Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary
Written by Jeremy "Kokugatsu" griffinSo Monday, March 28th, 2022, was Kingdom Hearts 20th anniversary. Wow. Simply wow. I am old now. I don’t know how to feel. But anyways, 20 years ago WWE Smackdown aired. (Someone did the research and it was specifically Season 4 Episode 13 if you are curious.) During a commercial segment, the famous PS2 logo popped up on the screen and one of the most beautiful songs in history started playing. A song so iconic, it is still sung for ages to come: “Simple and Clean” by Utada Hikaru. We saw our beloved Disney characters pan across the screen in a fabulous action packed adventure. We saw beloved Final Fantasy characters and met 3 new adventurers: Sora, Riku and Kairi. Did we know this franchise would span a new cult following? Did we know we would fall in love with this fantastic franchise?
Did these videos bring back memories? Here I will break down 3 iconic things about the franchise: the history of the franchise, the iconic games in the series and some of our favorite characters. I will not break down too much here as we plan on doing an XTREME REVIEW of the franchise later next week in honor of the big 20. Without delay, if you’re ready, let’s ZONE in on it.
The Birth of Kingdom Hearts
Callum May from Anime News Network wrote an excellent work on how the conversations between Disney and Tetsuya Nomura led to this iconic franchise. As a big reference for my blog. I highly encourage you to read this.
So we know that the game was developed when the up and coming Disney Corp. and the still rising Japanese Game development Corp., Square Enix, decided to work together and make this beautiful creature, but why did they do it? Disney needed something to bring up their following. Shows were good and movies were doing well, but as far as the gaming industry, Disney only had educational games. They were ready for something big. In walks Tetsuya Nomura from Square Enix and he has a big idea. An idea for a fantastic videogame using their Final Fantasy characters. A protagonist going to different worlds and using the power of a key to unlock them all. The game was heavily questioned of its success and Disney even told Square Enix that they could not use Mickey Mouse in the first game. This was to protect their mascot if the game tanked. After the commercial success of the trailers and teasers, (some of which I will share later) they were approved to use him for 1 scene, which is why the ending was the only time we get to see “The King” in the first game.
King Mickey was always supposed to be a very important character for the game, but if Disney never held back on the character, I do wonder if we ever would have had Sora as our protagonist. Sora has had so many mixed reviews as our hero with many fans leaning more to other characters: Riku, Kairi, Roxas and even Xion. But imagine how different the game would have been if King Mickey was our main protagonist instead of Sora. The story and lore would have had to adjust and change so much, we never would have Roxas or Xion. We will discuss more on the history in our podcast, but until then please check out the link above for that work. I was amazingly done.
The Games
Big Shout-out to u/Elfdemon on Reddit for this list that they made. This was a great reference and some interesting feedback on the games.
There are a slew of games in this franchise that are part of the story. Here I will bring forth the list in 2 ways: The order of release and the chronological order of the games. With the chronological order, there will be quite a few games that I will leave out as, although part of the story-line, many are just repeats, remasters or collections of previous entries.
Release Order
Kingdom Hearts (2002)
Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (2002)
V CAST (2004)
Chain of Memories (2004)
Kingdom Hearts 2 (2005)
Coded (2008)
358/2 Days (2009)
Birth by Sleep (2010)
Re:Coded (2010)
3Ds: Dream Drop Distance (2012)
HD 1.5 Remix (2013)
Kingdom Hearts χ[chi] (2013)
HD 2.5 Remix (2014)
Kingdom Hearts Union χ[cross]/ Unchained χ[cross] (2015)
0.2: Birth by Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage (2017)
HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue (2017)
HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX (2017)
Kingdom Hearts 3 (2019)
Kingdom Hearts 3 Re Mind (2020)
Melody of Memory (2020)
Kingdom Hearts 3 + Re Mind (2021)
Chronological Order
Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover *
Kingdom Hearts χ[chi]
Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ
Kingdom Hearts Union χ[cross]/ Unchained χ[cross]
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Final Mix
Kingdom Hearts Final Mix
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories
Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix
Kingdom Hearts Re:coded
Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD
Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A fragmentary passage
Kingdom Hearts III
*Although Back Cover is just a movie, it is still considered part of the Kingdom Hearts χ[chi] game, but separate enough to be considered separate for the story.
Again, a big thank you to reddit user u/Elfdemon for making these lists as well. Saved me so much time from having to type each one out. I would encourage you to read his post for the lists that he made. He also wrote why he believes each should be played in particular orders as well as the system that they are on.
During our podcast, we plan to break down each main system game and give our review on each. Please tune in to find out, not just mine, but multiple gamers thought on the games. We will do our best to explore the deep aspects of each game to give an honest review.
These Amazing Characters
Kingdom Hearts has brought us amazing characters and many ways for us to connect to each other through our hearts.
There are so many characters in the Kingdom Hearts franchise. In fact, the amount of characters to break down in Kingdom Hearts 2 and 358/2 Days would make an entire blog on its own. So for time’s sake, and my fingers from typing this, let’s only focus on the most major main cast here. We will also break my heart….*ahem* (tears)....and leave out the fantastic Final Fantasy cast as well. I will not get into the technicality of how Sora, Riku and Kairi are also Final Fantasy characters, we will leave them out. Thank you.
