Kingdom Hearts

aka: KH, Wangguo zhi Xin
Moby ID: 7341
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Description official descriptions

Sora's world is shattered when a violent storm hits his home, and he is separated from his two closest friends. The storm scatters the three to unknown worlds. At the same time, there is turmoil in the Disney Castle. King Mickey is missing, and Court Wizard Donald and Captain Goofy are out to find him. On their travels they meet Sora, on his own search for his lost friends. The three are told of ominous creatures called Heartless, being without hearts derived from an unknown dimension and are the ones responsible for the devastating storm.

The Disney villains, enticed by the power of darkness, manipulate the Darkness to help them gather the princesses of heart, who are needed to open a mysterious final door. Upon discovering the link between the Heartless, the storm, and the disappearance of King Mickey, Sora, Donald, and Goofy join forces and help familiar Disney heroes to save their worlds from the Heartless.

In Kingdom Hearts players step into the very large shoes of Sora, wielder of the keyblade. Sora can attack with the blade, and as he levels up he will gain more attacks that are automatically chained together. Sora can learn magic and put healing items into a quick menu, and both can only be used in real time. Donald and Goofy (as well as an additional character exclusive to each world/disney movie) will follow Sora. Their equipment and AI can be adjusted, but they can not be directly controlled. Defeated enemies will drop many kinds of items including synthesis materials. Sora can take these to the Synthesis shop in Twilight Town to turn them into usable items, accessories, and weapons.

Traveling between each world requires Sora's party to fly through space in a Gummi Ship. The Gummi Ship can be completely customized, from speed and armor to weapons and shape, out of parts picked up from destroyed Gummi Ships, found in worlds, or bought from a store. Larger, more complex ships can be built as the game progresses, and plans can be found from destroyed enemies or from an NPC that will automatically build a Gummi Ship of specific specifications.

Spellings

  • キングダムハーツ - Japanese spelling
  • 王国之心 - Chinese spelling (simplified)
  • 王國之心 - Chinese spelling (traditional)

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Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

555 People (485 developers, 70 thanks) · View all

Theme Song (Simple and Clean)
Cast (Japanese)
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 84% (based on 40 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 145 ratings with 14 reviews)

Despite its first childish impression, this game is great - even for the most hard-core gamer!

The Good
First off, I'll start with the first blatant fact; Kingdom Hearts is for children, and makes a weak game for the "advanced" gamer, right? WRONG! This game is totally under-rated by some gamers who claim to be "hard-core", even those who haven't even played the game. Why? Some say it's "Too unreal", others say because of its "dreadful plot" or "it's just too easy". Well, it may be "unreal" slightly, but have we forgotten what fun actually is? It's not how far you've got doing something or bragging your progress - FUN is your own personal entertainment, and believe me when I say that I have had lots of fun playing this.

Many long-time gamers have slammed the game because of its simple plot, but after playing it, the plot is so unique in the way it is told and expressed that many of the gamers who have previously told bad rumors of the game to find it quite fun. But anyway, let's move away from what other people think - this is MY review, and my thoughts of the game which I will express (and the reason you're reading this now):

I'll start with the presentation and audio. Wow. Okay, immediately after pressing New Game, you're thrown into the action - but its not a sharp push into the game, instead, its a cool and funky way of getting you started. Most games just drop a tutorial on your head, and lift off from that point dead quick you're head is spinning. But this game is different, for example, the game is delivered with a funky-beat music video of things to come with really cool music. The graphics of this, and other scenes to come, is just great!

But instead of a do-this-then-that-then-whatever type of tutorial, where everything is boring because of the way it is so linear, Kingdom Hearts lets you roam in a lush colourful environment where you learn how to play the game by playing mini-games in any order you want, and for how many times you want. The first level in the prologue and the only learning curve, but it is the only one needed so don't sweat when you find that you're world has suddenly collapsed around you.

Another interesting thing worth noting is the Journal. This Journal records all major information of your quest, with pictures and back-tracking information which help should you forget where you're up to in the plot. Another quick thing I have to mention is the graphics. During movie scenes, they are simply great and are so too during gameplay. Tropical places are lush and colourful, whilst the latter dark places give a great atmosphere.

The battle mechanics are great fun to repeat in lots of battles and chances are that you'll never get tired of defeating so many enemies using so many combos and other attacks.

