find things out for yourself. Sora learned about the heart and the power of friends gradually and there were some strong words in the cut-scenes that really touched your emotions. The connection between the characters was very heart-warming.

Rating

9 (very good)

Final Verdict

8.67 (very good)

Reviewed by siamesekitty, 2y 41wk ago