Sora
Let’s start with our main protagonist. This little boy here is the friendship-powered master that is not a master. Sora has become beloved by fans over the years for his portrayal of the “Friendship Above All” trait. When it comes to Sora, no matter what obstacle that he has faced, as long as he has friends, he can overcome any obstacle or foe, no matter how ungodly reality-defying they are. Sora has become the embodiment of pushing through and believing no matter what.
Riku
The popular bad-boy type is one that is always adored. Riku has always had that “I’m bad and you know it” type of aura, but his development through the series has been drastic and amazing. There have been many hiccups along the way, but Riku has become the character that fans adore. His trials of fighting his own darkness and inner demons has become a whole new reality and the franchise’s continuity has done wonders to bring forth his growth, along with his “darker other.”
Kairi
Kairi once started off as just a love interest. Two boys fighting for the girl they love. Personally I hated how Kairi was written in the first game as a simple damsel in distress. Over time though, she has grown very well. So much so that she now is the main protagonist of her own game. I honestly thought she was going to get the Naruto franchise’s Sakura treatment and hate, but Kairi has grown from her original “role” in the games. Now with her new development, it is exciting to see what she can bring to the future.
Donald
All fans remember Donald being the famous MP-wasting mage that would lose all his magic, use all the stock items and never heal at the right time. Then our childhood minds were busted when we found out, from looking at recordings, that he didn't waste MP. He was healing us and the majority of us just sucked at paying attention to our health bars and not seeing that he was healing us and that is why his MP depleted. Plus you could change his battle ways on the Menu and many kids had never played a Final Fantasy game before, so never thought to look and see. Gotta look at those tutorials. Don’t want another Elden Ring incident.
Goofy
While Donald’s constant sass got to us, Goofy was the unexpected brains and voice of reasoning for the bunch. Whenever Sora and everyone felt down, Goofy was always there to cheer everyone up. Whenever they felt lost, he would notice those little details that would point everyone in the right direction. Goofy is an amazing asset to the franchise and the fact that he is a Captain of the Royal Knights, but only will use a shield, brings out his wonderful character. Kinda makes you rethink Rising of the Shield Hero.
Mickey
King Mickey had the most controversy in the entire franchise. Disney at first did want him in the game at all. He was referenced so much that it would have been so crazy if he never got to make an appearance. In fact because they couldn’t use Mickey, but they had referenced him so much, the story had to change all around. So literally, one of the main reasons we have hooded characters (Organization XIII) could be because they had to give some reason that Mickey was in a hood and was hiding his face. In fact they could use his silhouette, but not fully show him for quite some time, which makes that reveal scene in KH2 in Ansem’s office make a little more sense now. Crazy. In fact, I believe Mickey was supposed to be the main protagonist, but Disney said “nope” and now we have Sora.
“May your heart be your guiding key.”
A close friend of mine, named Stephen, had this to say:
“I think KH is like maybe 1 of the best RPGs I have ever played. I vaguely remember seeing a advertisement and seen like brief game play and cut scenes for some reason I was like I want that.
I fell in love with KH 1 I think I really liked I got to fight with my favorite Disney characters such as Tarzan which wasn't really that old of a movie back then but man that Tarzan lv made me mad reason why the Hippos that's it I hated the hippos cause originally I thought you had to jump to get to the tree tops. later plays I realized there was a Vine on a wall before the hippos that you climb sigh.... lol. back to the Gameplay of the 1st run I think what we really like is seeing old characters that we all knew and love interact with Sora and it felt like Disney brought something fresh to all Disney fans for all ages and they very much did. My whole first play through I was wowed and until I got to Hallow Bastion man I'm telling you that world hit me in the Feels with the cutscenes and everything here I am 7th grade crying over a Disney story like darn you Disney I was immune to everything you threw at me after Lion king.. Then you give me characters like Riku and Kiri why you want me to cry Disney why lol. Over all great gameplay great story my personal opinion I went in pumped for this game I finished it like wowed my expectations for a Disney game was exceeded. My only other grips about the game other then the Tarzan lv hippos are Donald is a healer you may see the mems floating but Donald sucks as healer, and the last thing are the Heartless Gales I hate those things so much.”
I covered a lot here today, but I want to thank you for making it here. Honestly I did so much research to write this and I hope that you enjoyed this journey with me. This was a fantastic read and I have so much more to discuss. I have tons of notes and am fully excited about doing a review on the “Sora Arc” in our Podcast coming up. I will dive further into the history of Disney CEOs and the changes that happened to the games. Everything that happened to Utada Hikaru with Disney and so much more. Much love to you guys. Stay well and stay nerdy my friends. Great things are coming. Until Next time we are ZONEing out.
References/Sources:
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2019-01-23/how-square-enix-convinced-disney-to-make-kingdom-hearts/.142449
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/7bo023/all_kingdom_hearts_titles_in_chronological_order/
And a big shout-out to you guys and my friend Stephen for reminding me of those awesome commercials.
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