The Bad
Somewhat annoying was the camera. Whilst roaming a level or indulging with some puzzles, the camera is fine and out-of-mind. However, come battle time, the camera can become in the way of things and start to annoy you, especially when you've got low life points and are surrounded by deadly enemies.

A feature I've never even experienced like before was the "Gummi Ship". Without revealing what it is, or what it is for, I just want to say how slow-paced it is for something that is supposed to be action-packed. Luckily, this isn't a big part of the game and can be ignored as it only needs to be repeated just a few times.

The Bottom Line
Kingdom Hearts is simply a great game. It's graphics and lovely memorable intro cinematic are simply jems of this game, and it's worth playing. It's nice to know that there are two current sequels to this game, with one currently in production. The next game, thankfully, has everything in this game but greatly improved upon. Enjoy!

PlayStation 2 · by Reborn_Demon (127) · 2007

One of the best games I've ever played

The Good
Kingdom Hearts is one of the best games ever to grace the Playstation 2. It is essentially something along the lines of Final Fantasy meets Disney, with characters like Yuffie, Squall (aka Leon), Cloud, and (of course) Sephiroth, as well as Disney characters like Donald Duck, Goofy, Pinocchio, and many more. The game is balanced in difficulty. It's not too easy or too hard. The voice cast is one of the best in video game history, including Haley Joel Osment as Sora the protagonist. There are plenty of secrets hidden all through the worlds, which give the game much replay value.

The Bad
The only real fault that I found while playing this game is the inability to complete the game properly. After defeating the final boss, you get a long cutscene (which can't be skipped) and the credits (which also can't be skipped). After that, It shows the characters with the words "The End" onscreen. The only option is to switch off the console. In other words, you can't save the game after defeating the final boss.

The Bottom Line
Overall, I would recommend Kingdom Hearts to any video game fan.

PlayStation 2 · by J.D. Majors (14) · 2009

Why didn't this awesome game come out for any other of today's consoles?

The Good
I'm not really much of a Disney fan but I really enjoy this game. The graphics are really nice (as usual), and the soundtrack is very good, in fact, I actually have the Simple and Clean song and the cool battle music stuck in my head as I type this review up. The battle setup is nothing like any of the Final Fantasy games, but it's still fun. I also found it odd but strangely fun that you could go to the worlds of classic Disney movies and have the hero of the world actually join you (if you replace Goofy or Donald with that character anyway) and fight the Heartless creatures and even fight the villain/s of that world. I'd tell you how enjoyable everything else is, but that would literally take forever and you'd probably fall asleep before I finished, I really, really, like this game.

The Bad
This is tough. Actually, I really hated the camera angles in Kingdom Hearts. It's very tough to remember which buttons control them. That about wraps it up.

The Bottom Line
Final Fantasy/Disney fans will really find Kingdom Hearts a very enjoyable experience. Go out and buy it if you really like Final Fantasy and/or Disney or at the very least, rent it. It's a major shame though, that this game hasn't (and probably won't) come out for GameCube or XBox.

PlayStation 2 · by Dark Cloud (31) · 2004

[ View all 14 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Kingdom Hearts appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Characters

Aside from Disney characters that are not surprise to encounter, you will also encounter several other characters from SquareSoft other games, such as Squall (main protagonist from Final Fantasy VIII), Selphie (a party character from Final Fantasy VIII), Tidus (main protagonist from Final Fantasy X), Wakka (party character from Final Fantasy X), Aerith (from Final Fantasy VII), Cloud (main protagonist of Final Fantasy VII), Sephiroth (nemesis in Final Fantasy VII), and other.

Contest

The secret boss Kurt Zisa in the US version is named after the winner of a contest held by Squaresoft to promote the game.

Theme song

The theme song, Simple and Clean (English) and Hikari meaning "light" (Japanese version), is written and performed by Japan's pop artist Utada Hikaru. After the release of the game's original Japanese version, Hikari was released separately and, according to IGN, sold about 860.000 copies.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2002 – Best Use of License of the Year (PS2)

Information also contributed by monkeyislandgirl and Sciere

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by vism.

Additional contributors: MAT, Unicorn Lynx, Apogee IV, Guy Chapman, monkeyislandgirl, Solid Flamingo, DreinIX, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added October 2, 2002. Last modified January 16, 2024.