I Guess I'm a Heartless ~ Kingdom Hearts

Anybody who considers themselves a gamer should have heard of Kingdom Hearts. It's a wildly popular RPG series made by Squarenix. There are three games in the series so far: Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, and Kingdom Hearts II. Partnered up with my husband I managed to play the first and latest games in the series. Because try as I might I just don't see what everyone else thinks is so great about this series.

Let's backtrack a little to September 2002, when the first game came out for the PS2. I was super excited about this game. In fact, I don't think there were too many people more excited than me about this game. Why? Because it was combining two of the things I love most - Final Fantasy and Disney. I love, love, love Disney. Disney World, Disney movies, if it's got Disney's name on it, I probably love it. And the idea of having two of my favorite things combined in a video game made me proclaim that this was going to be the best game ever.

Well, I guess other people would be proclaiming that, but I wasn't one of them.

I clearly remember purchasing the game (and guide!) while on a break from the poster store I was slaving at at the time. As soon as I got home I popped the game into the system and settled down to play the 'best game ever' at long last. I liked the opening cinema, but sadly it was all downhill from there.

I did not like the battle system. At all.

In my defense, I wasn't used to the type of game where you had to run around smacking things while trying to lock on and cast magic. I was used to standing there and taking it while carefully selecting my next move. I didn't like playing one character. In fact I have always avoided any RPG where you only control one character. (Parasite Eve immediately springs to mind.) I don't like the idea of only have control over one character. So meanwhile in this game, I'm trying to attack stuff while Donald and Goofy run around like maniacs, sometimes hitting enemies and sometimes hitting the wall. Both their MP is gone in two seconds and they're using items like munny grows on trees. It was like Lord of the Flies.

I did my best to struggle onwards. After all, this was supposed to be the best game ever, right? So I did Traverse Town. I did Wonderland. I did the Deep Jungle. I did the Olympus Coliseum and Agrabah. But then I got to Monstro. Yeah. Monstro.

In case you're not that familiar with Disney movies, allow me to fill you in. Monstro is a whale. The giant whale that swallows Pinocchio and Gepetto. So yeah, out of all the movies and places to choose from in all the Disney movies, some genius decides to have a level inside the belly of a giant fucking whale. Worst. Level. Ever. Needless to say it was at that point I gave up. There was nothing keeping me playing this game. I didn't like the battle system, the characters were boring, the story was a bore and I was inside a fucking whale for goodness sakes. Best game never. Onto the shelf with you.

Years later...

Everyone else has played Kingdom Hearts. And loved it. I hear repeatedly that the story is "amazing". And believe it or not I start to feel bad that I gave up on it. My now husband Brian didn't finish the game either. He "got lost" in Halloween Town and had stopped playing. (To this day I'm still trying to figure out how he got lost.) So we decided to team up and play the game together. We would switch off playing levels. (Guess who was playing Monstro - NOT ME!)

So we start to play. And I start to hate the battle system less as I begin to get the hang of it. But I'm failing to see where this great story comes in. Stuff happens in the beginning, and stuff happens at the end, but in between there just seems to be a bunch of regurgitated Disney movie plots. Why? I've seen Tarzan. I don't want to watch it cut down to 10 minutes with a duck, a dog and a random kid shoved in there. That's not a story. That's laziness. Sometimes the freakin' dialogue is word for word from the film! Pretty much all you do in this game is go from world to world sealing them so the heartless can't return. (Even though they do anyway.) The Heartless are bad, because they steal hearts and destroy world. Oh, and Sora lost his friends Riku and Kairi and wants to find them. And in between Aladdin falls in love with Jasmine and Jack wants to be Santa Claus and every other freakin' plot point from every freakin' film in this game is shoved in your face again. Wow. Wonder what'll happen?

Eventually we finished the game. I was still left unimpressed and wondering what was so great about it. I could have watched all those Disney films without having to watch Donald and Goofy waste all my potions in between cut scenes. (And don't even get me started on how little voice acting there was. Why hire these actors at all? If you're gonna pay them, USE THEM.)

So even after finishing it I didn't think Kingdom Hearts was anywhere near the best game ever. But I didn't hate it. So when the second one came out Brian and I once again decided to team up.

We haven't quite beaten the whole game yet. That's all we have left to do, as we just finished completing the whole Jiminy Journal, but I'll get to that ridiculousness in a minute.

If you didn't play Chain of Memories, which I didn't, things start to get a little confusing. The Heartless from the first game are back, but now there's some Organization XIII that's bothering you as well. Get rid of them all! And so onwards to go. Oh, and you want to find Kairi and Riku too. Or something. Mostly Riku. Game developers not helping at all to cut down on the slash fic.

The beginning of this game is mostly kids eating a lot of ice cream. And you don't play as Sora. But then Sora comes back and changes outfits and stuff and then you meet back up with Donald and Goofy, and off you go to revisit the plots of various Disney films, some of which you already visited. Oh, and the Organization weirdos pop up from time to time but they really fail to give you any information so the story doesn't move along at all. Again. At least there's no freakin' whale stomach level in this game.

There's a secret ending movie in this game, and if you play on normal and wanna see it, you have to complete the Jiminy Journal. What is the Jiminy Journal? The stupidest thing ever. King Mickey sends Jiminy Cricket along on your quest to record every single last thing and annoy the crap out of you. There's characters, and story sections. (Who the hell wants to read the stupid story section?? Who cares?) A map section and a treasure section. (So you have to get every chest in the game) And a mission and mini-game section. This is where Jiminy gets extra annoying. Because not only do you have to play every single mini-game in the game, but you have to live up to the standards Jiminy has set for you. So you put up those posters in 30 seconds, or Jiminy isn't giving you the golden Mickey head. My question is, where does the freakin' Cricket get off making me do this stuff?? You put the 20 posters up in 30 seconds you stupid, Cricket! I'm on some kinda quest here! The lives of Disney characters may or may not be at stake! I probably don't have time to waste! Annoying.

Like I said before, I haven't finished this game (yet!) but I'm still failing to see this great epic story. My friend, who's obsessed with this game, says it's a quest of a boy finding his friends or something. Yeah, I can see that. But that doesn't make it a great story. In a story, stuff happens. In a good story, there's at least one point where something awesome happens and you're like "OMG!!" or "WTF?!" But Kingdom Hearts lacks all of these moments. Maybe I'm too jaded from playing Final Fantasy games, where plenty of stuff happens and there's always at least one "OMG/WTF!" moment. If I wanted to watch the plot of all those Disney movies I'd watch the fucking movies. And I must admit that throughout both games I never cared too much about Sora, Riku or Kairi. The games never made me care. They could all die at the end of this game, and I'd shrug my shoulders. Guess that makes me a heartless.

I guess I'll never understand why everyone loves Kingdom Hearts so much, but I guess I'll still play the next one. As long as there's no whale stomach involved.